"Totalitarian," "ignorant," "scary," and waging a "war on cows"

Melissa Joskow / Media Matters Fox News has always used certain prominent Democrats as boogeymen -- someone for hosts and guests to demonize, knock down, and refer to whenever grievances need to be aired against the Democratic Party. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Nancy Pelosi all have been put in this rhetorical role, but since June 2018, Fox personalities have set their sights on a new target: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Ocasio-Cortez, commonly referred to as AOC, is a 29-year-old freshman Democratic congresswoman from the Bronx. Since arriving in Washington, D.C., Ocasio-Cortez has drawn continued attention for championing progressive policies such as “Medicare for All,” expanding the national debate on climate change with the introduction of the Green New Deal[1], demonstrating a savvy use[2] of social media, and pursuing sharp lines of questioning[3] in high-profile congressional committee hearings.  She has also become an obsession[4] on Fox News. In the six weeks from February 25 and April 7, her name was mentioned 3,181 times[5] on Fox News and Fox Business; not a day went by in that time frame that she wasn't discussed on the networks.  Ocasio-Cortez is brought up constantly[6], even if the topic has nothing to do with her, as with the recent terror attacks in New Zealand[7]. Hosts and guests smear and misrepresent[8] Ocasio-Cortez’s agenda, caricaturing it while painting it as radical, dangerous, far-left[9] socialism[10]. They often draw bleak comparisons between her progressive vision and the turmoil in Venezuela or invoke murderous[11] dictators[12] to attack her policies. Fox figures go on extended, agressively[13] angry rants[14] about her. They've repeatedly attacked her intelligence, used her age[15] to discredit her, and dismissed her as a “little[16] girl,”[17] (as when Brit Hume said[18] she's “kind of adorable in sort of the way that a 5-year-old child can be adorable"). They cite national polls[19] about her popularity, despite her being a first-term congresswoman representing one district in New York, and claim she has taken over[20] the Democratic

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