There is a famous saying in politics: elections have consequences.
And Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) is not having a good time dealing with the consequences of Democrats losing the House majority.
Ocasio-Cortez had an epic meltdown during a hearing by the House Oversight Committee on Twitter’s suppression of a 2020 story from The New York Post.
The congresswoman described the hearing as focused on “a 24-hour hiccup in a right-wing political operation.”
“That is why we are here right now. And it’s just an abuse of public resources, an abuse of public time,” she continued. “We could be talking about healthcare, we could be talking about bringing down the cost of prescription drugs, we could be talking about abortion rights, civil rights, voting rights.”
She added, “But instead, we’re talking about Hunter Biden’s half-fake laptop story. I mean, this is an embarrassment.”
Watch the moment below:
AOC: "We could talking be talking about the cost of prescription drugs, abortion rights, civil rights, voting rights but instead we're talking about Hunter Biden's half fake laptop story." pic.twitter.com/JGEiSib5Af
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) February 8, 2023
Now, let’s be honest for a moment. Did the suppression of the story have some massive impact on the 2020 election? Probably not.
Sure, there was a poll from a conservative outlet released after the election which claimed, “Full awareness of the Hunter Biden scandal would have led 9.4% of Biden voters to abandon the Democratic candidate, flipping all six of the swing states he won to Trump, giving the President 311 electoral votes.”
But there is no direct evidence in the documents recovered from the laptop to prove President Joe Biden was involved in his son’s business dealings. And search data found interest in the story spiked after it was suppressed, so people were looking into the story. It is hard to imagine a story mainly about Hunter Biden would have swung the election.
And Twitter was within its rights to limit the story. Still, its heavy-handed decision to block the sharing of the story and the Post’s account raised many questions and concerns about the power of these giant tech companies. And there is a lot of interest in what is seen as bias against conservatives ahead of an election.
Is this hearing the best use of Congress’ time and resources? There are other matters the House Oversight Committee could be looking into. But Republicans made it pretty clear before the election they would investigate the president and Hunter Biden, including the laptop story. And they won the majority.
Ocasio-Cortez’s demonstration was at least a little bit performative and designed to discredit the hearing — considering the fact House Democrats held hearings on issues they cared about regarding Big Tech when they were in the majority.
Now it is Republicans’ time to hold their own Big Tech hearings. The majority gets to hold hearings on the issues it wants to. It is just part of the cycle of politics and not worth having a meltdown over.
Welcome to the minority, congresswoman.