Source: PAUL ELLIS / Getty
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez takes up a hefty amount of real estate in the minds of the right-wing political establishment of the nation because of her effective governing. But that attention has turned nasty as a colleague in the House of Representatives has sent out a violent video clip targeting her.
On Monday (November 8th), Representative Paul Gosar (R-AZ) sent out a video via his official government account on Twitter. The 70-second video depicts the right-winger as the hero from the Japanese anime series Attack on Titan, slaying an enemy with Ocasio-Cortez’s face superimposed on it by slashing it in the back of the neck and attacking an image of President Joe Biden with swords. Gosar also tweeted the clip out through his personal account with the caption, “The creativity of my team is off the hook.” After a bevy of backlash, the clip was flagged by Twitter as “hateful conduct”, but remains visible to the public.
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, who is currently in Scotland for the COP26 conference concerning the environment, sent an initial response via Twitter to the tweet calling out House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) predicting that he won’t take action against Gosar: “So while I was en route to Glasgow, a creepy member I work with who fundraises for Neo-Nazi groups shared a fantasy video of him killing me. And he’ll face no consequences bc @GOPLeader cheers him on with excuses.”
She commented further, delivering a scorching response: “This dude is a just a collection of wet toothpicks anyway. White supremacy is for extremely fragile people & sad men like him, whose self concept relies on the myth that he was born superior because deep down he knows he couldn’t open a pickle jar or read a whole book by himself.”
The digital director for Gosar, Jessica Lycos, defended the Congressman’s sharing of the horrid video in a statement to the Washington Post as a joke and not an extremist video threatening to kill a co-worker, stating “Everyone needs to relax. The left doesn’t get meme culture. They have no joy.” Gosar has been infamous since his open support of the Jan. 6th insurrectionists who stormed the U.S. Capitol, to the point where six members of his family have openly declared him to be a “traitor” to the nation.
