Jesse Lee Peterson: During the Insurrection, AOC May Have Wanted to Get Raped

During an interview earlier this week on the CNN show Being…, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told host Dana Bash that she didn’t just fear getting killed during the Trump-inspired January 6 insurrection. She feared being raped.

OCASIO-CORTEZ: I think one of the reasons why that impact was so doubled that day is because of the misogyny and the racism that is so deeply rooted and animated that attack on Capitol. White supremacy and patriarchy are very linked in a lot of ways.

There is a lot of sexualizing of that violence, and I didn’t think that I was just going to be killed. I thought other things were going to happen to me as well.

BASH: So it sounds like what you’re telling me right now is that you didn’t only think that you were going to die, you thought you were going to be raped?

OCASIO-CORTEZ: Yeah, yeah, I thought I was.

Right-wing Christian radio host Jesse Lee Peterson — who recently claimed that it was generally a “big mistake to educate women” and doubled down on it earlier this week — played that clip of AOC on his livestream this morning for the sole purpose of mocking her for it.

After claiming that AOC must have some kind of mental illness, Peterson went on to suggest that her fear of being raped was inspired by a desire for that to happen.

This woman, Cortez, must be mentally ill or something. She seemed to be mentally ill.

All the lights… she’s there but the lights are not on. The lights are on, but she’s not there. No one’s home.

…

It was reported that she wasn’t even at the building? But she thought she was going to be raped? Is that wishful thinking or what? Maybe she wishes she was at the building so she could possibly get raped.

Maybe. I don’t know. That’s crazy.

Not that this matters but AOC didn’t lie about her location. She never said she was in the main Capitol building during the attack; she was in her office in a building adjacent to the Capitol. That didn’t make the MAGA-fueled attacks any less threatening, especially to one of the most outspoken progressives in Congress.

But more to the point, this is the broken-brain thinking of people like Jesse Lee Peterson. He can’t simply acknowledge that AOC was scared for good reason. In order to preserve his own frail masculinity and protect the reputations of his core listeners, he has to dismiss her claims while also suggesting she may have secretly hoped to be assaulted, whether for sexual reasons or for a desire to be some kind of liberal martyr. It’s just vile.

Peterson then went on to claim there’s a battle between “good and evil” and AOC was on the side of evil.

It’s always projection with these people.