Lindsey Graham Calls Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez “Anti-American,” “Anti-Semitic”

By Shane Ryan  |  July 15, 2019 | 11:59am
Politics Features Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Lindsey Graham Calls Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez “Anti-American,” “Anti-Semitic”

Appearing on Fox & Friends Monday morning, Lindsey Graham had some words for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her progressive brethren, like Ilhan Omar, in Congress:

“We all know that AOC and this crowd are a bunch of communists,” he began. “They hate Israel, they hate our own country, they’re calling the guards along our borders, the border patrol agents, concentration camp guards, they accuse people who support Israel of doing it for the Benjamins, they’re anti-Semitic. They’re anti-American.”

“Their policies will destroy our country,” he concluded.

As Dylan Williams of J Street pointed out, this rhetoric comes dangerously close to incitement:

After all, if you’re Lindsey Graham, what do you think should be done about people within your own nation who are anti-American, and who are out to “destroy” the country? He all but called them traitors, and while he’d never say the quiet part out loud, his implication couldn’t be clearer, and it’s the kind of thing that will be picked up by everyone watching…including, potentially, some viewers who aren’t very stable.

When Ocasio-Cortez and others talk about the threats they receive on a daily basis, this is what they mean. And as AOC pointed out, those threats spike when “hateful messages” are aired on outlets like Fox News:

This was deeply irresponsible from Graham, and while that’s no surprise, it’s discouraging to see politicians like him spread messages that could result in increased threats to a fellow member of Congress.

Finally, as you might imagine, Trump loved it, quoting Graham at length:

 
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