Jonathan Ernst / Reuters
- Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez returned to Twitter Tuesday, ending a short break.
- Ocasio-Cortez said Monday she was taking time off Twitter because it made her anxious.
- But she returned to react to Sen. Joe Manchin declaring an end to a spending bill she supports.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez cut short a break from social media on Tuesday, a day after saying she was taking a break from the platform.
Ocasio-Cortez in the tweet took on Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin for declaring “dead” efforts to pass Joe Biden’s sweeping Build Back Better social and climate change. Ocasio-Cortez passionately supports the spending package.
“Seniors, kids, & people with disabilities in my community have been sleeping with bubble jackets on in 18 degree nights, despite paying rent, bc the NYCHA funding to fix their heating and capital needs is in BBB,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted.
“Where should I direct them to wait out the cold? Manchin’s yacht?”
—Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 1, 2022
Ocasio-Cortez’s social-media savvy has won her a vast following and raised her political profile, but she is also the frequent target of attacks from Republicans, and has spoken previously about the psychological toll of receiving death threats and abuse online.
On Monday Ocasio-Cortez responded to a question on her Instagram account about why she hadn’t posted on Twitter since January 27.
She explained that she was taking a break because she had started getting anxious while using it.
“So I mean, literally, I would go to open the app and I almost felt like, anxious. People like, kind of fight and gossip, and all this other stuff so much,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a short video.
“But, and there’s a lot of negative negativity on there, but I’ll be back. Don’t worry. Just a break.”
She clashed with critics on Twitter earlier in January for partying without a mask on a break to Florida, which led to them testing positive for COVID.
Ocasio-Cortez is one of the most prominent members of the Democratic party’s progressive wing, and is an adamant defender of the Build Back Better bill.
She is a frequent critic of Manchin who effectively killed the legislative package by refusing to vote for it in the Senate.
Given their slim majority in the Senate, Democrats require unanimous backing from their caucus to pass the legislation.
While in DC, Manchin lives on a boat, the Almost Heaven, docked on the Potomac river. He has on occasion been confronted by protesters who kayaked up to the vessel to confront him about his political positions.
There is some dispute over whether the 65-foot vessel qualifies as a “yacht.”
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