New York Congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Friday characterized herself as “something of a social worker or even a therapist” to people in her district to whom President Trump’s policies have been “re-traumatizing.”
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“Well, you know, in this political moment, it’s so unique and sometimes I feel like I have this job of being something of a social worker or even a therapist in my district because this period has been so re-traumatizing for so many folks and especially in a country where we do not have reliable access to health care, let alone affordable health care,” Ocasio-Cortez told MSNBC host Chris Hayes.
“This has been a very difficult time for immigrants, women, survivors, people who care about the health of American democracy,” she continued. “It’s very stressful. And so that listening diffuses a lot of the tensions in our communities and it’s a form of active work beyond just legislation or beyond just policymaking, it’s really getting hands deep and our hands dirty in our communities and finding the issues that we need to solve instead of waiting for them to wash up on our door.” (RELATED: Jesse Watters On Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: ‘I Don’t Think She Knows Anything About Economics)
The democratic socialist candidate then criticized Republican portrayals of protesters confronting them as a “mob.”
“And I think that really what we are seeing here with Kavanaugh, with all of this stuff, is just a complete abdication of responsibility, of our responsibility as representatives,” she said. “When you are — when you are at the point where you are blaming your own constituents and calling your own constituents a mob, that is the exact opposite of being a representative. That is the exact opposite of being a public servant. And that tells me that those folks, anybody, regardless of your party, if you have that attitude, you’ve got to go.”