Let me start by saying that while I’ve had some major problems with some of her statements and actions, I think Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is doing a pretty damned good job as a member of Congress. She’s whip smart in committee hearings and while I’m not onboard with all of her progressive ideas, I’m all for “moving the Overton window” and all that. I think it’s good to have her and some others nudging the party to the left (up to a point).

Having said that, the last part of* her appearance on FOX News with Bret Baier yesterday was nothing short of embarrassing:

Freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) on Thursday attributed some of Sen. Bernie Sanders's (I-Vt.) struggles in Michigan's Democratic primary election on Tuesday to “rampant voter suppression." “Well, I think one thing that ... that isn’t being talked about is the rampant voter suppression in this country,” Ocasio-Cortez told Fox News's Bret Baier, citing long lines that young voters in college towns such as Ann Arbor had to face. “Right there, in Ann Arbor, where we had that rally, those kids were waiting three hours in line to vote in Michigan," she explained. ...Ocasio-Cortez admitted that there is more that the Sanders campaign can do to get young voters to vote. “You know, obviously there’s also more that we need to do in terms of turning out youth voters," she said. "We need to make sure that we’re inspiring young people to turn out, but when you do turn out, you should not be waiting three, four, seven hours in order to vote. And that causes people to leave," she added.

Here’s the relevant links:

I agree that you shouldn’t have to wait several hours to vote, which is why it’s a great thing that in 2020, Michigan voters had six weeks to vote by mail, which they didn’t have in 2016.

I also agree that you shouldn’t have to wait several hours to register to vote, which is why it’s a great thing that in 2020, Michigan residents were allowed to register right up through election day, which they couldn’t do in 2016 (you previously had to be registered at least 30 days before election day).

Yet even with the addition of both, Bernie ended up receiving 3.7% fewer votes in 2020 than he did in 2016 (from 598,943 → 576,580...a drop of 22,363).

“But it was a crowded field!” Well, not really, since it was pretty much down to just the two of them by the time we held our primary. Yes, some people voted for other candidates who had already dropped out, but Michigan allows you to spoil your already turned-in absentee ballot and request a new one up to the day before election day, and over 36,000 Michigan voters did just that this year.

However, let’s assume that, say, 80% of all 26,046 Elizabeth Warren voters actually preferred Bernie over Biden and add them to his total. That brings it up to 597,416...still over 1,500 fewer than in 2016. Hell, even if you add 100% of Warren, Gabbard, Yang & Williamson voters to Bernie’s total (I’ll even throw in Castro, since he endorsed Warren), it still comes to just 615,505...2.8% higher than in 2016.

Now, let’s compare that to Biden in 2020 vs. Hillary in 2016:

Hillary Clinton 2016: 581,775 MI primary votes

Joe Biden 2020: 838,515 MI primary votes

That’s a 44% increase for a candidate who’s arguably even more “establishment” than Hillary (Biden was a Senator for 36 years & VP for 8, while Hillary was 1st Lady for 8 years, a Senator for 8 and Secretary of State for 4).

NONE of this is to downplay voter suppression in general--it’s definitely very real in many states, and is done by Republicans in order to suppress Democratic votes—but she claimed it was done in Michigan, which just passed massive voting rights reforms and just elected a Democratic SoS, specifically in order to suppress Bernie voters, which is utter nonsense...and is actually a slap in the face to those who really do face voter suppression.

UPDATE: From my Twitter thread on this issue:

x ...by all accounts, the vast majority of those long lines in college towns you referred to were college kids REGISTERING at literally the last minute...something which, again, they wouldn't have even been able to do AT ALL until last year:https://t.co/oS13ySsXvN — Charles Gaba (@charles_gaba) March 13, 2020

x And when I say "literally the last minute" I mean EXACTLY THAT: https://t.co/QE0Hzdn43P



Over 6,000 people (presumably those college kids in the video clip) waited until there was less than 3 1/2 hours left on election day before even *showing up* to REGISTER to vote. — Charles Gaba (@charles_gaba) March 13, 2020

x State spox tells @detroitnews that "delay in processing voters appears to be concentrated at city clerks office is college towns, such as Ann Arbor, East Lansing and Kalamazoo, that are fielding hundreds of people registering to vote"https://t.co/r9blcnKisD — Jonathan Cohn (@CitizenCohn) March 10, 2020

Update x2: Edited headline to be less inflammatory. To be clear, however, NOTHING in it or the diary made any claims about ACTUAL voter suppression in OTHER states, which is definitely real. As I said at the end of the original diary, the thing that pisses me off so much about AOC’s comments is that a college student deliberately waiting until literally 3 hours before the polls close to even register to vote in a state where they could have done so at any time over the previous year and claiming “suppression!” undermines all the people (mostly black, I should note...who are voting for Biden by huge margins) who’ve undergone actual suppression for years or decades.

*It’s been pointed out that AOC spent most of her interview on FOX talking about the COVID-19 crisis, and I agree she did a great job for that part of it. Unfortunately, that’s utterly irrelevant to the “voter suppression” portion of the appearance, which starts around 7 minutes in and lasts about a minute.

Finally, I see there’s a diary responding to this one which refers to it as a “horrific hit job” and which apparently at one point claimed that I was sexist for using the term “spewing” (believe me, I and plenty of others here have used that term referring to men on FOX, Breitbart, etc), as well as claiming that I’m a “Russian plant”, which is straight out of QAnon territory.