CULTURE

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Trolled the GOP by Dancing in the Capitol Building

“I hear the GOP thinks women dancing are scandalous.”

by Katherine Cusumano

US-POLITICS-CONGRESS
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/Getty Images

When she was an undergraduate at Boston University, newly minted congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez participated in a viral challenge—re-creating the dance scene from The Breakfast Club to the tune of Phoenix’s “Lisztomania.” Though the video was first posted back in 2010, on Thursday, a short-lived, since-deleted Twitter account affiliated with the QAnon conspiracy theory group dug up the clip and posted it with the caption, “Here is America’s favorite commie know-it-all acting like the clueless nitwit she is.”

Supposedly damning, maybe, but actually, no one really got that mad. In fact, Twitter users, and the Internet at large, seemed to find it somewhat joyous. And Ocasio-Cortez herself doesn’t seem especially fazed by the whole thing: Early Friday, she posted a brief clip dancing in the halls of the Capitol building in response.

“I hear the GOP thinks women dancing are scandalous,” she wrote on Twitter. “Wait till they find out Congresswomen dance too!”

It’s not actually clear whether GOP members are especially upset about this clip—a brief, definitely not exhaustive search of responses on social media yielded just a few unhappy tweets, while the majority responded to the perceived backlash in support of Ocasio-Cortez. (Patton Oswalt, Ike Barinholtz, and George Takei all chimed in.) But the GOP is mad about Ocasio-Cortez’s election in general—she was the only member of Congress booed for voting in favor of Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House—and detractors have consistently sought to discredit her, digging up everything from images of the house where she grew up to pages from her high school yearbook. (As seen on Gateway Pundit, which I will decline to link here, they’re remarkably more wholesome than the pages of one Brett Kavanaugh’s allegedly are.)

Meanwhile, Ocasio-Cortez, who was elected to her first term during November’s midterm elections, has been spending time coming up with actual policy proposals (like a 70 percent income tax on the über-über-wealthy to help fund the much-hyped Green New Deal) and, you know, doing her job. She’s also been walking around Washington, D.C., like a freaking celebrity, taking selfies, receiving hugs from doting fans, and kissing babies and everything. And dancing!