Matthew Chapman writes about the weird right wing obsession with Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and how their attempts to discredit her (such as posting a fake photo supposedly of her in a bathtub) are really pathetic and backfiring badly, as she knows how to respond aggressively and they are only serving to increase her profile, way beyond that of any new member of Congress. I think they are so used to Democrats trying to defend and explain themselves from attacks that they are not used to some who responds by gleefully mocking them.

The “nude” she is referring to is a picture of a naked woman in the bathtub with a marijuana vaporizer that circulated on right-wing message boards last week, purported to be of Ocasio-Cortez. In fact it wasn’t her — but by the time the hoax stopped spreading, the conservative Daily Caller had picked it up.

That incident was one of several personal attacks on her. Right wing pundit John Cardillo tried to use a picture of her tiny childhood home in Yorktown Heights to prove she didn’t have a “Bronx hood upbringing.” Eddie Scarry of the right-wing Washington Examiner followed her and took pictures of her clothes to try to prove she was faking poverty. Jim Hoft, a right-wing blogger, “exposed” the fact that she went by “Sandy” at school and didn’t clarify why that was a scandal. Turning Point USA’s Candace Owens mocked her for struggling to afford an apartment in D.C. and in her district. Conservatives even spread around a video of her dancing in college that actually made her look cool.
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A recent poll showed 59 percent of voters support her idea to tax income over $10 million at 70 percent, a proposal that would actually still be lower than taxes in the 1970s. Huge majorities agree with her on Medicare for All, too — 70 percent of voters, including 52 percent of Republicans, and other countries have clearly demonstrated it’s possible. And her proposal for a “Green New Deal” — which is essentially just a larger version of President Barack Obama’s controversial but highly successful green energy stimulus in 2009 — polls as high as 80 percent with the public.

With numbers like this, it is little wonder that the best “artillery” Republicans had about Ocasio-Cortez was to circulate a fake naked picture of her.

The following tweets speak for themselves.

Oh? What’s that?

The majority of Americans respect when you break down reasonable policy proposals that are designed to combat runaway income inequality and help fund priorities they value most?

We can win public sentiment, stand our ground, & not be scared by GOP information. https://t.co/40KHKwt077

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 15, 2019

Spotted in Texas. pic.twitter.com/cShcU8NxgP

— ian bremmer (@ianbremmer) January 11, 2019

On nearly every "radical" idea the American people are with us:

72% want to expand Social Security.
70% want Medicare for All.
65% want a jobs guarantee.
64% want to legalize marijuana.
60% want tuition-free public colleges.
58% want $15 min wage.
57% want to break up big banks.

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) January 15, 2019