Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is one of the high-profile guest judges on the upcoming season of RuPaul’s Drag Race, alongside Nicki Minaj, Chaka Khan, and Jeff Goldblum.
Of course, with the announcement came fierce complaining from conservatives, but it’s nothing the freshman Democrat can’t handle.
Related: Here’s RuPaul’s top moments from hosting SNL for the first time
The Twitter account for RuPaul’s Drag Race promoted the guest appearance with a spot where the politician says, “I’m Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and I pledge allegiance to the drag.”
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Conservative influencer Charlie Kirk tweeted “…I wonder why she never claims to be proud to ‘pledge allegiance to the Flag’…” and Stephen Miller to sarcastically note “time well spent in Congress…I’m starting to think she doesn’t want to actually legislate.” Mark Dice called her a “Degenerate Communist” for appearing on the show.
AOC’s response made a reference to the show, telling the right-wing complainers to “go back to Party City,” which comes from Season 4 of the show when Phi Phi O’Hara tells Sharon Needles off for claiming that O’Hara only has “an old, tired showgirl look.”
Ocasio-Cortez is an avid Drag Race fan and has often attended drag shows. She has also used RuPaul’s Drag Race lines as responses to critics before.
As for her actual time filming the episode, Ocasio-Cortez tweeted that it was “absolutely, 100% a peak experience” and used the hashtag #YouBettaVote.
They can go back to Party City 😉🏳️🌈 https://t.co/SOf33dXmBp
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 13, 2020
This was absolutely, 100% a peak experience.
I am SO excited for the new season. Thank you @RuPaulsDragRace for having me!#YouBettaVote 🇺🇸🏳️🌈✌🏽 https://t.co/yuD2y7nNw9
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 13, 2020
“Right-wing trolls have been obsessed with drag queens for years,” said Brennan Suen, LGBTQ program director at Media Matters in a press release, “(so have I but for better reasons)…I, along with the rest of the civilized world, was gagged to see that AOC would be judging this season and can’t wait for these pundits to sashay away.”
In the meantime, AOC also took time to address a concern about her House of Representative website‘s contact form. Christopher Keelty, a bisexual author, pointed out that the form only offered gendered options for someone’s prefix – and that it was required, meaning people that apply as non-binary or two-spirit had to choose a prefix that may not adequately represent them.
Ocasio-Cortez replied to Keelty that this was caused by a standardized form built into the website, but promised to “talk to our team to change it!”
Thank you so much for pointing this out! There is a standardized form backend which is creating this issue. I’ll talk to our team to change it!
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 13, 2020
For posterity, here’s the moment from Drag Race when O’Hara tells Needles to go where she belongs.
