On the social media platform Instagram, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) recently commented on the scandal involving recent public acts by Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) at a theater in Colorado.
Boebert and a male companion of hers — they were evidently on a date — were booted from the theater after behavior like Boebert vaping indoors and taking flash photography in the audience. Security footage later showed the two of them also getting suggestively handsy during the evening.
Ocasio-Cortez noted the double standard. Though conservative media outlets like Fox News are obsessed so often with the New York Democrat, there has been no outpouring of right-wing outrage against Boebert after she engaged in that disruptive, public behavior. Imagine if Ocasio-Cortez herself had done basically any of what Boebert was documented to have done that night. The right-wing outrage machine would still be screeching. Even apart from any considerations about what the appropriate consequences for Boebert’s actions would even be, the difference in how conservative sources have treated these figures is substantial and glaring.
“All I gotta say is, I can’t go out to lunch in Florida in my free time — not doing anything, just eating outside, and it’s wall-to-wall Fox News coverage,” Ocasio-Cortez observed to her Instagram followers. “And then, you have a member of Congress engaging in sexually lewd acts in a public theater, and they got nothing to say.” Ocasio-Cortez then noted how a years-old video of her dancing also received bizarrely extensive attention. “But putting on a whole show of their own at “Beetlejuice,” and there’s nothing?” the Congresswoman asked. “I’m just saying, be consistent.”
At this point, the theater incident is already fading away, seemingly without any kind of meaningfully direct consequence to Boebert’s time in office — though she continues heading towards what could be a rematch next November with the Democratic candidate who very nearly defeated her in 2022.
She’s not wrong pic.twitter.com/ljSkfjHGcq
— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) September 22, 2023
