Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the legislator behind the Green New Deal, wants to take away our hamburgers. At least, that’s what a vocal group of Republican politicians would have you believe.

The congresswoman’s vision for environmental reform, they say, amounts to a de facto ban on beef. Rather than engaging the public on the finer points of the non-binding resolution, which she co-introduced with Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey on February 7, these critics are appealing to our stomachs, and conjuring an America under gustatory austerity, a nation where we can’t eat what we want.

These claims are political theater. And yet, in recent weeks, AOC has backed down from an inflammatory talking point about cow farts…