The Democratic Party’s socialist wunderkind has some explaining to do.
On March 21, Democratic congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez seized upon a yellow cab driver’s suicide in order to make a broader point about the economy. She blamed the death on ride-sharing companies like Uber, whose low prices and convenience have drawn many New Yorkers away from the yellow cabs they used to ride.
“Yellow cab drivers are in financial ruin due to the unregulated expansion of Uber,” she tweeted. “What was a living wage job now pays under minimum. We need: To call Uber drivers what they are: employees, not contractors, fed jobs guarantee, prep for automation.”
But wait: The Ocasio-Cortez campaign has since spent an estimated $4,000 on 160 Uber rides and $2,500 on more than 90 rides with a service called Juno, according to FEC data reviewed by Fox News. So, when it comes to political grandstanding, there’s one standard; when it comes to getting places quickly and affordably, there’s another.
Ocasio-Cortez followed up her tweet about the cabbie’s suicide with another on March 22, in which she argued that the city government must change “Uber laws” and address “the [cab] medallion crisis. Part of me wonders if the city should compensate medallion owners in some way, since their Uber rollout essentially penalized yellow cabs who followed licensing rules.”
[Also read: Toyota to invest $500 million in Uber, partner on self-driving car technology]
Asked whether there was any way to “apply pressure” so that “someone pays attention” to the tumbling value of cab medallions, Ocasio-Cortez responded by saying: “Yes. Drivers must organize to apply pressure on the city…. Sadly, some of these suicides have been committed in a way to shed light on the issue (one happened in his cab, with a note, in front of City Hall).”
That was in March. Then came Ocasio’s primary victory.
The FEC documents detailing the Ocasio-Cortez campaign’s $6,500 worth of ride-sharing expenditures date between April and June. Spending reports from July and August won’t become available until the end of September.
If it’s any consolation to Ocasio-Cortez, she’s not the only high-profile self-professed socialist to be caught preaching one thing while practicing another.
“Bernie Sanders, I–Vt., criticized Uber for being an ‘unregulated’ company with ‘serious problems,’” Reason magazine recalled this week. “He was also one of the handful of presidential candidates whose campaign reported using Uber instead of taxis close to 100 percent of the time. Eventual Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee were the only two presidential candidates whose campaigns could boast spending more on taxis than on Uber.”
Put aside the hypocrisy angle of this story for a moment. Can we talk about the rank opportunism of Ocasio-Cortez using a driver’s suicide to further her political agenda, without apparently giving even the slightest thought to her own travel habits? Because that seems to be real issue.
