NEW YORK — U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s face is set on fire in a new Republican commercial that compares the New York lawmaker to a violent socialist regime.
The 30-second ad from the New Faces GOP starts with a photo of Ocasio-Cortez burning up to reveal a black-and-white image of a pile of skulls. The flames eat their way out from her chin, warping the image as a voiceover questions whether she knows “the horror of socialism.”
The narrator, onetime GOP congressional candidate Elizabeth Heng, calls the upstart progressive congresswoman “the face of socialism and ignorance” before recounting her father’s struggle for his life in Cambodia.
“My father was minutes from death in Cambodia before a forced marriage saved his life,” Heng says. “That’s socialism — forced obediance, starvation.”
“My skin is not white. I’m not outrageous, racist nor socialist,” Heng concludes after photos of skulls and seemingly dead bodies flash by. “I’m a Republican.”
Heng founded the political action committee that paid for the ad, which aired during Thursday night’s Democratic presidential debate, according to The New York Times.
The image of Ocasio-Cortez’s burning face drew strong condemnation from Democrats and liberal groups who likened it to a piece of white supremacist propaganda. Some slammed ABC, which broadcast the debate, for letting it air.
Ocasio-Cortez said the spot failed at its apparent purpose of catering to young people of color within the Republican Party. She called it “a love letter to the GOP’s white supremacist case.”
“Republicans are running TV ads setting pictures of me on fire to convince people they aren’t racist. Life is weird!” Ocasio-Cortez, who represents parts of Queens and The Bronx, said on Twitter.
Mayor Bill de Blasio, himself a presidential candidate, linked the ad to the Aug. 3 slaughter of 22 people in El Paso, Texas that was committed by a white nationalist gunman.
“Yet just a few weeks later, the GOP is okay with airing political ads featuring the burning face of Latina congresswoman,” de Blasio said on Twitter. “This is dangerous and downright sick.”
Heng’s PAC aims to recruit young Republicans to run for office. Heng ran unsuccessfully for California’s 16th Congressional District last year, losing to incumbent Rep. Jim Costa.
Heng defended the ad, saying she was “calling all Democrats out for supporting an evil ideology.”
Ocasio-Cortez’s “response is the Democratic party in a nutshell,” Heng said on Twitter. “They are more offended by truthful words than the acts of their political ideology that has killed millions of innocent victims.”
Click Here: Cheap France Rugby Jersey