 Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has recently talked about how during the January 6th insurrection of the Capitol, there was a moment where she actually thought she was legitimately going to die. She hasn't really talked much about that incident until now during an Instagram live stream where she discloses some more details and she shares how it really was the situation where she felt like that was the end of her life. So we're going to show some clips from her Instagram live stream and then we're going to talk about the response because the response to her sharing this traumatic experience, I don't even know what to say. It's absolutely morally reprehensible and you really just you're learning how cold people are in politics where they've dehumanized folks like ASC to the point where, you know, they are laughing at her having what she believed was a near death experience and it's just gross. But nonetheless, let's listen to her story because I think this is important. I opened the door when all of a sudden I hear that whoever was trying to get inside got into my office. And then I realized that it's too late that it's too late for me to get into the closet. And so I go back in and I hide back in in the bathroom behind the door. And then I just start to hear these yells of where is she? Where is she? And I just thought to myself they got inside. And so I hide behind my door like this, like I'm here and the bathroom door starts going like this, like the bathroom doors behind me or rather in front of me and I'm like this and the door hinges right here. And I just hear where is she? Where is she? And this was the moment where I thought everything was over. And the weird thing about moments like these is that you lose all sense of time. In retrospect, maybe it was four seconds, maybe it was five seconds, maybe it was ten seconds. Maybe it was one second. I don't know. It felt like my brain was able to have so many thoughts in that moment between these screams and these yells of where is she? Where is she? And so I go down and I just, I mean I thought I was going to die and I had a lot of thoughts. You have a lot of thoughts. I think when you're in a situation like that and also one of those thoughts that I had was I just happened to be a spiritual person and be raised in that context and I really just felt like if this is the plan for me then people will be able to take it from here. I had a lot of thoughts but that was the thought that I had about you all. I felt that if this was the journey that my life was taking that I felt that things were going to be okay and that I had fulfilled my purpose. That is horrifying. It sounds like a nightmare. Now she later learned that the individual who was screaming where is she was a capital police officer and once he came in they still kind of got weird vibes because if you're a capital police officer shouldn't you announce that you are a capital police and after he was talking with her he was still super aggressive and he told her, he basically yelled at her, go to this area in the capital. He didn't tell her which room they should be in in this particular building and when they got there they ran there they weren't escorted there her and one of her staffers ran there and they were basically left wondering where do we go they heard the rioters outside so they were questioning whether or not they were in more danger after listening to this individual and even though in theory like you think okay this is someone who's supposed to protect me it's a capital police officer right well after seeing the way that they opened the gates for the insurrectionists I'm not so sure that that individual was on her side like if I were in that situation and capital police basically let this happen at least a substantial portion of them when they were taking selfies I wouldn't necessarily feel safe so the fact that they got a bad vibe from this individual after you know he was screaming at her I don't blame them I don't blame them at all now she explains that this situation was particularly traumatic because she experienced past trauma before and she came out as a sexual assault survivor which is something that is very very difficult to do. Folks who tell us to move on that it's not a big deal that we should forget what's happened or even telling us to apologize. These are the same tactics of abusers and I'm a survivor of sexual assault and I haven't told many people that in my life but when we go through trauma, trauma compounds on each other. I give her credit that is something that's really difficult to do because in this day and age when we're supposed to be applauding sexual assault survivors and encouraging them to come out and share their stories like this is the Me Too era right you have so many people like laughing this off downplaying it oh she's just being melodramatic nobody wanted to kill her is that so because one of the individuals who was charged during the capital insurrection openly talked about wanting to assassinate AOC specifically is it really that shocking to think that white supremacists who are violent who were storming the capital wouldn't be targeting individuals like AOC Ilhan Omar Rashid Al-Talib I just you know the callousness is really what strikes me from this story like the response to her is what strikes me and I don't want to give you this false impression that most people dismissed this and mocked her because most people were supportive most people you know are standing in solidarity with AOC as she shares this story but usually you know the most negative things that we see are what kind of stay with us now one more clip that I want to play for you before I talk about the response from right wingers and some who claim to be on the left is from representative Katie Porter in an interview with Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC she talked about how when her and AOC connected the response that AOC had like the look on her face she was rattled well first she you know she saw me and we waved and went into my office and a couple seconds later she not and she said no could we could we come in and I said of course and she began to deal with her staffer was trying to describe what had happened and Alex is really usually like unfailingly polite and very personable and she wasn't even really talking to me she was opening up doors and I was like can I help you like what are you looking for and she said I'm looking for where I'm going to hide and the thing that will always stay with me the two memories that really you know especially as a mom I think we're just really powerful for me was when she said you know I I was saying well don't worry I'm a mom I'm calm I've got