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What Republicans Can Learn from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  Feb 09, 2021
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.

She’s been fact-checked. She’s been slammed on social media. She’s been called out — and she doesn’t care. Yes, her misleading statement might have been neutralized, but that’s merely one battle. The war is not even close to being over. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) knows what she’s doing. She knows how to use social media, engage her followers, and mobilize for the cause. It’s why we should keep a very close eye on her because she will run for president someday. Until then, we need to neutralize her messaging, but what she did regarding an allegation she threw at Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is something Republicans should finally adopt as their own when it comes to these situations.

Never apologize. Never ever apologize. Why? There is nothing gained by it — and Republicans have to apologize for not having the views shared by the Democratic Party and America's liberal newsrooms. When the populist wave of market trashing crashed into Wall Street, the elite fat cat hedge funds pulled strings and turned off the spigot. They wanted GameStop’s stock to go down. The people had other plans. Subreddit WallStreetBets mobilized a whole army of normal folks just trying to make a buck. Hedge funds hated that, especially since this crew cost them billions. Trading apps prevented users from purchasing new stock from certain companies, which happened to be the ones the billionaire hedge funds wanted to crater. You could still sell, but that’s what the elite wanted people to do. The game was rigged, and people wonder why populism is on the rise.

Ted Cruz replied to a tweet by AOC, who said the trade restrictions were “unacceptable,” and floated the possibility of congressional investigations into the incident. Sen. Cruz said he agreed with her. In fact, this incident sparked an odd political couple for the ages. Did you ever expect to see AOC and Donald Trump Jr. agree on something? But Cruz was slapped down by the feisty New York liberal, who pretty much accused him of trying to get her murdered during the January 6 riot on Capitol Hill. Congress was verifying the 2020 electoral college results. Cruz had long said he would be raising objections regarding voter fraud, which would delay the certification. Then, the riot engulfed the Capitol. It was an outlandish swipe, but is AOC sorry? Oh, hell no, she’s not (via NY Post):

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told The Post on Monday that she’s not going to apologize to Sen. Ted Cruz for accusing him of nearly having her “murdered” during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

The New York Democrat, who represents parts of the Bronx and Queens, said at a press conference that she sticks by her words.

“That’s not the quote and I will not apologize for what I said,” Ocasio-Cortez, also known as AOC, said at the Queens event.

Ocasio-Cortez swatted away a recent olive branch from Cruz (R-Texas), who said he shared the 31-year-old socialist’s concern about the Robinhood stock-trading platform restricting a grassroots campaign to buy GameStop stock.

She replied to Cruz on Twitter: “I am happy to work with Republicans on this issue where there’s common ground, but you almost had me murdered 3 weeks ago so you can sit this one out. Happy to work w/ almost any other GOP that aren’t trying to get me killed. In the meantime if you want to help, you can resign.”

She knows what she’s doing. She’s keeping the pressure over the riot on Cruz. She’s keeping it in the headlines. And she’s bolstering her profile.

Her recent Instagram Live segment was a brilliant exercise in emotional manipulation. She took on those saying we need to "move on" from the Capitol Hill riot on January 6. Democrats know this could be their saving grace come the midterm season when the party in power usually takes a beating. Ocasio-Cortez announced that she was a survivor of sexual assault and that the phrase "move on" was the lexicon of abusers. That first salvo was genius. If you challenge her, you’re on the side of rapists. You’re a rape apologist, or how dare you challenge her truth. We’re in the era of feelings, folks. Again, it might have been wrong to weaponize sexual assault, but it’s happened before. How do you think the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court confirmation fight became such a mess? Democrats weaponized unsubstantiated sexual misconduct allegations to derail his nomination. It failed. This is no different. Yet, she also overreached.

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AOC made it seem as if she was in the Capitol Building at the time of the riot. It was insinuated by AOC and the media that rioters were storming the building, a narrative that was blown up by none other than Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), who is two offices down from AOC. There were no rioters (via NY Mag):

Ocasio-Cortez also provided more details surrounding the insurrection, stating that a man broke into her office in Congress on January 6, during which she was hiding in her bathroom. “Where is she? Where is she?” she recalled the man asking. “This is the moment where I thought everything was over … It felt like my brain was able to have so many thoughts in that moment between these screams and these yells. I go down and … I thought I was going to die.”

Looking through the door hinge from the bathroom, Ocasio-Cortez recalled seeing “a white man in a black beanie open the door of my personal office.” Though she says the person did not identify himself, he was a Capitol police officer. “He was looking at me with a tremendous amount of anger and hostility.” After the encounter, she and a staffer ran to another building to looking for a place to hide, where she found Representative Katie Porter; together they barricaded in Porter’s office for five hours.

Yeah, the guy was a Capitol Police officer. She misled the American people, and she got caught. We should do a rare victory lap here. The sexual assault angle was relegated useless — it’s now about her misleading people about her location. This was good practice for the attacks we’ll have to cobble against her for her eventual White House run.

And even here, she won’t apologize for this, and she doesn’t need to. The liberal media and their so-called fact-checking corps have already gone to work running interference for her. Look at what they did regarding the Hunter Biden story. Think of this as practice and waiting patiently to zero-in on something that won’t come with a "woke" counteroffensive.

This isn’t about right or wrong; the GOP needs to stop apologizing to the people who hate us. Why do we need to apologize? Why? It won’t earn us any brownie points with liberal media folks or Democrats. It will do jack with their voters. It will also infuriate the GOP base for being amazingly weak in the face of media-manufactured controversy meant to entrap and torment Republicans. Our obsession with "doing the right thing" has to end. What’s always wrong is apologizing to your enemies for your views. What’s always right is standing up for freedom and free speech, which apparently is racist. This leeches into things that shouldn’t be political. Future Hall of Famer Drew Brees apologized for his initial take on the National Anthem and the American flag last year. He was still roasted, and he didn’t need to apologize. There was no need to apologize. He did so anyway, and predictably he received no mercy.

Double-down, deny or obfuscate on all things hurled our way. The media is not our friend. The Democratic Party is not our friend. Everything they do should be taken as a possible trap. We don’t need to play by their rules or listen to them frankly. They hate us. Why do we just sit there and take it? AOC doesn’t. She says, "f*** you," and moves on. We should do the same. The stuff we need to apologize for is always Sesame Street compared to the radical and, at times, anti-Semitic antics of the Democratic Party. We’re all responsible for the crazy views of one person, but Democrats are never asked to do the same. Two separate rules at play again. Screw with the media. Mock the media. Give a long-winded statement that ends up being a non-answer. These people are Democratic communications operatives in training — the enemy. Treat them as such.

That’s one lesson we can learn from AOC, believe it or not.