Imagine you’re at a Memorial Day weekend minor league baseball game in one of the more conservative towns in the blue bastion of California. In keeping with the holiday theme, the home team runs a Memorial day tribute video — a typical work of patriotic chauvinism, until it gets to a segment about America’s enemies.
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Now imagine your surprise when — sandwiched between images of the late Cuban leader Fidel Castro and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un in that section of the video— up pops a picture of New York City’s most progressive Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Fresno Bee reporter Carmen George had that exact experience when she attended a Fresno Grizzlies game this weekend and posted her displeasure over the politicization of her sports-viewing experience.
I was just watching a really moving #MemorialDay tribute video at the @FresnoGrizzlies game until they got to a part about America’s adversaries and showed a photo of the @AOC between images of Fidel Castro and Kim Jong-un. That was some seriously offensive editing.
— Carmen George (@CarmenGeorge) May 28, 2019
Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez saw the reporter’s post and used the opportunity to reveal just how badly the hateful propaganda that Trump supporters hurl her way affects her daily life, and how serious the threats against her have become because of it.
I don’t even get to see all of them. Just the ones that have been flagged as particularly troubling.
It happens whenever Fox gets particularly aggressive + hateful, too. Young interns have to constantly hear hateful messages (far beyond disagreement) from ppl we don’t even rep.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 28, 2019
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All of this is to say that words matter, and can have consequences for safety.
For those who believe in “free speech”: whose free speech do you believe in?
Bc some folks using free speech to defend racism are also supporting folks passing laws to allow running over protesters.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 28, 2019
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While most politicians and other public figures must endure threats to their safety simply as a result of their enhanced public profiles, it’s rare for a freshman representative to attract such a significant number of death threats so early in their careers.
The high profile activism that Representative Ocasio-Cortez has engaged in — particularly her co-sponsorship of the Green New Deal initiative with Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) — has put her in the cross-hairs of every rightwing nut job who watches Fox News where her progressive ideas are vilified daily to the delight of Republican corporate minions who would rather defend the interests of their donors than their constituents.
While the news of the multiple death threats against the firebrand congresswoman is profoundly disturbing, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s unrelenting persistence in pursuing her progressive goals demonstrate just how committed and brave she truly is.
As for the people who see fit to ruin a perfectly good Memorial Day tribute video with partisan political propaganda, perhaps they should contemplate exactly what it is that the people whom the holiday honors fought and died for before equating a lawfully elected U.S. representative with a murderous foreign dictator.
Follow Vinnie Longobardo on Twitter.
