Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has released a series of gender-neutral sweatshirts on her website, including one that reads “Eat the Rich”.
On Wednesday (December 2), the New York congresswoman unveiled a new line of merch on her official store. Each piece makes reference to AOC’s marquee policies, from cancelling student debt to the Green New Deal.
But it was her gender-neutral “Tax the Rich” sweatshirt that drew the ire of republicans. Critics of AOC felt the price ($58) was hypocritical given her support for democratic socialism, a political philosophy shared by former running mate Bernie Sanders.
Brigitte Gabriel, founder and chairman of the right-wing, outright racist anti-Muslim group ACT for America, referred to the sweatshirt as “tone-deaf”. Former National Rifle Association spokeswoman Dana Loesch claimed that Ocasio-Cortez was “railing against capitalism by literally engaging in it”, while PragerU, a conservative media company which recently had a pair of anti-trans videos removed from YouTube for violating hate speech policies, tweeted: “Elites telling working class people they’re fighting for them and then ripping them off is Marxism 101.” (Disclaimer: it‘s not)
Even Dean Browning, the Republican candidate from Pennsylvania who was recently outed for pretending to be a Black, gay man on Twitter, piped in. “Seems like capitalism,” he tweeted.
In response, AOC retweeted a thread from Stephen Punwasi, a former “mass market apparel designer”, who explained why the item is more expensive than your typical fast-fashion attire. He pointed out that on Ocasio-Cortez’s website it states that the sweatshirt is made in the United States through union labour. “Sounds about right,” he said. “That's what it costs to pay everyone a decent wage along the way.”
AOC also tweeted in a separate thread: “Republicans are freaking out bc we don’t use slave-wage labour for merch that funds grassroots organising. But what’s the difference between Trump’s merch and ours? Ours is made in the US.” Gamepoint.
In other merch-related news, Four Seasons Total Landscaping, the Philadelphia garden centre where Donald Trump’s team accidentally held a post-election press conference instead of the Four Seasons Hotel, now has its own range of branded t-shirts, hoodies, and stickers that read ‘Make America Rake Again’ and ‘Lawn and Order’. Bet you won’t see the republicans dragging them on social media.