Democratic socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York is getting obliterated for appearing to claim that the U.S. Senate was founded on racist Jim Crow laws.
The congresswoman was asked about the radical platform from the Democratic Socialists of America calling for the dissolution of the U.S. Senate as it was formulated by the founders. She did not back the policy but instead criticized the Senate.
‘The level of historical ignorance here is genuinely impressive.’
“We’ve all got our complaints. I don’t support the filibuster,” Ocasio-Cortez said outside of Congress. “I don’t support the elements of this institution that we know … were founded on, you know, Jim Crow.”
The Jim Crow laws were established after the end of Reconstruction in order to perpetuate the oppression of former slaves, but that was more than a hundred years after the founding of the Senate.
Ocasio-Cortez was excoriated by many pointing out the Senate could not chronologically have been founded in racist laws implemented in the late 19th century.
“This is what happens when you don’t teach basic U.S. history,” Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas replied.
“To the far left, ‘Jim Crow’ means ‘anything I don’t like.’ Even if it’s the U.S. Senate, which was created by the Constitution. And long predated Jim Crow,” Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah responded.
“She’s off by an entire century and a completely different era of American history,” entrepreneur Tony Seruga responded. “What makes this particularly revealing isn’t just the factual error — it’s the pattern. She operates from a mental model where every American institution must be retroactively explained through the lens of racial oppression, so she just confidently asserts it as fact without even a cursory fact-check.”
“The level of historical ignorance here is genuinely impressive,” replied Raven Harrison, a Republican congressional candidate from Florida.
Video of the comments from Ocasio-Cortez was posted to social media and widely circulated.
RELATED: VIDEO: Ocasio-Cortez tells New Yorkers to take on the South — then makes humiliating mistake
Others defended Ocasio-Cortez by explaining that she was referring to the filibuster and not the Senate when criticizing features from the Jim Crow era, though the term “filibustering” first appeared in congressional debates as early as 1853, decades before Jim Crow began.
The DSA was once considered a fringe group, but it has gained prominence after a string of victories for their candidates against establishment Democrats in numerous primary elections. Some Democrats are pushing back against the extremist policies of the DSA.
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