Newly elected representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez questioned ethics experts on campaign finance laws and her ability to show how it’s “super legal” for “bad guys” to get into office has gone outrageously viral.
On Wednesday the New York Democrat used her new seat on the House Oversight Committee to unveil a ‘Corruption Game’ that used a series of questions to argue for campaign finance reform and stronger government ethics laws.
Self-styled ‘AOC’ posed as a ‘bad guy’ who wanted to “get away with as much bad things as possible,” including using money entirely from corporate PACs to fund her ‘campaign’, writing laws to benefit said corporate donors, buying stocks in companies to benefit from said laws and paying off adversaries who threaten her success.
The panel unanimously agreed each scenario was legal. A compilation of the “lightning round” put together by NowThis, has gone wildly viral on Twitter and has been shared by a whole host of high profile Twitter users who praised the congresswoman for her ability to breakdown the pitfalls of campaign finance laws.
Something @AOC does really well is explaining politics in plain English. Free of jargon unheard of by anyone without extensive political experience, almost everything she says is digestible to the average person.
Her line of questioning here is fantastic. https://t.co/VJooU3zQhy
— diane alston (@dianelyssa) February 7, 2019
The display sparked an AOC love-in across social media, with model Christine Teigen even inviting the politician to her house to eat pizza and watch the Grammys.
@AOC hello my hero, do you wanna come over and watch the grammys with us? there will be pizza
— christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) February 8, 2019
Of course, as with any political conversation, the other side of the spectrum wasn’t at all impressed with Ocasio-Cortez’s line of questioning and picked holes in her arguments and criticized its supporters.
Some day soon I predict that Ocasio Cortez and her compatriots in the legislative lunatic fringe will come forth with sweeping” gun laws, something stupid like, you can own guns but you can’t have any ammunition
Tighten your belts patriots, it’s gonna be a rough ride.— Charlie Daniels (@CharlieDaniels) February 8, 2019
Social media wants to silence Conservatives but I wish I had a megaphone big enough to play @AOC‘s batsh*t crazy to the whole world 24/7 on 11.
— Bill Mitchell (@mitchellvii) February 8, 2019
One particularly well-made point against the ‘AOC’ love-fest cited a portion of the hearing that was not included in the clip that went viral. In the unheralded footage Bradley Smith of the Institute for Free Speech points out inaccuracies in figures AOC used and notes that campaign funds cannot be used for personal use – including paying off threats.
The Institute For Free Speech followed up its correction of the freshman representative with an article on its website titled ‘AOC Doesn’t Let the Facts Get in the Way of a Good Story’.
The piece argues that AOC’s “dystopic vision” of how campaigns work in America doesn’t reflect reality. “Ocasio-Cortez’s storytelling may have been persuasive to the uninformed. But it was also wrong,” it reads.
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