The New York Metropolitan Museum of Art’s annual gala is always sure to make headlines, with celebrities and influencers from all over the US gathering together to celebrate fashion and raise money for the museum. At this year’s Met Gala, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the left wing darling and the face that Ben Shapiro sees in his nightmares, made headlines this month after arriving at the event in a white dress with the words “Tax The Rich” scrawled out in giant red lettering. The dress, designed by Brooklyn based fashion designer Aurora James, sent social media into a tailspin, and in a rare moment of bipartisanship, the left and the right came together to have a good laugh at the Congresswoman for her politically charged fashion statement.
Conservatives accused AOC of hypocrisy, meanwhile leftists saw the message as yet another tone deaf political gesture from a party that prefers grandstanding and photo-ops over bringing about actual change.
Regardless of what certain news and opinion outlets would have you believe, not every single attendee at the Met Gala is paying $35,000 for admission. According to the New York Times, the admission price tag is typically paid by designers and corporate sponsors with most attendees going for free as invites of one of the two. In AOC’s case, New York politicians are typically invited to the event as guests of the museum. As for the dress in question, the Congresswoman neither paid the $995 price tag for the dress nor got to keep it.
Despite this, we can still admit that rallying against the rich while partying alongside them, maskless nonetheless, while your handlers are still required to wear them, doesn’t make for great optics. For her part, the congresswoman defended the fashion statement as an attempt to, “puncture the fourth wall of spectacle and excess.” She went on to blast her critics as, “disdainful and unsupportive of women, especially working class women and women of color.” Ah yes, if only we could be more empathetic towards this poor, working class, Tesla-driving, Congresswoman making $174,000 a year.
Look, is AOC’s dress going to change minds and bring about radical change? Probably not. Is it going to have the opposite effect and further stall America’s lack of progress on income inequality? Not likely either. Let’s just look at this incident for all it is, a distraction. A ridiculous, hilarious distraction.
There are genuine criticisms to be had with AOC and the Democratic Party in general, but there are bigger things to worry about than these continuous political stunts. Would it be great if they were put to an end? Yes, old, white, liberals kneeling in kente cloth helps no one, but that’s not going to happen.
If there’s one lesson we can learn from AOC, it’s that there is real power in grassroots movements. Her election in 2018 unseated one of the most powerful members of congress. A ten term incumbent that many democratic operatives viewed as a potential successor to Speaker Nancy Pelosi. So instead of continuing to pay attention to the ridiculous political stunts that politicians pull, let’s focus on pushing our representatives at all levels of government to actually bring about some form of meaningful change, and if they refuse to deliver on their promises, vote them out.