Summary
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez denied claims that she is secretly wealthy, stating she is worth less than $500,000 and doesn’t trade stocks or take corporate money.
Her financial disclosures show modest savings and student debt.
Some conservatives on X, despite opposing her politics, praised her perceived integrity.
Accusations of political corruption have surged online, partly fueled by Elon Musk.
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It seems like you may be conflating having ~$500k net worth with being rich, which may not have been your intent, but it seemed that way based on context. I think what the other responder is getting at is that AOC is not rich. She may have a house, a car, and some retirement saved up. All of those are assets, but they do not translate into the kind of liquidity that many other American politicians have.
She was working class before she entered into politics, and some would argue that she still is based on her work and advocacy. I don’t want to sound like I’m accusing your of anything, or putting words in your mouth, because that’s not my intent; I just want to point out a common belief held by a lot of Americans. Lumping someone in with the rich and then holding them in contempt merely because that person is richer than you is exactly the kind of us-versus-them mentality the ruling class wants us to have.
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What are you basing this on? Did you personally speak with AOC?
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You may be misunderstanding the difference between assets and liquidity. These days, owning a home, a car, and paying into a retirement fund for a few years can easily put someone close to having $500,000 in assets. But those aren’t liquid, i.e. they do not translate into having $500,000 in a bank account. Most people that have that much in assets will also have a lot of debt; take into account the mortgage on their house, student loans, car loans, and credit cards, the average person with $500,000 in assets actually has a negative net worth.
Compare AOC to someone like Nancy Pelosi, who has an estimated net worth over $240,000,000, with most of it bound in stocks and bonds that could quickly translate into liquidity. That is what being rich is. That is the kind of person that is out of touch with poor people.
He’s not misunderstanding anything, he’s deliberately arguing semantics to avoid addressing his nonsense claim that AOC is problematic.
AOC never even said she wasn’t rich, so it’s a totally irrelevant argument.
I getcha, and you’re most likely right; if OP sees the gap in their argument and realize it, that’s just a bonus. My real intent is to share a broader perspective with people coming to the comments with genuine curiosity and an open mind.
Quote that part.
Lol so you were indeed lying, based on your edit.
So what’s the basis for your claim, then? That she’s so out of touch with poor people that she doesnt realize her own privileges?
Where’s the quote, jagged_circle?
Or are you a liar?
Can you explain why you think she is out of touch with poor people? I’m genuinely curious, because you may know something about her that I don’t, and if she’s as secretly two-faced as Sinema and Manchin, or has done something to actively denigrate or undermine the working class, I want to be informed.
I understand that most poor people feel overlooked, ignored, and exploited by the rich, and that’s because that is exactly what they do–but their greatest trick is to make us think that it’s not their fault that we are poor. Please look again to the last sentence of my reply: Holding someone in contempt merely because they are richer than you is exactly what the billionaires want you to do, because it distracts and redirects anger away from them, and is just another tool they use to make the working class fight amongst themselves.
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Based on what?
Based on what, jagged_circle? Answer the question.
Spoiler, that means you’re the one that’s out of touch here.
Sure, but your claim rests on a specific definition of what rich is. The notion that her gross assets, not liquidity, are such that she is in not of the working class (her assets produce enough wealth to live upon) glosses over the obscene wealth, corruption, and hoarding that the purpose of the conversation is trying to convey. “Yeah, but other Americans are poorer” is whataboutism in the face of someone interested in adresssing wealth disparity.
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The middle class is so far gone in the US that people like you have difficulty remembering what it looks like.
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You’re wrong. Source: I’m middle class. Not American.
If you can get bankrupted by an illness, you’re not rich.
Yup and I can say by experience that even making 180K at a fortune 500 company, that makes you still not rich when medical shit goes south.
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“Wise men speak when they have something to say. Fools speak because they have to say something.”
There was a study a while back asking Republican House members how they defined “middle class”.
$450,000.
https://www.newsweek.com/tax-cuts-republicans-middle-class-trump-701094
Keep that in mind when you hear people throwing around “middle class tax cuts”.