Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Wins Twitter for the Umpteenth Time with Watchmen Quote

Hard news, this ain’t, but followers of rising progressive star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will appreciate it all the same: Sharing a tweet from civil rights lawyer Cristobal Alex in which he comments on a Politico piece about “exasperated” Democrats attempting to “rein in” Ocasio-Cortez, the rookie congresswoman offered the perfect response.

“None of you understand. I’m not locked up in here with YOU. You’re locked up in here with ME,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted, quoting the landmark late-’80s comic Watchmen from Alan Moore (and don’t forget Dave Gibbons!).

To quote Alan Moore: “None of you understand. I’m not locked up in here with YOU. You’re locked up in here with ME.” https://t.co/8TCmKNJlkD

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 11, 2019

In case you somehow still doubted AOC’s Twitter acumen … doubt no longer.

“[Ocasio-Cortez] needs to decide: Does she want to be an effective legislator or just continue being a Twitter star?” argued an anonymous House Democrat (who’s “in lockstep with Ocasio-Cortez’s ideology,” for whatever that’s worth) in the aforementioned Politico piece. “There’s a difference between being an activist and a lawmaker in Congress.” Clearly the many recent attacks on Ocasio-Cortez—from condescending centrist put-downs to conservative fringe self-owns—have done nothing to cow Ocasio-Cortez into timidity. But we could hardly blame her for quoting a Watchmen character far less interested in fighting the good fight:

pic.twitter.com/Mm5Fq6ibBP

— Rob Rousseau (@robrousseau) January 11, 2019

As for Watchmen itself, HBO’s new series adaptation of the comic classic arrives sometime in 2019. Find out where Paste ranked the original comic among Moore’s best works right here.