Progressive Democrat Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar were arrested outside of the United States Supreme Court on Tuesday morning.
The arrests came during a protest outside the Supreme Court in favor of abortion rights after the court voted to reverse Roe v Wade era abortion protections this year. Reps AOC and Omar were not the only Democrats arrested, either, as they were joined by 14 other progressive Democrats in front of the Court.
The other Congresspeople arrested at the protest were Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., Nydia Velazquez, D-N.Y., Jackie Speier, D-Calif., Sarah Jacobs, D-Calif., Katherine Clark, D-Mass., Andy Levin, D-Mich., Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., Madeleine Dean, D-Pa., Jan Schakowksy, D-Ill., and Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-Calif.
Capitol Police tweeted a warning to the Democrat congresspeople and other protesters involved before the event ever began, warning, “It is against the law to block traffic, so police are going to give our standard three warnings before they start making arrests.”
While the arrests may seem intense at first in the videos, many eagle eyed viewers online noticed that both congresswomen were only pretending to wear handcuffs while being escorted by officers. AOC even breaks character to do a fist pound as she is removed from the area by the cops, showing she was not actually restrained.
The commentary online against the staged protests by congresspeople who don’t really fear the consequences quickly got heated.
One Twitter user used the incident combined with other well-known AOC moments to build a fake script for the Congresswoman. Her post garnered over 26k likes.
Twitter enthusiast Benny Johnson joined in the chorus of users online bashing AOC for the fake handcuffs, declaring her a “clown” for the performance.
A third Twitter user and radio personality noted that AOC and Omar were not sweating despite the high heat and humidity in Washington DC that day, saying it proved they only came out in time to make a scene and weren’t actually part of the original protest.
While the bashing of the progressive Democrats on the conservative side was extensive, the general sentiment from the left seemed the polar opposite with many of their Twitter supporters suggesting that if these politicians can be arrested for protesting, then Capitol Police should arrest right wing politicians like Rep. Jim Jordan and Sen. Josh Hawley over the January 6th riots.
The responses online show just how divided our country is. Toothless arrests have long been popular publicity stunts by politicians to raise awareness of an issue. Do you think the progressives embarrassed themselves today or do you wish more Republicans would follow suit and get themselves “arrested” to make points?
