If you follow American politics your eyes were probably peeled to a screen last night watching the Democratic debate that was on in Houston, Texas.

Yet as interesting as the debate about un-American issues like free healthcare or education for all was, the Republicans really stole the show.

During the debate, the GOP released an ad attacking Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and her ‘socialist values’. The ad opens to a picture of AOC and then proceeds to set her face on fire to reveal images of Pol Pot’s genocide in Cambodia in the 1970s.

Elizabeth Heng, the daughter of a survivor narrates the ad stating that AOC’s ‘socialist values’ are exactly the same as those of Maoist militants who conducted one of the most harrowing genocides in Cambodia.

Heng ends the ad by saying “my skin is not white, I’m not outrageous, racist nor socialist. I’m a republican.”

Of course. Because what do you do when you want to prove you’re not racist? You set fire to an image of a Latina woman.

Not only is the ad intense, but it is frankly quite shocking. Not because it grossly misleads the audience that paper straws and gender neutral toilets will starve and kill them, but because it assumes that the audience knows what a Cambodia is, where it is and what happened there. Or perhaps that was exactly the point?

Remarkable how well the GOP knows its audience. Throw in the word socialism a few times, equate it to genocide and refer to a place they’ve never heard of, and presto you’ve got a die hard following.

Regardless of whether the audience does know what Cambodia is, the Republicans are right – dying by AR15s, simple illnesses which could have been prevented by vaccination, concentration camps and a leader with unchecked powers does sound absolutely awful.

Thank the heavens that no country has to endure that today…