A woman bizarrely brought up eating babies in a discussion about climate change during an Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Town Hall. You can watch the video, which is going viral online, later in this article.
The women’s identity is not clear, but the Lyndon LaRouche PAC took credit on Twitter, writing, “LaRouchePAC trolls AOC, AOC doesn’t rule out eating babies. #EatTheBabies.” Some people think she was a plant. Conservative Jack Posobiec wrote on Twitter, “The t-shirt gave away that this is a plant but you have to respect how well she stayed in character. AOC still doesn’t know what happened.” Republican Congressman Devin Nunes wrote on Twitter, “Let’s all hope this is a parody.” The woman’s shirt read, “Save the planet Eat the Children.”
However, journalist Matthew Sweet wrote on Twitter, “So who was this woman? Not a climate activist. Not even, perhaps, someone with a mental illness. She is a representative of the bizarre political cult once led by Lyndon LaRouche. Previous targets for this kind of stunt include @Janefonda Olof Palme & Michael Dukakis. Now @AOC.” He added: “But the point here is that a small, weird, politically unclassifiable – once Marxist, now more often described as neo-fascist and antisemitic – has spent nearly five decades pulling these stunts. Democrat Presidential candidate Michael Dukakis was a notable victim.”
The LaRouche group is pro Trump, according to Buzzfeed, which reported that the group’s “Eat the Children” campaign is “modeled on Jonathan Swift’s satirical 1729 essay A Modest Proposal, which attempted to highlight England’s exploitation of the impoverished Irish by suggesting that poor Irish families sell their children as food to wealthy landlords.” The group tweeted, “It was us. Malthusianism isn’t new, Jonathan Swift knew that. Sometimes, only satire works.”
Some AOC critics on Twitter thought she should have challenged the woman. “Yes yes if someone wants to eat… babies you should remain polite and respectful. Never consider challenging their views,” wrote one man sarcastically on Twitter.
The strange video sparked a Twitter war between President Donald Trump, his son Don Jr. and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Donald Trump Jr. retweeted the video, writing, “Seems like a normal AOC supporter to me.” Donald Trump added his own commentary: “AOC is a Wack Job!” AOC then wrote, “better than being a criminal who betrays our country.”
In 2017, the LaRouche group wrote of Trump: “Too many Americans are unaware of what President Trump intends to accomplish, let alone do they understand the means for its success. The media on all sides, some through outright treason, while others through a severe lack of understanding, have not covered his clearly stated commitment to revive the very essence of the greatest of the American traditions – the American System of political-economy.”
When LaRouche died, Daily Beast described him as a conspiracy theorist who started “his political career in the Socialist Workers Party” but moved “increasingly to the right with every decade,” even comparing President Barack Obama to Hitler.
Here’s what you need to know:
The Woman Segued From the New Green Deal to Getting Rid of Babies By Eating Them
Here’s what the woman said when it was her turn to speak. During it all, Ocasio-Cortez stood at the front of the room listening.
“We’re not going to be here for much long because of the climate crisis,” the woman said. “We only have a few months left. I like that you support the Green Deal but getting rid of fossil fuel is not going to solve the problem fast enough. A Swedish professor saying we can eat dead people. But that’s not fast enough. So, I think your next campaign slogan has to be this. We’ve got to start eating babies. We don’t have enough time. There’s too much CO2. All of you, you’re pollutant. Too much CO2. We have to start now. Please. You are so great. I’m so happy that you’re really supporting the Green Deal. It’s not enough. Even if we would bomb Russia, we still have too many people, too much pollution. So we have to get rid of the babies. That’s the big problem…we need to eat the babies.”
Ocasio-Cortez responded, “We’ll go ahead. We’ll go ahead. No, no. Thank you. So I think..One of the things that’s very important to us is that we need to treat the climate crisis with the urgency that it does present. Luckily we have more than a few months. We do need to hit net zero in a couple years. We all need to understand that there are a lot of solutions that we have and that we can pursue… we are never beyond hope.”
AOC later wrote on Twitter, “Hey everyone! We had a fabulous town hall tonight & I’ll be highlighting some moments from it. At one point I was concerned there was a woman in crisis & want to ensure we treat the situation compassionately. Let’s not mock or make a spectacle. &let’s work on Medicare for All!”
She also wrote, “This person may have been suffering from a mental condition and it’s not okay that the right-wing is mocking her and potentially make her condition or crisis worse. Be a decent human being and knock it off.”
The Jokes & Criticism Flew on Twitter
Still, some criticized her response. “A woman stands up and starts yelling WE ONLY HAVE A FEW MONTHS LEFT WE MUST EAT THE BABIES, and AOC basically says ‘actually we have a little more time than that,'” wrote one person on Twitter. Another critic directed this comment at AOC’s Twitter page, “Y r u in the business of associating with people who want to eat babies?”
“If you all were really worried about climate change you would eat the babies, now,” wrote another person. Here are some other responses:
“Notably absent from AOC’s response: ‘there are other solutions, so no, we don’t have to eat the babies…'”
“Should we eat babies?”
“Regardless if she is a troll or a complete nutter …could @AOC tell her girl NOT to eat babies…instead of assuring her we had a few more months.”
“Lol, no, she doesn’t want to offend anyone by making a proclamation that it’s not ok to eat babies, she may lose her base voters.”