Ocasio-Cortez fires back at WSJ editorial

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) took aim at The Wall Street Journal on Thursday after an op-ed writer asserted in a column that the freshman lawmaker encouraged young people to “take pride” in ignorance.

In a column Thursday by Grace Marie-Turner that was shared by the Journal’s Twitter account, Turner writes that Ocasio-Cortez “leads a generation of young people to take pride in their ignorance—of the laws of nature, of history, of the Constitution, of the eternal battle for freedom—and still succeed.”

{mosads}”As much as conservatives are aghast at the over-the-top collectivist ideas of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, we cannot ignore the oversize intrigue with this young woman, who has gained instant influence and celebrity,” the column continues.

Ocasio-Cortez fired back Thursday in a tweet, writing that the conservative newspaper’s editorial board “takes pride in their ignorance of our nation’s history of slavery, Jim Crow, & mass incarceration; willful doubt on the decades of science on climate change; targeting of indigenous peoples, and the classist, punitive agenda targeting working families.”

I guess WSJ Editorial Page takes pride in their ignorance of our nation’s history of slavery, Jim Crow, & mass incarceration; willful doubt on the decades of science on climate change; targeting of indigenous peoples, and the classist, punitive agenda targeting working families. https://t.co/pT4hLhSZiX

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 28, 2019

The New York congresswoman has been the subject of criticism from the newspaper’s columnists before, and earlier this year battled Journal writer and former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan over her response to President Trump’s State of the Union address.

“Why should I be ‘spirited and warm’ for this embarrassment of a [State of the Union]?” the freshman Democrat tweeted at Noonan in January.

“Tonight was an unsettling night for our country. The president failed to offer any plan, any vision at all, for our future,” she added at the time. “We’re flying without a pilot. And I‘m not here to comfort anyone about that fact.”