Blue State Blues: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Victim-Hoax Shtick Is Getting Old

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has developed a gimmick: she claims she is a victim of unfair attacks by “Republicans” or “conservatives,” then responds cleverly to those non-attacks, hoping to impress and grow her social media fans.

It has worked — up to a point. But as people are beginning to catch on to her shtick, it is getting old.

Rather than a “progressive” threat, Ocasio-Cortez is quickly becoming the caricature of the campus crybully.

There is no doubt that Ocasio-Cortez is one of the most gifted politicians of her generation — which is precisely why conservatives fear her.

She is also brave. It took courage to challenge a leader of her own party, Joe Crowley,  in a primary race — and it took a special kind of talent to win.

Barack Obama primaried Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL) in 2000, and lost. Her instincts may be as good as his, and she is fully embracing the left-wing agenda he tried to conceal.

The problem is that Ocasio-Cortez is failing to make the most of her opportunity. She seems to confuse success on social media with success in the real world.

That is an easy enough mistake to make in the era of Donald Trump, who has used Twitter to re-frame the national political conversation.

But Trump comes from a world of concrete and steel. He knows results matter, and sees Twitter as a means to an end. For Ocasio-Cortez, it is an end in itself.

Hence the faux controversies, which I refer to as the “victim-hoax” tactic.

Ocasio-Cortez used it most effectively when a video of her dancing as a college student was leaked to the media. Journalists claimed — without evidence — that conservatives had mocked her. Ocasio-Cortez responded by tweeting a video of herself dancing in front of her new office, adding, “I hear the GOP thinks women dancing are scandalous.”

I hear the GOP thinks women dancing are scandalous.

Wait till they find out Congresswomen dance too!

Have a great weekend everyone :) pic.twitter.com/9y6ALOw4F6

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 4, 2019

That was her first full day on the job.

Less than a week later, Ocasio-Cortez falsely claimed that “Republicans began to circulate a fake nude photo” of her. She added: “Completely disgusting behavior from Conservative outlets.”

For those out of the loop, Republicans began to circulate a fake nude photo of me. The @DailyCaller reposted it (!) and refused to indicate it was fake in the title as well.

Completely disgusting behavior from Conservative outlets.

No wonder they defended Kavanaugh so fiercely.

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 10, 2019

The truth was that the fake photo first appeared on the Reddit forum — hardly a conservative outlet — and ran on a several sites, including the conservative Daily Caller but also the liberal Motherboard. There is no proof that any “Republicans,” as such, were involved.

In the latest victim-hoax, Ocasio-Cortez claimed Wednesday that Fox News attempted to mock her by referring to one of her advisers as a “policy guy.”

She tweeted a still image of Sean Hannity showing a headline: “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Policy Guy: ‘Every Billionaire Is a Policy Failure.'” She added that she was “Tempted to frame this and put it on my desk.”

I also love that such an Official TV News Network™ called him “policy guy” as his official title. What are they trying to do, compete with the Daily Show?

Or is Fox News actually just elaborate, postmodern performance art? Have we been misreading it this whole time??

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 24, 2019

The problem: Fox did not write the headline. Mediaite — a left-ish media news website — did.

Thousands of Ocasio-Cortez’s followers would not have known or cared that she simply made up a false accusation. Many would, no doubt, defend her by pointing out that Trump frequently makes inaccurate factual claims on social media.

But the secret to Trump’s enduring appeal, at least to his supporters, is that regardless of what he says, he keeps his promises. Ocasio-Cortez has yet to deliver anything — and she does not even seem to be trying to do so.

Rather than reach out to her Democratic colleagues, Ocasio-Cortez has held protests in their offices and backed primary challenges against them. This week, she cast the sole Democratic vote against a bill to re-open the federal government, because it funded Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which she wants to abolish.

She is marginalizing herself, and the victim-hoax shtick is getting old. “Republicans” and “conservatives” are delighted.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.