Critics slam 'socialist' Ocasio-Cortez for $300 hair makeover, Richard Manning calls her 'America's Eva Peron'
Just days before turning 30, New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has embraced yet another controversy. Ocasio-Cortez or 'AOC', who became the youngest woman to get elected to the Congress in last year’s midterm elections, reportedly spent nearly $300 on a hair makeover at an expensive salon in downtown Washington in September and critics have not allowed the matter to go unnoticed. After all, AOC often describes herself as a democratic socialist who often complains against the rich and emphasizes on ideas like universal medicare.
According to a report in The Washington Times that cited sources, AOC went to Last Tangle Salon on 19th Street Northwest in September where she spent $80 for a haircut and $180 for lowlights. The bill could have gone up by another $52 because of a 20 percent tip although it could not be confirmed from the Democratic politician’s stylist, the report added.
Ocasio-Cortez compared to Eva Peron
Among AOC's critics was Richard Manning, president of Americans for Limited Government, who compared the Democrat with former Argentinian first lady Eva Peron (1919-52) who was known for flaunting designer gowns and jewels while promoting socialist agenda.
“AOC is the Eva Peron of American politics. She preaches socialism while living the life of the privileged”, Manning was quoted as saying. Manning added that spending money to have a better look is not wrong but it is inappropriate to spend hundreds of dollars to get a hair makeover to make a 'video to decry income inequality.'
The Washington Times report also said Ocasio-Cortez could have saved around $100 by getting the hair service at the government-subsidized barbershop at Capitol Hill, the seat of the Congress. It also referred to the example of former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, also a former senator from Alabama, who regularly went to the Senate Hair Care Services at the Russell Senate Office Building.
AOC's luxury apartment
Ocasio-Cortez, a member of the ‘Squad’, has also complained in the past of the high cost of living in Washington though she herself lives in a luxury apartment building in the in-fashion Navy Yard neighborhood where a no-frills studio apartment’s monthly rent starts at $2,000, the Times reported.
AOC is not the first politician in the US to have made the headlines with a costly hairdo. Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton had shelled out $600 for a haircut during her presidential campaign in 2016 that saw the traffic getting blocked.
But Hillary was not the first from the Clinton family either to have disrupted public service because of a haircut. In 1993, President Bill Clinton had a haircut worth $200 at Los Angeles International Airport which had seen closing down of two of its runways for nearly an hour.
