Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez claims Southern red states are 'suppressed states' that must be liberated to 'heal' America

"Squad" member and New York Democrat Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez claimed during an hour-long Instagram post Tuesday that Southern states are not "red states," but actually "suppressed states" that need to be liberated in order to "heal" America.

"That's what we got to do. We got to organize," Ocasio-Cortez stated on camera to her Instagram followers, pivoting to discuss the two Senate runoffs in Georgia that resulted in the elections of Democratic candidates Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff. "And I think what we saw in Georgia is a really good example with black women leading the way, with multiracial and multicultural organizations leading the way."

The voter turnout "proved that Southern states are not red states," she claimed.

"They are suppressed states, which means the only way that our country is going to heal is through the actual liberation of Southern states, the actual liberation of the poor, the actual liberation of working people—from economic, social, and racial oppression. That's the only way. That's the only way."

"We just got to keep pushing, but tonight the votes that happened were to urge Vice President Pence to invoke the 25th and tomorrow we vote on impeachment," she continued. "We will be impeaching the president of the United States tomorrow."

However, the Democratic wins in the Peach State are more nuanced than Ocasio-Cortez simplified.

The New York Times even noted that while Georgia leans right, Republicans were at a significant disadvantage because the GOP was "handicapped" by President Donald Trump's "refusal to acknowledge his defeat, which robbed them of what might have been their best argument for election: that they would be a check on liberal excesses in a government controlled by Democrats."

The Wall Street Journal's editorial board wrote the following analysis on the alleged disaffected Republican voting bloc: "If you want to win, don't tell voters that their votes don't matter. Don't have a President tell his voters that the last election was stolen, that Georgia Republicans were complicit in the theft, that GOP Senate leaders don’t care, and then expect those same voters to turn out in the Senate runoffs after a rally and a few tweets."

"Donald Trump cost Republicans the Senate by making the two Georgia runoffs a referendum on himself. The races should have been a referendum on blocking Democrats from controlling all of Congress and the executive branch. But that message was obscured, if not obliterated, by Mr. Trump's insistence on telling voters day after day that he was cheated in November—no matter the lack of credible evidence or plausible path to victory," the editorial argued, also insisting that Trump hurt Republicans by "stumping" for $2,000 in COVID-19 relief checks after the GOP Senate had voted for $600.