Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has pushed back against the frequent use of the term “communist” by former President Donald Trump and his allies to describe political opponents. Ocasio-Cortez characterized these attacks as scare tactics designed to prevent discussions on policy issues.
In an exchange captured by the MeidasTouch Network, Ocasio-Cortez addressed concerns about a potential slide from socialism into communism. "No. I’m not concerned about America turning into a communist country in like a year," she stated. "I think that’s very silly."
She cited the difficulty in raising the minimum wage in the United States over decades as evidence that such a radical shift is unlikely. "We can’t even raise the minimum wage. Do Republicans really think that this stuff is going to happen? No, they don’t," she said. "They’re trying to scare people because they don’t want us talking about the fact that we all have a right to health care in this country."
Ocasio-Cortez argued that the "communist" label is applied to anything political opponents dislike. "They want to call it communist, and they want to call everything they don’t like communist," she explained. "Because if people actually wake up to the fact that their elected officials are screwing them over when they get here, then they’re going to realize that they deserve better and that health care as a right isn’t crazy, isn’t pie in the sky."
She further contended that this framing aims to obscure the fact that many other developed nations offer guaranteed healthcare. "They want to call this stuff communist because they don’t want us to realize that the rest of the developed world has guaranteed health care," Ocasio-Cortez added. "So they want to call it communist because they don’t want you to know that Germany, Italy, the U.K., Canada, everybody else has it better than us, and we spend the most amount of money for the worst care in the modern developed world."