The New Congresswoman: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Annikah Alcott, Reporter

Recently on November 6th of this year, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was elected to be in the House of Representatives. She is 29 years old and when January comes around, she will start around her term. She will be the youngest woman to be in the House of Representatives throughout our nation’s history.

Hamilton says that the significance of her election, “…shows that the youth do care about what’s going on…” and, “she’s representing a whole different generation than your typical…kind of politician…”.

He also said that she communicated better, listened to people better, and just outworked the politician Ocasio-Cortez ran against.

There has been a lot going on in the media revolving around her since she’s been elected. Ocasio-Cortez talked about how she put some money away from her restaurant job before she left. However, she is still going three months without a salary before she becomes a member of Congress, so she can’t exactly get an apartment in Washington DC.

Unfortunately when Ocasio-Cortez opened up about her struggles of being a working class woman. Some people started to make fun of her for it. Shortly after this, comments were made about a photo taken of her. In the photo, Ocasio-Cortez wore a nice looking jacket and holding a coat and a purse. Eddie Scarry tweeted the photo of her, with the caption “Hill staffer sent me this pic of Ocasio-Cortez they took just now. I’ll tell you something: that jacket and coat don’t look like a girl who struggles.”  The tweet has since been deleted and he wrote in an additional post that he felt the tweet was misinterpreted. Scarry said, “ATTN! I posted a tweet earlier suggesting the incoming congresswoman looked well put together — ELEGANT even — despite suggestions she’s struggled. The tweet was taken as something else, so I’ve deleted it!” When asked about how he felt about The House of Republicans mocking Ocasio-Cortez for being unable to pay for rent in Washington DC Hamilton said, “The fact that Republicans made fun of her shows that they’re ignorant of a lot of society’s issues and problems and that you know not everybody is just fully established. They also attack in any way they can because they fear her. They fear what she did to an established Democrat. They fear her power. They fear her drive…”.

People came quick to defend Ocasio-Cortez, explaining that you can’t define a person’s wealth by judging an outfit.

This wasn’t the only way people tried to make fun of her. Since she has spoken out about being a working class, there have been people who no matter what she does have been trying to label her as a hypocrite. Ocasio-Cortez did a photo shoot for Interview magazine. She was lent expensive designer clothes for the magazine photos. People assumed that she bought the clothes. They commented on the fact saying, ‘she should be able to afford DC rent if she can afford an outfit that expensive.’ Ocasio-Cortez came out saying she didn’t buy the clothes there were still people attempting to falsify her claims of being a working class woman