An attempt to humiliate America’s youngest congresswoman has backfired spectacularly, instead drawing an outpouring of support for her.
Twitter user, Anonymous Q, who has since deleted their account, posted a link to a clip of a 30-second dance video made by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez while she was in college.
“Here is America’s favourite commie know-it-all acting like the clueless nitwit she is,” Anonymous Q tweeted, claiming it was a “high school video of ‘Sandy’ Ocasio-Cortez”.
The Guardian reports the clip was actually part of a longer video Ms Ocasio-Cortez made while she was an undergraduate at Boston University.
The paper said it shows she and several other students dancing on the rooftop of a university building to the song Lisztomania by Phoenix, in a mash-up of a dance from the Breakfast Club. The link posted by Anonymous Q post leads to a tweet by Donald Trump supporter Dan Jordan, who writes: “...High School video of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez -- Congratulations New York!”
But, rather than humiliating her, Ms Ocasio-Cortez, who was elected to represent New York’s 14th congressional district in November, the clip has instead further bolstered her popularity.
Celebrities and others took to social media to praise her for having fun and being “even cooler.”
Comedian Patton Oswalt tweeted: “She’ll never recover from the world seeing her … (watches video) … dancing adorably and having fun with her friends in high school?”
Ally Sheedy, the actor who played Allison Reynolds in The Breakfast Club said she was: “pretty happy ‘bout it”, later posting “I love this #teamAOC”.
A Washington Post columnist joked: "Now she's totally done for. Newly unearthed video reveals that when @AOC was in college, she was ... adorable."
While the Democratic representative has been the target of repeated criticism from the far right, she has used social media to define herself in her own terms to her millions of followers.
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