Analysis: Character Assassins Come for Ocasio-Cortez

In TYT Investigates by TYT Investigates0 Comments

Congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Ortez (D-N.Y.) in an April 3 interview with Emma Vigeland of TYT Politics.

By Jonathan Larsen

Newsmax host John Cardillo isn’t the only Republican attacking Democratic congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. On Sunday, Republican pundit Steve Deace tweeted the following:

Cardillo’s ill-fated Tweet, which prompted a response from Ocasio-Cortez, came later that day:

(Also on Sunday, the New York Post published a story about the one former co-worker of Ocasio-Cortez who didn’t like how a day’s tips got split one day.)

It’s worth noting the language Deace and Cardillo use: “pimping” and “hood.” And it’s worth noting that Cardillo was wrong about her school (she went to Boston University, not Brown). But Cardillo’s non-apology elided the fact that he was relying on Brown’s status to discredit her, not, as he claimed, for “bumping” her credentials:

The consistent theme is that Ocasio-Cortez is not as working class as she seems. Republicans typically exalt people who are financially successful, so it’s not clear why this would be a problem for them. But let’s consider the facts about Ocasio-Cortez.

First, she was born in and lives in the Bronx. So, yeah, she’s from the Bronx, unless anyone who’s ever moved anywhere is no longer from anywhere.

Second, TYT reporter Alex Kotch dug up Ocasio-Cortez’s financial statements and posted them in a tweet thread Sunday night:

Third, Ocasio-Cortez had to fight off foreclosure of that palatial Yorktown Heights mansion after her Dad died.

But fourth, and most importantly, even if she had been born and raised in Yorktown Heights, and then attended Brown University, and never had to fight foreclosure on her childhood home, all of that would make her story even more emblematic of where we are today. Ocasio-Cortez would be just one of millions of millennials who came from an upwardly mobile middle class and then couldn’t sustain that level of economic success.

Cardillo, Deace, and the others attacking Ocasio-Cortez keep talking about how glad they are that an open socialist is running for office so they can debate socialism honestly. But so far they haven’t.

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