Barack Obama told small business owners they didn't build their companies.
Now a Democrat congresswoman just told George Washington he was a socialist.
And Ted Cruz just handed her the grade she deserves.
What She Actually Said
AOC sat down on a comedian's podcast last week and announced that you simply cannot earn a billion dollars.
"You can get market power. You can break rules. You can do all sorts of things. You can abuse labor laws," she said. "But you can't earn that."
Three days of backlash later, she went to the University of Chicago and doubled down.
https://twitter.com/EndWokeness/status/2052885082344394801?s=20
"The American Revolution was against the billionaires of their time," Ocasio-Cortez told the audience.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz responded the way every American who passed 8th grade history wanted to: "If a 9th grader writes this on her history test, she gets an F."
Cruz went further: "It was literally a revolution against oppressive GOVERNMENT – the very thing AOC wants to inflict on all of us. And the Revolution was financed by American free enterprise – the 'billionaires' of that time."
The History She Hopes You Forgot
Here's what actually happened.
George Washington was one of the wealthiest men in colonial America – a land speculator, a plantation owner, a military commander who used his personal fortune to help finance the fight.
John Hancock – the man whose name sits largest on the Declaration of Independence – was a prosperous Boston merchant whose shipping empire made him one of the richest colonists in Massachusetts.
Benjamin Franklin built his wealth through printing, publishing, and invention.
These are AOC's "billionaires of their time."
They didn't revolt because they resented rich people.
They revolted because a distant, bloated government was taxing them without consent – the Stamp Act, the Townshend Acts, soldiers quartered in their homes.
Ron DeSantis said it simply: "Uh, if George Washington wasn't the wealthiest man in the colonies he was pretty close."
Utah Sen. Mike Lee put the real lesson on the table: the Revolution was against "a large, distant, overly intrusive government" with no limits on its power to tax and regulate – a government that, in the founders' own words, ate out the substance of the citizens it claimed to serve.
That description fits exactly one political party in America today.
The Real Agenda Behind the History Lesson
AOC isn't confused about the founding.
She's burning it down deliberately – because the Founders destroy her argument.
If George Washington and John Hancock were wealthy men who built a country that celebrated earning and keeping what you made, then AOC's entire worldview collapses.
Someone should ask her how Taylor Swift exploited her dancers into two billion dollars.
Someone should ask her which labor laws Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker – a Democratic billionaire – abused to earn his family fortune.
https://twitter.com/RonDeSantis/status/2053173254412496989?s=20
Someone should ask her what Tom Steyer, another Democrat billionaire currently trying to buy the California governor's race, stole to get there.
She won't answer, because the question exposes the scam.
AOC doesn't actually hate billionaires.
She hates billionaires who didn't give their money to Democrats.
The Founders built a republic specifically to stop people like her from controlling what you own and deciding what you deserve.
They knew exactly what they were defending against.
It just didn't look like a British king this time.
Sources:
- Lindsay Kornick, "AOC triples down, claims American Revolution was against 'the billionaires of their time,'" Fox News, May 10, 2026.
- Mike Lee, X post responding to AOC, May 10, 2026.
- Ted Cruz, X post responding to AOC, May 10, 2026.
- Ron DeSantis, X post responding to AOC, May 10, 2026.
- "AOC called out for claim that billionaires 'can't earn' their wealth as she doubles down on remarks," Fox News, May 8, 2026.
