PoliTalker
Diversity Makes Greatness
Some on the right have made the false claim that AOC 'made up' her terrifying experience during the Capitol Riot.
Setting the facts straight:
1. She was definitely in danger.
2. She was justifiably terrified for her safety.
I doubt many on the right who have downplayed her reflections have actually been sexually assaulted themselves, so they can't know what AOC felt on that deadly day.
Bethania Palma
Published 3 February 2021
Updated 16 February 2021
"What's True
Ocasio-Cortez wasn't in the main Capitol building where the House and Senate Chambers are located.
What's False
However, Ocasio-Cortez never claimed to be in the main Capitol building. When the attack on the Capitol began, Ocasio-Cortez was, as she stated, in her congressional office, which is located in a network of office buildings immediately surrounding the Capitol, and her office building was one of the two buildings that were evacuated.
One theme covered in her retelling of those events was how her past experiences with trauma, particularly surviving sexual assault, had compounded her fear during and after the Capitol riot.
“I’m a survivor of sexual assault. And I haven’t told many people that in my life,” she said toward the beginning of her story. “But when we go through trauma, trauma compounds on each other.”
Ocasio-Cortez also observed that it’s a painful fact for many survivors of trauma that they must deal with people who try to minimize what they experienced when they tell their stories, in an effort to silence them.
It took less than 48 hours for the right-wing disinformation machine to contrive a way to minimize what Ocasio-Cortez said she had experienced.
In a circus of cyberbullying that began on Feb. 3, 2021, conservative news outlets and social media conspiracy trolls latched on to the misleading claim that Ocasio-Cortez “wasn’t in the Capitol building” and therefore was not in harm’s way, as she had described in the Instagram video.
Around the time the clashes at the Capitol started, Ocasio-Cortez said she was at her desk scrolling through lunch options when she heard a loud, “violent” banging on her office doors. She ran over to her legislative director Geraldo Bonilla-Chavez (whom she calls “G”), who told her, “Hide, hide, run and hide.”
She hid in the bathroom of her office and realized that the person who was banging on the door had gotten inside and was yelling, “Where is she?” Ocasio-Cortez said didn’t know it while she was hiding, but the person calling that out was actually a Capitol police officer.
In the moment, while she was hiding in her bathroom and the door started to open on her, Ocasio-Cortez said, she thought she was going to die. “This was the moment where I thought everything was over.”
The Online Attacks
Ocasio-Cortez was attacked on social media with bad-faith attempts to discredit her story by people who falsely claimed she exaggerated the danger she was in because she wasn’t actually inside the main Capitol building where the House and Senate chambers are located.
But Ocasio-Cortez never claimed she was in the main building. She said was inside her office, which is in just one of the network of buildings containing congressional offices that comprise the Capitol complex. The office buildings and the main Capitol building are interconnected by a series of tunnels known as the Capitol Subway System, which allows members of Congress to traverse underground from their offices to their respective chambers.
Ocasio-Cortez’s building, Cannon House, is across Independence Avenue from the Capitol and was one of the buildings evacuated...
The online attacks on Ocasio-Cortez downplayed, from a safe distance, not only the sense of fear she felt in the moment during the attack on the Capitol, but also the imminent physical danger that she and others in and around the Capitol really were in during the attack.
RATING: MOSTLY FALSE
In her video, Ocasio-Cortez alluded correctly to the fact that it took police and the National Guard hours to secure the Capitol complex after the attack due to a series of glaring security failures. Images and videos from the attack show rioters had a significant period of free rein, breaking into and casually sitting at the desk in an office used by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, leaving behind smeared excrement and stealing the Speaker’s lectern."
Snopes: Did AOC Exaggerate the Danger She Was in During Capitol Riot?
AOC was targeted with another round of bad-faith smears after giving an emotional, firsthand account of her experiences during the Capitol riot.
Setting the facts straight:
1. She was definitely in danger.
2. She was justifiably terrified for her safety.
I doubt many on the right who have downplayed her reflections have actually been sexually assaulted themselves, so they can't know what AOC felt on that deadly day.
Bethania Palma
Published 3 February 2021
Updated 16 February 2021
"What's True
Ocasio-Cortez wasn't in the main Capitol building where the House and Senate Chambers are located.
What's False
However, Ocasio-Cortez never claimed to be in the main Capitol building. When the attack on the Capitol began, Ocasio-Cortez was, as she stated, in her congressional office, which is located in a network of office buildings immediately surrounding the Capitol, and her office building was one of the two buildings that were evacuated.
One theme covered in her retelling of those events was how her past experiences with trauma, particularly surviving sexual assault, had compounded her fear during and after the Capitol riot.
“I’m a survivor of sexual assault. And I haven’t told many people that in my life,” she said toward the beginning of her story. “But when we go through trauma, trauma compounds on each other.”
Ocasio-Cortez also observed that it’s a painful fact for many survivors of trauma that they must deal with people who try to minimize what they experienced when they tell their stories, in an effort to silence them.
It took less than 48 hours for the right-wing disinformation machine to contrive a way to minimize what Ocasio-Cortez said she had experienced.
In a circus of cyberbullying that began on Feb. 3, 2021, conservative news outlets and social media conspiracy trolls latched on to the misleading claim that Ocasio-Cortez “wasn’t in the Capitol building” and therefore was not in harm’s way, as she had described in the Instagram video.
Around the time the clashes at the Capitol started, Ocasio-Cortez said she was at her desk scrolling through lunch options when she heard a loud, “violent” banging on her office doors. She ran over to her legislative director Geraldo Bonilla-Chavez (whom she calls “G”), who told her, “Hide, hide, run and hide.”
She hid in the bathroom of her office and realized that the person who was banging on the door had gotten inside and was yelling, “Where is she?” Ocasio-Cortez said didn’t know it while she was hiding, but the person calling that out was actually a Capitol police officer.
In the moment, while she was hiding in her bathroom and the door started to open on her, Ocasio-Cortez said, she thought she was going to die. “This was the moment where I thought everything was over.”
The Online Attacks
Ocasio-Cortez was attacked on social media with bad-faith attempts to discredit her story by people who falsely claimed she exaggerated the danger she was in because she wasn’t actually inside the main Capitol building where the House and Senate chambers are located.
But Ocasio-Cortez never claimed she was in the main building. She said was inside her office, which is in just one of the network of buildings containing congressional offices that comprise the Capitol complex. The office buildings and the main Capitol building are interconnected by a series of tunnels known as the Capitol Subway System, which allows members of Congress to traverse underground from their offices to their respective chambers.
Ocasio-Cortez’s building, Cannon House, is across Independence Avenue from the Capitol and was one of the buildings evacuated...
The online attacks on Ocasio-Cortez downplayed, from a safe distance, not only the sense of fear she felt in the moment during the attack on the Capitol, but also the imminent physical danger that she and others in and around the Capitol really were in during the attack.
RATING: MOSTLY FALSE
In her video, Ocasio-Cortez alluded correctly to the fact that it took police and the National Guard hours to secure the Capitol complex after the attack due to a series of glaring security failures. Images and videos from the attack show rioters had a significant period of free rein, breaking into and casually sitting at the desk in an office used by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, leaving behind smeared excrement and stealing the Speaker’s lectern."
Snopes: Did AOC Exaggerate the Danger She Was in During Capitol Riot?
AOC was targeted with another round of bad-faith smears after giving an emotional, firsthand account of her experiences during the Capitol riot.