everything here we need we could live for like a month in this office and she said I just hope I get to be a mom I hope I don't die today and the second thing is she was wearing heels and I remember her saying to me I was wearing flats and I remember her saying to me I knew I shouldn't have worn heels how am I going to run and we went and we found her a pair of sneakers to wear from one of my staffers so that she could run if she needed to literally run for her life I can't imagine what she was going through that sounds absolutely horrible and this is going to be something that stays with her for the rest of her life like she was already dealing with existing trauma being a sexual assault survivor but that moment that's going to stay with her forever she's going to carry that with her for the rest of her life speaking from firsthand experience when you deal with psychological trauma it doesn't just like go away like you can't just get over it as easy as that sounds you can't it stays with you for years and decades but the response was just as I alluded to earlier I don't even know how to describe this it's just it's cold-hearted so right-wing conspiracy theorist Stephen Crowder tweeted out an image of Carl Marx with the shirt that says seize the means of reproduction and he wrote allegedly AOC's abuser was found I'm not necessarily sure what the joke is here apparently this is supposed to be funny but this is just his way of belittling her experience there Michael Tracy tweeted out good to know that any loopy delusion expounded by a politician must now be respected and quote believed under the aegis of trauma unreal and it's not just right-wingers there were some individuals who claim to be left-wingers which I don't think that they're left-wingers if they're downplaying this that's that you know they're just laughing at this oh well you know she's being melodramatic you know what about the folks who are dying because they don't have health care since she didn't agree to the strategy of force to vote therefore that means she doesn't support medicare for all in my twisted view of the world and therefore you know I don't care if she thought she was gonna die because what about the people who are dying now like the the mental gymnastics that people jump through in their minds to downplay this it just shows you that like there's there's no rationale there's no logic there's no human empathy it's just like in politics we've come to a point where we always work backwards from whatever conclusion we've arrived at and some folks have just chosen to make aoc the enemy demonized like one of the only left-wing members of congress who's a genuine ally demonize her and so whatever she says is invalid anything she says is wrong because she's the enemy she's the enemy this is the result of conditioning by folks with very large platforms who just do nothing but rail against aoc attack attack attack she's the enemy she's stopping you from having medicare for all she's the problem it's not corporate democrats it's not republicans it's her it's just sickening like the state of the left right now it it really worries me um it's just it's like a snake eating its own tail right demonizing aoc like i think that holding politicians accountable is absolutely necessary and warranted you have to hold everyone in congress accountable because they're in a position of power they're in a position of great influence but they can actually affect change but perhaps maybe when they're like sharing their story about how they believe that they were going to die that's not necessarily the right time to do it maybe maybe this is just me uh wait until a different instance maybe when it's more appropriate to bring up something like maybe when they're sharing the fact that they're a sexual assault survivor and dealt with existing trauma that might not necessarily be the best time to air your grievances with this individual who is an ally to us believe it or not it's just shocking to me and because she wasn't actually being hunted down by you know a far right extremist storming the capital because it was a capital police officer people are claiming that um she's just being melodramatic does that make her feelings any less real there are people who literally suffer from panic disorder who have what's known as amygdala hijack i think it's called where they just like inexplicably have panic attacks they uh have this like influx of adrenaline their heart starts racing they start sweating and they have that fight or flight response it could be like just the most random time ever you could be in the store grocery shopping and all of a sudden you get the instinct to get out run because you feel like you're gonna die there's no reason for it but people get this does it mean they're actually in danger no but are those feelings real yeah they're pretty fucking real they're pretty fucking terrifying i'm speaking from firsthand experience where you could just be doing the most random thing ever watching a movie you're relaxing you're having a great time and all of a sudden there it goes you're in full on panic mode out of nowhere and you feel like you're going to die you have that instinct to run away but there's nothing that's attacking you so you you kind of just like sit there and you try to play it off because you don't want to look like an idiot in front of other people um but in in your own mind in your body you're feeling all of this it's not just psychological it's physiological as well your heart's racing and it's horrifying is there actually danger no but that doesn't make the feeling any less real and horrifying and each time you suffer from a panic attack like this you know um you remember it you fear when the next one is going to come this is what aoc is trying to talk about because she had existing trauma like she's always in that mindset like where if something traumatizing or scary happens she immediately is going to think oh my god it's happening again i'm in great danger and it's not like she didn't have a good reason to believe that she was in danger during this insurrection because again there are violent white supremacists who want her dead and i just i don't understand the callousness i don't get it i just um yeah i'm very very uh discouraged at the state of politics currently uh on the left but thankfully you know we're kind of in this echo chamber where the dumbest folks usually are the loudest but they're not the majority and we still can move forward and progress um with the help of allies like aoc and so if we expect her to you know represent us and have our backs you know maybe at a time like this we should be having her back and uh defending her because what she went through is awful