Why Ocasio-Cortez’s ‘concentration camp’ comparison still matters

Published July 3, 2019 9:27pm ET



We’re into the third straight week of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., defending her claim that U.S. migrant detention centers are reminiscent of concentration camps, and she still doesn’t seem to understand that words, just like actions, have consequences.

She remains unapologetic, even after Holocaust survivors spoke up and asked her not to use their loss as a means for political gain. Ocasio-Cortez has claimed that by “concentration camp,” she meant the academic, historical definition and not the well-known definition identified with Nazi Germany’s death camps for Jewish people. She clearly invoked the latter, however, with the phrase “Never again,” and she even argued that Jewish members of her constituency supported her message.

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