AOC knows it is never AOK to let a catastrophic storm go to waste.
The story of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez(D-NY) and the brutal winter storms in Texas is not news that is new. The story deserves to be re-examined though.
AOC likes to play the role of a crusader. In reality she is more of self-promoting opportunist with an agenda to push – either one of her own or one dictated to her by the Justice Democrats.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is an equal opportunity opportunist when it comes to crisis management appropriation. She transformed a natural weather disaster into an opportunity to play patron saint to the poor and freezing of Texas and savior to the planet with her Green New Deal fear-mongering.
Winter storm Uri brought significant damage to Houston and other areas of Texas and left a lot of people without power and water. It also gave AOC a three-base hit.
One, the storm provided a platform for her personal infomercial known as the Green New Deal.
The infrastructure failures in Texas are quite literally what happens when you *don’t* pursue a Green New Deal,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted on Wednesday.
Two, the storm in the Lone Star State made a perfect stage setting for AOC’s star power. AOC to the rescue.
As a self-described progressive woman of color, Ocasio-Cortez went to Houston with a whole lot of green cash and in the process managed once again to make herself and Team AOC the center of attention.
AOC claimed her going to Texas was a way of saying thank you to her 12 million Twitter followers who contributed over 4 million dollars to her relief efforts.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York flew down to Houston to join her fellow congresswomen Sylvia Garcia and Sheila Jackson Lee, who had volunteered to pack up meals at the Houston Food Bank.
She posted updates and selfies throughout the weekend.
Three, the storm gave AOC an opportunity to throw a right-wing political rival into the way of an oncoming bus. That rival and political enemy was none other than luckless Cancun tourist Ted Cruz. You remember him. He is the man she claimed was responsible for almost having her killed during the insurrection on January 6.
Congresswoman Cortez may have smelled opportunity the day a 6-month-old tweet of Cruz’s resurfaced. The day was Tuesday the 16th when over 3 million Texans were struggling without electricity during the winter storm. In the tweet, he targeted California and Ocasio-Cortez.
“California is now unable to perform even basic functions of civilization, like having reliable electricity,” Cruz wrote in August 2020 in response to power outages that hit the state during extreme heat and wildfires that summer. “Biden/Harris/AOC want to make CA’s failed energy policy the standard nationwide.”
Game over? Not just yet.
On February 18, as Cruz was spotted coming home in the airport, Ocasio-Cortez wasted no time attacking the senator.
“If Sen. Cruz had resigned back in January after helping gin up a violent insurrection that killed several people, he could’ve taken his vacation in peace,” she said. “Texans should continue to demand his resignation.”
In a crisis, the timing of optics is everything.
AOC’s fundraising efforts were launched on Thursday, February 18, the same day Texas Sen. Ted Cruz returned early from a vacation to Cancun, Mexico.
The day after Cruz returned from his ill-fated trip to Cancun, AOC made sure she was seen leaving for Texas to deliver water bottles and food boxes. Talk about perfect timing.
If Ocasio-Cortez cannot play the victim card for herself, she is more than willing to let others play a hand for themselves. For her, disaster zones work particularly well when it comes to systems of inequality. In other words, even with electrical power, some people always manage to have it better than others.
“Natural disasters reveal how brutal & inhumane our system of inequality is. No one should be left to fend for themselves in a natural disaster. This is why we insist on justice in climate policy. In a modern society, equity is as important as technology,” she tweeted.
It is admirable that AOC raked in a massive amount of cash for victims caught up in a once-in-a-lifetime disaster. What is not admirable is when that generosity has her name written all over it, when that generosity comes with ulterior motives, and when it is yet another way to push a political agenda.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez may think she bought herself some free publicity by capitalizing on a winter storm. In time, however, she will find that kind of publicity comes with a hefty price tag of disbelief from others about who she really is.
