It’s already well-established that congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is very good at social media. A Guardian analysis found she has more engagement on Twitter than Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.
But even the most exciting social media personality might struggle to make the often plodding work of congressional committees especially exciting. Some had assumed that while Ocasio-Cortez drove likes and favourites online, as a first-term congresswoman she would be relatively inconspicuous.
Instead, she has done the improbable, translating the topic of campaign finance into a viral video. Recently, she played a “lightning round game” with a panel of ethics experts, in which she asked a series of quick-fire lawyerly questions in order to demonstrate the ease with which officials in Congress and the White House can be corrupted by donations from special interest groups.
An edited video of the hearing, which was uploaded by the leftwing online channel NowThis news, has been viewed 37.5m times, making it the most watched political video ever posted on Twitter, according to the subscription-based web analytics company Tubular (although that claim depends on what you count as “political” – Donald Trump’s doctored video of him bodyslamming and punching a person with the CNN logo for a head has slightly more views at 39.1m).
The video is the 38th most viewed overall, as of Wednesday morning. Many other versions of the video, including those uploaded CNN and C-Span, also have millions of views.
“The video has been uniquely successful but we are seeing more and more clips from congressional hearings and floor speeches getting tens of millions of views,” said Nico Pitney, NowThis political director.
“Our audience is very hungry right now for issue-based political videos. They want to hear from people who are authentic, and who present smart factual information in a creative way.”
In the video, Ocasio-Cortez asks whether, as a member of Congress, she would be able to run a campaign entirely funded by corporate political action committees (Pacs). When the panel agrees that she could, she asks whether she could use the money from those Pacs to make hush payments to get elected and whether, once elected, she could write laws that help her donors, and even buy stock in them to benefit from her own legislation. She would not be breaking the law in doing so, each expert confirms, making a compelling case for campaign finance reform.
‘I can think of nothing more American.’ — Beto O'Rourke — the man taking on Ted Cruz — brilliantly explains why NFL players kneeling during the anthem is not disrespectful pic.twitter.com/bEqOAYpxEL
— NowThis (@nowthisnews) August 21, 2018
Beto O’Rourke, who is currently mulling a run for president, has the second most viewed political Twitter video. His explanation of why he supports NFL players who kneel during the national anthem, also edited and uploaded by NowThis, garnered 19.9m views.
