Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, during a discussion with her fans on Instagram Live this week, offered a harrowing and tearful account of the trauma she suffered during the Capitol Hill riots. Her description of that afternoon’s events was replete with visual demonstrations and plenty of dramatic pauses, interspersed with broadside attacks against her political opponents. She insisted that those who want to move on from the riot are acting like pathological “abusers,” revealing in the process that she herself has been a victim of sexual abuse. At another point, bizarrely, she criticized one of the Capitol police officers who protected her, condemning him for the allegedly unpleasant attitude and facial expressions he displayed as he ushered her to safety.
The media, of course, ate all of this up. We are told that her description of the riot was emotional and compelling, and that her trauma demands our attention and sympathy. Personally I would have little problem with anything she said (aside from when she smeared the men who were protecting her), if not for the fact that this woman had spent the last several months ignoring, excusing, and romanticizing the very same sort of chaos to which she in turn fell victim.
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