ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Lifelong residents of New York Congressional District 14 know Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez isn’t really one of them. Having left the East Bronx before the first grade, she returned to the district — which also includes parts of Queens — only a couple of years ago, when she began to lay the groundwork to dislodge 10-term incumbent Democratic congressman Joe Crowley.

Born in the Parkchester neighborhood of the East Bronx, Miss Ocasio-Cortez moved to the tony Westchester suburb of Yorktown Heights because her parents wanted her to get a better public school education. While her campaign website scaled back her claims of being a born-and-bred Bronxite, she still gives a tortured explanation of what generations of Bronxites call “the natural progression” — moving over the county line to Westchester when family finances allow:

“The state of Bronx public schools in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s sent her parents on a search for a solution. She ended up attending public school in Yorktown — 40 minutes north of her birthplace. As a result, much of her early life was spent in transit between her tight-knit extended family in the Bronx and her daily student life.”

Miss Ocasio-Cortez told a third story to The Daily Mail of London to shore up her Bronx cred and clarify how she “ended up” going to suburban schools, yet trekked back and forth to The Bronx: Her extended family chipped in for the down-payment on the Yorktown Heights house, and her father remained in The Bronx while his wife and children lived in the ‘burbs.

With her “authenticity” in question, Miss Ocasio-Cortez — or Bronx Bolshevik, as she is known in Congressional Distict 14 (CD14) — posted cringeworthy tweets to show she’s from the “hood”:

“There’s nothing like walking into the bodega, grabbing an iced cafecito, chopping it up with everyone behind the counter + appreciating the dude who’s blasting ‘Oye Como Va’ through his backpack speaker.”

The bogus Bronxite also breaks out an inner city accent with a hostile tone when it’s advantageous to seem “authentic,” while switching to a nondescript accent with a girlish tone for media interviews. Compare online how Miss Ocasio-Cortez sounds in a video celebrating the primary victory of her Justice Democrat ally Alessandra Biaggi to how she sounded when interviewed on Pod Save America and on national TV by Trevor Noah and Jake Tapper.

Miss Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign support and apparatus isn’t local, either. Once she began “organizing” for her congressional run, she turned to New York City-based Socialist groups for help and soon began racking up endorsements from national progressive pressure groups like Brand New Congress, Justice Democrats, MoveOn and Our Revolution.

Her campaign claims 10,000 MoveOn members live in CD14, but that’s 5 percent of the roughly 194,450 Democrats in CD14. The only “local” endorsements Miss Ocasio-Cortez received are from Bronx Progressives and North West Bronx Democrats — which comprises Bronx and Upper Manhattan neighborhoods located in Congressional District 13. Curiously, the Chippewa Democratic Club, which is located in district 14, has not yet endorsed her.

Miss Ocasio-Cortez hasn’t lived in CD14 long enough to understand how the concerns and aspirations of voters in each of the neighborhoods comprising the district differ, and is pushing a national agenda rubber-stamped by Democratic Socialists of America. Worse, she has no intention of representing constituents’ interests. In her mind, the job of a congressman is “organizing” and “segmenting” people to “bring pressure on the chamber” so as to fundamentally change the nature of our constitutional republic by eliminating the Electoral College and packing the U.S. Supreme Court.

CD14 is ethnically diverse and 29 percentage points more Democratic compared to the rest of the country, so “teevee pundits” mistakenly believe the district is salivating for socialism. In truth, the people who live in CD14 tend to be swing voters. A significant number of registered Democrats in the East Bronx crossed party lines to vote for Donald Trump, and just about all of the precincts Donald Trump carried in The Bronx are located in CD14.

For these reasons, politically moderate middle-class voters in the district have mobilized to fight the “inevitable” election of Miss Ocasio-Cortez. The bipartisan Block Bronx Bolshevik grass-roots campaign asks Democrats and Republicans to repudiate the candidates chosen by their respective parties and to vote for Joe Crowley as the only viable candidate who can defeat Miss Ocasio-Cortez. A Block Bronx Bolshevik GoFundMe has been launched to purchase Facebook ads that make the case against Miss Ocasio-Cortez and Socialism to the 86 percent of Democrats who stayed home on Primary Day — and to encourage Republicans to cross party lines instead of voting for Republican Anthony Pappas, who lacks the money and organization to mount a credible campaign. As Election Day approaches, Facebook ads will be purchased about how to vote for Mr. Crowley on the Working Families Party and Women’s Equality Party lines.

Many East Bronx Democrats would consider voting for a Republican, but the local GOP takes a dive in every race, in part because it’s starved for cash. Republicans in CD14 get fund-raising appeals from the Republican National Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee, but the money they donate isn’t spent in the district.

Congressional District 14 voters typically choose between the incumbent Democrat or staying home, and the vast majority stay home. This year, their only choice is the incumbent Democrat or Socialism. It’s a Hobson’s choice.

• Ruth Papazian lives in the Bronx portion of Congressional District 14, and is one of the founders of the Block Bronx Bolshevik grass-roots campaign.

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