Conservative YouTuber, podcaster, and writer Matt Walsh launched a GoFundMe campaign over the weekend to benefit Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s grandmother. The campaign raised $100,000 for repairs for the elderly woman’s storm-damaged home in Puerto Rico, but a family member refused to accept the donation and GoFundMe closed the campaign, refunding all donations.
A little background: On June 2, AOC tweeted that for the first time since the outbreak of COVID, she visited her abuela, who had fallen ill. The tweet included pictures of the interior of a house falling apart. There are buckets on the floor to catch the rain that comes in through a ceiling that is falling down. The tweet says, “This is her home. Hurricane María relief hasn’t arrived. Trump blocked relief $ for PR.”
In a second tweet five minutes later, AOC said she “ immediately got to work reaching out to community advocates” since “what’s happening to Puerto Ricans is systemic.”
And that is where Matt Walsh comes into the story. In a series of tweets, Walsh called AOC out for her political use of her grandmother’s poverty.
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He wrote, “AOC went and bought herself a Tesla while her grandmother lives in a shack with a collapsing ceiling,” adding, “It never fails with these champagne socialists. They expect everyone else to make sacrifices while making none themselves.”
He tweeted to AOC that since she makes $180,000 as a member of Congress, she could easily fix up her abuela’s home without reaching out to “community advocates” or blaming Trump. She replied, “You don’t even have a concept for the role that 1st-gen, first-born daughters play in their families.” Her tweet went on to say that rather than only care for her own grandmother, AOC is “calling attention to the systemic injustices” that are to blame.
Typical.
So, Walsh — saying he was frustrated at AOC’s lack of concern for her own abuela — did something AOC could never have seen coming. Rather than reach out to “community advocates” to demand government do something about the situation, he reached into his own pocket. He launched a GoFundMe campaign to “Save AOC’s Abuela’s Ancestral Home.” He put in the first $499 — an amount he says he chose “randomly” that just happens to be the same as the monthly payment on AOC’s Tesla.
The GoFundMe campaign went viral and raised $100,000 in the first 10 hours.
That is when someone in AOC’s abuela’s family informed GoFundMe that the funds would be refused and GoFundMe shut down the campaign, refunding the money.
As Walsh explained on his Daily Wire-affiliated YouTube channel, the refused money would have been enough to not only fix up AOC’s abuela’s ancestral home, but many of the other homes near hers. But — alas — Leftists such as AOC are not really interested in individuals taking their own money to solve problems. They are interested in using the problems as a pretext for government to increase in power, size, and scope. As Walsh points out in his YouTube video on this, the whole thing proves that government involvement is not only unnecessary, but wholly inferior to private, individual action.
In less than 10 hours, Walsh’s campaign raised $100,000. That is $10,000 an hour. And it did not require a committee, an overpaid administrator, or any other type of government bloat. Furthermore, had someone from AOC’s folks (perhaps AOC herself) not killed the campaign, the whole of $100,000 would have made it to where it was needed.
There is no doubt that Walsh intended the campaign as a troll. He admits as much, but says the money was no joke. It was real money that really would have gone to AOC’s abuela to repair her home. In the end, the campaign accomplished a couple things: It showed that individuals are better equipped to handle problems without government involvement and expense. Charity is not a government function. And it showed that AOC is a political actress willing to exploit her own grandmother for the sake of her agenda. Because if her tweet had really been about addressing the dire plight of her poor abuela, then she would have gladly accepted the help that was offered.
