In yesterday’s chat AOC also said that she has experienced a sexual assault in the past, which is terrible. However, her use of that experience to try to shame and silence some of her political critics is out of order. In relation to Chip Roy, a Texas congressman who has called on AOC to apologise to Ted Cruz, she said: ‘These are the tactics of abusers… And so when I see this happen, how I feel, how I felt was: “Not again.” I’m not going to let this happen again.’

This is a very morally questionable tactic. We should not use past experiences, however awful they may have been, as trump cards in political discussions in the here and now. If AOC feels she doesn’t have to apologise to Cruz for essentially accusing him of attempted murder, she should say so; she shouldn’t liken those who do think she should apologise to sexual abusers.* Again, this is highly loaded commentary, cynically designed to shrink the space for political pushback.

Right now, AOC might just be the most authoritarian politician in the US. Her hyperbole about the Capitol riot, her fearmongering about the threat of ‘domestic terrorism’, her animosity towards the free press, and her demonisation of her critics as being pro-murder or similar to sexual abusers, in the full knowledge that her army of devoted online followers will amplify these shrill, censorious accusations – this all points to how determined AOC is to crush anything that she considers too right-wing or too offensive.

To be fair, she’s got a tough act to live up to, having launched her Congressional career by demanding that everything from cars to airplanes be banned, as the DNC-MSM struggled mightily to clean up after her rhetorical messes.

* As Tiana Lowe of the Washington Examiner spotted on Thursday: AOC attacks GOP rape survivor Nancy Mace for silencing rape survivors.