May We All Handle Batshit Trolls as Well as AOC Did Here

During a town hall even in Queens on Thursday night, an activist with the politically incoherent, wildly pro-Trump LaRouche PAC ambushed U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, standing up and shouting that with only a few months to live from the climate disaster, it was high time we started “eating the babies,” to save ourselves.

AOC, unsurprisingly, handled the interaction with far more grace that it deserved—hearing the woman out, and then giving a thoughtful response that noted that “we are never beyond hope.”

Can you imagine what you’d do in a similar situation? I would make it an absolute mess: probably immediately respond with a quip like “well, that certainly seems like a Modest Proposal, we’ll give that some thought,” thereby handing the conservative media a soundbite to use against me for ever and ever (this is why I am a blogger and not a member of Congress). That’s already what they’re trying to do with AOC’s response: noted conservative e-moron Ryan Saavedra picked up the stunt immediately after it happened, and it eventually made its way to Tucker Carlson (of course), who are all trying to say that AOC should have shut the woman down immediately, something which definitely would have escalated the situation had the troll been an actual constituent struggling with mental illness.

Our sister site Gizmodo has a good breakdown of how the stunt was staged and more background on the LaRouche PAC—safe to say they’re not the kind of people who are familiar with the term “good faith.”

At the time, however, AOC didn’t know this: LaRouche’s involvement wasn’t put together until around 2 a.m. eastern, by a London-based author and researcher who’s studied the cult.

It makes sense, then, that her first public response was measured and compassionate:

After the LaRouche group’s involvement came out, AOC explained her response further, something that she shouldn’t have had to do, but here we are:

Super normal shit! Glad that our political system is working healthily and that there’s absolutely no chance this despicable, bad-faith attack gets blown out of proportion even more, unless of course the president hears about it and decides it’ll be a good distraction from his ongoing impeachment scandal. The story can only get dumber from here, stay tuned.