Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s communications director asked Twitter to bar users from sharing one of the New York congresswoman’s previous tweets in support of protests that make people “uncomfortable,” saying it was being used as “misinfo.”
“@AOC’s Comms Director here. Right-wing accounts are taking the last tweet from this old thread on the ‘defund’ mvmnt & twisting it to imply AOC supports violence like what’s happening at the Capitol. We asked @Twitter to stop the misinfo, but as we wait, you can help with a RT,” she wrote on Twitter.
.@AOC’s Comms Director here. Right-wing accounts are taking the last tweet from this old thread on the ‘defund’ mvmnt & twisting it to imply AOC supports violence like what’s happening at the Capitol. We asked @Twitter to stop the misinfo, but as we wait, you can help with a RT. https://t.co/BCiUco2H3l
— Lauren Hitt (@LaurenHitt) January 6, 2021
AOC posted the Twitter thread in question just a month before a mob stormed the Capitol on Wednesday, claiming that “protest demands that make others uncomfortable” are “the point.”
“The whole point of protesting is to make ppl uncomfortable. Activists take that discomfort w/ the status quo & advocate for concrete policy changes. Popular support often starts small & grows. To folks who complain protest demands make others uncomfortable… that’s the point,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote in December 2020.
The whole point of protesting is to make ppl uncomfortable.
Activists take that discomfort w/ the status quo & advocate for concrete policy changes. Popular support often starts small & grows.
To folks who complain protest demands make others uncomfortable… that’s the point.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) December 2, 2020
Despite the communications director’s insistence that the tweet was taken out of context by “right-wing accounts,” AOC has a track record of backing destructive rioting in support of progressive causes as she sees fit.
In August, the “Squad” member told a New York radio station that some groups, including marginalized communities, have “no choice but to riot” against injustices.
“I believe injustice is a threat to the safety of all people. Because once you have a group that is marginalized and marginalized and marginalized … once someone doesn’t have access to clean water, they have no choice but to riot. And it doesn’t have to be that way. I’m not even talking about Palestinians. I’m talking about communities in poverty in the United States; I’m talking about Latin America; I’m talking about all over the world,” she said.
AOC also delayed condemning an Antifa attack on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Washington state by a man who likened the detention centers to “concentration camps” in his manifesto, similar to comments the representative has made in the past.
.@AOC refuses to condemn the Antifa attack on the Tacoma ICE center; refuses to tell @TheRealKeean if her inflammatory comments about “concentration camps” radicalized the attacker. pic.twitter.com/YOjn0yL032
— Rebel News (@RebelNewsOnline) July 15, 2019
Hours after word of her silence on the issue spread, Ocasio-Cortez told the Daily Caller that “any act of violence is of course terrible.”
