Kirsters Baish Opinion| Democratic freshman congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York claimed on Sunday that she had been joking when she stated that the world would end in 12 years if we don’t start to take action against climate change. After making the initial claim about the world ending, Ocasio-Cortez faced widespread criticism.
The Daily Wire explains that “the 29-year-old socialist mocked the Republican Party for taking her claim about the end of the world seriously, which she suggested was a combination of ‘dry humor + sarcasm.’”
“This is a technique of the GOP, to take dry humor + sarcasm literally and ‘fact check’ it. Like the ‘world ending in 12 years’ thing, you’d have to have the social intelligence of a sea sponge to think it’s literal. But the GOP is basically Dwight from The Office so who knows,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote in a tweet on Mother’s Day.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
✔@AOC
This is a technique of the GOP, to take dry humor + sarcasm literally and “fact check” it.
Like the “world ending in 12 years” thing, you’d have to have the social intelligence of a sea sponge to think it’s literal.
But the GOP is basically Dwight from The Office so who knows.
Max Kennerly
✔@MaxKennerly
I’ve seen criticism of “like 10 people.” The ten richest Americans are worth $730 billion. The fourteen richest American families (excluding the Koch brothers, so no double-counting) are worth $511 billion. Together, they’re worth more than 60% of Americans combined. https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1127270688925134849 …
The self-proclaimed Democratic Socialist first brought up the claim during a Martin Luther King forum that was held in New York City in January. The Daily Wire previously reported on the matter, explaining that the freshman congresswoman made the comment without cracking a smile or laughing, winning a “round of applause from the progressive audience, and then emphasized the point by calling the fight against Climate Change ‘our World War II,’” the Daily Wire explains.
Ocasio-Cortez stated, “I think the part of it that is generational is that millennials and people, in Gen Z, and all these folks that come after us are looking up and we’re like, the world is gonna end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change. And your biggest issue, your biggest issue is how are going to pay for it? — and like this is the war, this is our World War II.”
Tom Elliott@tomselliott
The issue with the Democratic Representative’s claim that she was merely joking when she made the statement that the world would end in 12 years is that she repeated the claim numerous times.
“Climate change is here + we’ve got a deadline: 12 years left to cut emissions in half,” she wrote in a tweet last month that promoted the video.
Climate change is here + we’ve got a deadline: 12 years left to cut emissions in half.
A #GreenNewDeal is our plan for a world and a future worth fighting for.
How did we get here?
What is at stake?
And where are we going?Please watch & share widely ⬇️pic.twitter.com/IMCtS86VXG
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) April 17, 2019
The Washington Free Beacon reported that Ocasio-Cortez pushed her claim yet again during a live-stream on Instagram when a viewer bashed her for the comment.
“We have twelve years left to cut emissions by at least 50 percent if not more,” Ocasio-Cortez stated, clearly annoyed by the comment. “For everyone who wants to make a joke about that, you may laugh, but you’re grandkids will not, so understand that the internet documents everything.”
“She then went on a tangent about looking back in history books of the civil rights movement and seeing the white people holding signs against allowing black people to vote,” the Beacon reported.
