Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., knows how to turn an unflattering news cycle around because she knows how to impress and distract easily led reporters.
Having recently compared border camps containing illegal immigrants and asylum-seekers to Nazi death camps, Ocasio-Cortez received an invitation from a Holocaust remembrance group to tour Auschwitz with a 93-year-old Jewish survivor.
The freshman congresswoman responded by asserting, without any grounds, that the offer was part of a vast right-wing conspiracy against her.
As dumb as that sounds, journalists are leaping to her defense once again.
The group From the Depths invited Ocasio-Cortez to tour Auschwitz last week as the congresswoman and her devoted followers clung to the laughable assertion that she had not compared Third Reich concentration camps to temporary American immigration holding facilities (she had). Ocasio-Cortez did not respond to the invitation. She did not even acknowledge it, opting instead to pretend that her coupling of the term “concentration camp” with the Holocaust-specific phrase “Never Again” could mean anything, really.
The implausible storyline being pushed now by the press is that she turned down From the Depths’ invitation as part of a “clap back” at a controversial Republican congressman who had encouraged her to take the tour, and whose own tour of Auschwitz had deservingly generated controversy because he paired it with meetings with far-right politicians.
Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, came out of self-imposed seclusion Sunday to urge Ocasio-Cortez to accept From the Depths’ offer.
.@AOC I went to Auschwitz & Birkenau with Eddie Mausberg & Jonny Daniels with In the Depths. I went with a deep understanding of the Shoah and had a profound personal experience. Please accept their offer. https://t.co/9tjqgdP6N5
— Steve King (@SteveKingIA) June 23, 2019
“I went to Auschwitz & Birkenau with Eddie Mausberg & [From the Depths founder] Jonny Daniels with In the Depths,” the congressman said on social media. “I went with a deep understanding of the Shoah and had a profound personal experience. Please accept their offer.”
It was at this moment, when King commented on From the Depths’ invitation, that Ocasio-Cortez decided suddenly to acknowledge the group’s offer. But that is only because King’s tweet provided her with the cover she was looking for to dodge the invitation while also claiming victimhood.
“The last time you went on this trip it was reported that you also met w/ fringe Austrian neo-Nazi groups to talk shop,” the congresswoman’s office tweeted. “So I’m going to have to decline your invite. But thank you for revealing to all how transparently the far-right manipulates these moments for political gain.”
But of course, it wasn’t King’s invite to extend. It was an invite from a genuine Holocaust remembrance group that reaches out even to wayward politicians such as King and Ocasio-Cortez when they evince historical forgetfulness about the 20th century’s greatest atrocity.
The last time you went on this trip it was reported that you also met w/ fringe Austrian neo-Nazi groups to talk shop.
So I’m going to have to decline your invite. But thank you for revealing to all how transparently the far-right manipulates these moments for political gain. https://t.co/TQkaPEESoD
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 23, 2019
To be clear, King did not invite Ocasio-Cortez to tour Auschwitz. He only recommended that she consider the group’s appeal. Second, do not let it go unnoticed that she ignored the invitation until she saw an opening to score an easy dunk on an unpopular congressman. Real bravery, that. Ocasio-Cortez is clearly hiding behind the fact that King, who was removed from his committee assignments in January following remarks he made in defense of “white nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization,” is a problematic person.
By conflating From the Depths with King and the far-right, and by launching a broadside against the Iowa Republican, Ocasio-Cortez has successfully distracted from the core issue of her comparing American immigration facilities to concentration camps. This is clearly reflected in how newsrooms have covered her turning down the invitation.
Moreover, by conflating the Holocaust remembrance group with King, Ocasio-Cortez has also freed her from the possibility of touring Auschwitz and the possibility of admitting she has been wrong to compare what is happening at the border to what happened to the Jews in World War II. On top of all of that, the congresswoman now claims King’s proximity to the invitation means she is under attack from the right wing. And all this because she does not want to admit she may have gotten over her skis by comparing U.S. detention facilities to Nazi extermination camps.
For the record, here is what From the Depths said in its invitation letter to Ocasio-Cortez:
The opportunity you will have of visiting the German Nazi Concentration Camps along with Mr. Mosberg, a 93 year old survivor of history’s most brutal genocidal regime, will enable you to become a witness of a witness, something that our generation will sadly be the last to do, as result of the fact that the survivors are passing away at an ever increasing rate. We await your response and look forward to learning together with you about this painful history.
Also, for the record, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum itself released a statement Monday condemning “efforts to create analogies between the Holocaust and other events, whether historical or contemporary.”
So, it looks like Ocasio-Cortez is the real victim all over again. She must be a very brave person to stand up after being victimized like this every single day.
