“Raising awareness” has become a blanket millennial platitude to hide behind, and one high-profile practitioner is Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). Last week, the progressive firebrand went viral on Twitter for posting an image of her abuela’s home in Puerto Rico, which had been damaged by Hurricane Maria in 2017.
AOC brought up an often-repeated Democratic talking point in the tweet chain: the Trump administration’s supposed blocking of relief funds for the territory. Reactions flooded the thread, condemning Donald Trump and Republicans for being complicit in the decay in Puerto Rico. The problem? Trump’s administration ultimately provided close to $20 billion in hurricane relief by the end of its term. According to reporting from NPR, from 2017 to late 2019, Puerto Rico reportedly received only $11 million of the initial $1.5 billion expedited to the territory. An additional $8 billion was made available in January 2020, despite the waste and corruption in the region making waves in the media at the time. Facts show that the Puerto Rican government wasn’t remotely close to fully utilizing the funds already provided. Yet, Ocasio-Cortez remains livid that the Trump administration didn’t immediately deliver the total amount of pledged taxpayer.
Today, media headlines continue to lambaste the former president for setting up “bureaucratic red tape” in the disbursement of federal aid, an ironic statement considering the Democratic Party’s longtime adoration for regulations and expansive bureaucracy at the state and national level. The Biden administration had planned to pledge an additional $8 billion in relief funds to Puerto Rico in April. Unfortunately, this extra money had no oversight on how it would be spent. Already top officials in the Puerto Rican government have been indicted for mismanaging $15.5 million in aid.
[bookpromo align=”left”] Hurricane Maria happened almost four years ago. During this time, AOC apparently has been incapable of assisting her beloved abuela, despite winning her position as a congresswoman with a luxury apartment and an annual salary just under $200,000 since early 2019. Instead of attacking the territory’s endless problems of corruption, waste, and government inefficiency, she has been content with providing a misleading tweet for her Twitter followers to unite behind.
In possibly one of the most humorous interactions with the Democratic Socialist, The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh kickstarted a GoFundMe campaign to save the home of the congresswoman’s abuela. With more than $100,000 pledged in just a few days, the campaign was shut down when an anonymous individual in the family claimed they wouldn’t accept the donation. As Walsh rightly pointed out, Ocasio-Cortez’ language had provoked her followers into believing that her grandmother and the rest of the territory’s residents were still suffering because of Trump. Did AOC’s inaction condemn her abuela to a fate worse than death? Of course not; after all, she was just raising awareness. When the going gets tough, arguing that you were simply raising awareness for a good cause usually provides a suitable defense for your waves of followers to repeat when the facts don’t suit your argument.
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