If I got dragged like this, I’d probably ask to be put into witness protection. Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley are going to need a few sessions of shiatsu to recuperate after Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spent the last three weeks stepping on their necks.
The two Republican senators, who promoted conspiracy theories to challenge the general election outcome and in the process enabled an attempted coup at the U.S. Capitol earlier this month, have been continually reminded of their sedition by the New York Democrat. Every time Cruz or Hawley attempt to pivot the conversation, Ocasio-Cortez has been ready to pounce on Twitter with the zeal of the “retire bitch”-era Danny DeVito.
On Thursday, Ocasio-Cortez posted a tweet calling for a legislative hearing into the Robinhood app’s decision to block small retail investors from purchasing stock after this week’s GameStop fiasco. (The recent market chaos sounds like Shyriiwook to me, so here is an explainer.) An absentminded — or clout-seeking — Cruz replied with a nonchalant “Fully agree” to AOC’s suggestion. In normal times, the story would end there: Pre-insurrection, they two had polite exchanges and even expressed optimism about working together toward common policy goals.
Not anymore. “I am happy to work with Republicans on this issue where there’s common ground, but you almost had me murdered 3 weeks ago so you can sit this one out,” she tweeted in response, referencing the Texas man who had posted “Assassinate AOC” that same day he stormed the Capitol. “Happy to work w/ almost any other GOP that aren’t trying to get me killed. In the meantime if you want to help, you can resign.”
The secondhand embarrassment is enough to make me want to walk slowly into the nearest sea.
Hawley hasn’t fared any better. This week the Missouri senator took to the New York Post — one of the top five most circulated newspapers in the country — to unironically complain about being “muzzled” by “cancel culture.” (He trotted a similar line out on conservative TV afterward.) Ocasio-Cortez tweeted in response: “You’re not ‘muzzled,’ Hawley. You’re just deeply unpopular, and aided insurrection. And you need to resign.”
Both senators now face an ethics complaint filed by Senate Democrats, and yet, they still refuse to apologize. So don’t expect AOC to turn down the heat anytime soon. She has never been one to back away from a fight and, more importantly, she and her colleagues know — as so many of us do — that what Hawley and Cruz did was nothing short of a full-scale assault on democracy.
If I got dragged like this in public on a regular basis… well, I’d probably step down and ask to be put into witness protection. But if there’s something that neither Cruz nor Hawley possess, it’s the capacity to feel shame.