The Washington Times reported earlier this week about a recent visit Squad leader and admitted socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) made to a DC salon that ended up being pricey:
The self-declared socialist, who regularly rails against the rich and complains about the cost of living inside the Beltway, spent nearly $300 on her hairdo at a pricey salon she frequents in downtown Washington, The Washington Times has learned.
The New York Democrat ventured into Last Tangle Salon on 19th Street Northwest last month and shelled out $80 for a haircut and $180 for lowlights, according to sources familiar with the salon.
A 20% tip would have added $52 to the bill.
The article also noted less expensive places she could have chosen to have her hair done.
There was a predictable debate on social media as to whether or not this was even newsworthy. But given her “spread the wealth” philosophy, her frequent rants against “privileged” people, and how often she complains about DC living expenses and paying off her student loan debt, I think the story was totally worth covering:
“AOC is the Eva Peron of American politics. She preaches socialism while living the life of the privileged,” said Richard Manning, president of Americans for Limited Government, referencing the former first lady of Argentina who was known for dressing in designer gowns and jewels while advocating a socialist agenda.
“There is nothing wrong with spending money to make yourself look better, especially as a personality who depends upon visual mediums for her power. But it is a bad look to spend hundreds of dollars to get your hair done to make a video decrying income inequality,” Mr. Manning said.
Mr. Manning made excellent points, but as you might have guessed already, AOC didn’t feel the same way.
She ranted about it on her Twitter feed Thursday morning and Thursday night for good measure.
Here are the two responses that stood out to me:
40 million Americans live in poverty under today’s extreme inequality, yet the right-wing want you to blame Democratic socialism for their own moral failures.
Our policies, like Medicare for All, advance prosperity for working people.
They’re just mad we look good doing it 💁🏽♀️ https://t.co/l9gKGtyKra
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) October 10, 2019
Won’t you look at that: Mike Pence used *taxpayer funds* – not personal ones – to spend several thousand haircuts’ worth of public money on a visit to Trump golf courses.
I wonder if Republicans care about corruption as much as they care about a woman’s cut & color. https://t.co/xBze4obZhv
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) October 10, 2019
First things first: Ocasio-Cortez’s quip about how “they’re just mad we look good doing it” is laughable for a number of reasons, some of which I mentioned above (because it’s not really about a haircut). It’s also hilarious considering she had a mini-meltdown over the “glamour shot” photo the New York Times used in an article they did about former White House communications director Hope Hicks a few months ago.
Yet just days after her Hope Hicks tweets, the freshman Congresswoman hypocritically complained about how women’s looks are sometimes used against them in order to belittle them (though AOC is totally not against using a woman’s looks against her when it suits her political purposes).
In her second tweet Thursday about HaircutGate, she said “I wonder if Republicans care about corruption as much as they care about a woman’s cut & color”, because playing the woman card is one of the things AOC does best when she has no good defense.
Guess she didn’t notice that the very same Washington Times article she railed against for daring to write “about a woman’s cut and color” also mentioned other notorious instances where the haircuts of male and female politicians made the news:
The 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, splurged $600 on a hairdo during the campaign, prompting Vanity Fair to ask in a headline: “Is $600 too much for a haircut?”
Former Sen. John Edwards, who ran for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination and was the 2004 vice presidential nominee, was known to pay more than $500 to his hairstylist. President Bill Clinton’s $200 haircut in 1993 at Los Angeles International Airport made headlines when two of the airport’s runways had to be shut down for nearly an hour during the procedure.
Let’s also not forget the endless parade of articles on President Trump’s hair. And First Lady Melania Trump’s fashion choices.
As usual, AOC stepped on a rake bigly in a desperate attempt at deflecting a legitimate criticism. Not the first time, and won’t be the last.
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— Based in North Carolina, Sister Toldjah is a former liberal and a 15+ year veteran of blogging with an emphasis on media bias, social issues, and the culture wars. Read her Red State archives here. Connect with her on Twitter. –
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