AOC Made the Capitol Attack Personal
The Democratic Congresswoman’s Instagram video created emotional connections some would rather suppress
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) went live on Instagram to recount her experience of the January 6 attack on the Capitol building. In a 90-minute video, AOC described her rising sense of anxiety as protest turned into riot, and a spike of fear as someone started banging on office doors. She and her legislative director hid, and when they heard a man come inside and yell “where is she?,” AOC says she “thought everything was over.”
The man said he was a police officer, but she wasn’t sure if she could trust him. He told them to leave, but not where to go, and they moved through the halls, fearful and uncertain, until sheltering with Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA), who calmed her down.
This is a powerful new type of public communication. As Caroline Framke notes in Variety, “There’s an incredible, immediate intimacy in opening your phone, seeing that someone is live on Instagram, and clicking over to see their face staring straight into yours.” It feels personal, more like a phone call than watching an interview or speech on TV. In three days, over 5.5 million people have seen it, getting a sense, unfiltered by media, of what it was like to be her in that moment.
