Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sported controversy on Twitter after she criticized a Christian ad campaign, saying it put a positive spin on “fascism.”
“Something tells me Jesus would *not* spend millions of dollars on Super Bowl ads to make fascism look benign,” Ocasio-Cortez told her over 13.4 million Twitter followers.
She was responding to a Christian ad campaign called “He Gets Us,” funded by the same family behind craft store chain Hobby Lobby.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., speaks during a rally for immigration provisions to be included in the Build Back Better Act outside the U.S. Capitol, Dec. 7, 2021 in Washington. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
The multimillion dollar campaign bought two ad spots on Super Bowl Sunday and divided viewers, some of whom said the “Jesus” depicted in the ads was a “worldly” one.
But Ocasio-Cortez took fault with the political bent of the ads, one of which showed scenes of protesters on the right and on the left fighting over issues like pandemic lockdowns.
Conservative and liberal political commentators grilled the congresswoman for labeling the ad campaign as pro-“fascism.”
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Lee Ziemba, a former football player for Auburn University, offered a summary of Ocasio-Cortez’s logic.
“Love your enemy equates to Fascism?” Ziemba asked, tweeting a crying laughing emoji. “You’re brilliant!” he wrote.
Attorney Eric Owens said that Ocasio-Cortez was missing the entire point of the commercial.
“That’s your take from a great Super Bowl ad reminding us of the truth, universal to all religions and all wisdom, that hate is bad?” Owens said. “Are you serious? You have jumped the shark. Presumably, an intern is writing your tweets while you wear a fancy dress to a Super Bowl ball.”
“Are you a theologian now? What can you not do?” another user asked the congresswoman.
Composer Michael Badal was critical of what he called “Christian nationalism,” but said that Ocasio-Cortez was wrong in her interpretation of the ad campaign.
“You actually missed the mark on this one,” he wrote. “That ad was in opposition of the Christian nationalism that is eating away at our country.”
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Actor Ben Affleck was spotted serving donuts and coffee at a Medford, Massachusetts location Dunkin Donuts (Lisa Mackay / LIFESTYLOGY /TMX)
Celebrities featured especially heavily in this year’s Super Bowl advertisements, with actor Ben Affleck’s commercial for Dunkin’ Donuts winning high praise from fans online.
Affleck worked at a Dunkin’ Donuts’ drive-thru in Massachusetts in the TV spot, during which his wife, actress Jennifer Lopez, asked him what he was doing.
“What are you doing?” she asked in the ad. “Is that what you do when you say you’re going to work all day?”
Fox News’ Nikolas Lanum, Lindsay Kornick and Landon Mion contributed to this report.
