Bunny Hopping Through the Class War

Starring Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as a democratic socialist, Bad Bunny as the soundtrack to cognitive dissonance, and Puerto Rico as the gentrified backdrop to revolutionary cosplay.

December 12, 2025

I have a simple rule about politicians who build their brand on fighting oligarchs: check the fucking hotel receipts.

So when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's third-quarter

FEC filings dropped, revealing she'd dropped nearly $50,000 on Puerto Rican luxury hotels, gourmet dining, and renting the same San Juan venue where she was photographed vibing at a Bad Bunny concert, I experienced what can only be described as schadenfreude so pure it should be bottled and sold at Whole Foods.

Because here's the thing about revolutionary politics in 2025: the revolution will be Instagrammed from a five-star hotel with "transcendent hints of colonial grandeur."

And it will absolutely be expense-accounted.

Welcome to the Coliseo De Cognitive Dissonance

Let's start with the pièce de résistance: $23,000 in "venue rental" payments to the Coliseo De Puerto Rico on June 24 and August 25. The same venue where AOC was caught on video getting down at Bad Bunny's August concert, wine glass in hand, living her best life while the anti-ICE rapper performed.

Now, her campaign insists these expenses were for "grassroots organizing" and hosting events that require "both staff and security." Which is totally reasonable. Nothing says "grassroots" quite like a $23,000 venue rental at a 18,000-seat arena where NBA stars and Penélope Cruz also happened to be hanging out.

I'm not saying AOC rented the Coliseo just to catch Bad Bunny with her girl Nydia Velázquez. I'm just saying if she did, she managed to make the proletariat pay for VIP access to "Donde Ella No Está" while calling it "community engagement."

That's not a campaign expense. That's a fucking tax-deductible concert ticket.

Adults Only: A Colonial Experience

But the Coliseo is just the opening act. The real tour de force is AOC's hotel selection, which reads like a Condé Nast checklist written by someone who's never actually met a worker they claim to represent.

Between July and September, her campaign dropped $15,489.77 on lodging in Puerto Rico, including multiple stays at the Hotel Palacio Provincial — an "adults only," "first-class" boutique property that literally markets itself on its "transcendent hints of the structure's grand colonial past."

Let me repeat that: grand colonial past.

You know, the same colonialism AOC routinely condemns on Twitter between five-star check-ins.

The Palacio Provincial charges upwards of $300 a night for rooms featuring exposed brick, artisanal cocktails, and presumably, a gift shop selling ironic reminders of Spanish imperialism. It's the kind of place where you can sip a $22 mojito while contemplating the brutal extraction economy that built the terracotta you're Instagramming.

And AOC loved it so much she went back three times, shelling out $680.52 in July, $1,507.26 in August, and a jaw-dropping $9,440.79 in September.

For context, that September bill alone could cover three months of rent for an average family in San Juan. But sure, tell me more about fighting gentrification.

The "Old World Charm" of Class Warfare

Not luxurious enough? Don't worry. AOC's campaign also spent $3,861.20 at Hotel El Convento, another 19th-century colonial property advertising its "old world charm and elegance."

Old world charm. You know what else had old world charm? Feudalism.

At this point, I'm starting to think AOC's campaign finance director is just trolling the Left. Like, they sat down and thought, "What's the most on-the-nose way to undermine our anti-gentrification messaging?" and someone said, "Boutique colonial hotels?" and everyone high-fived.

Meanwhile, back on AOC's Instagram in August, she was posting about the "devastating impact of gentrification" on Puerto Rico, lamenting how wealthy mainlanders were pricing out locals and transforming the island into a tax haven playground for crypto bros and hedge fund managers.

Devastating, she called it. From the terrace of a hotel that costs more per night than most Puerto Ricans make in a week.

The cognitive dissonance isn't just strong here. It's structural.

Eating the Rich (Literally, in This Case)

Let's talk about the food, because of course there's food.

AOC's campaign spent at least $10,743.13 on "meals and catering services" in Puerto Rico during the same period, plus an additional $11,500 on dining across DC, Vermont, the Bronx, and — I cannot stress this enough — an ice cream company called Mr. Ding-a-ling.

But my personal favorite? A single $6,300 meal at Ama, an upscale Italian restaurant in DC's Navy Yard.

Six. Thousand. Three. Hundred. Dollars.

On Italian food. In Washington. While on a tour called "Fighting Oligarchy" with Bernie Sanders.

I want you to imagine what $6,300 worth of pasta looks like. I want you to picture the server's face when the campaign card came out. I want you to consider the possibility that somewhere, in some parallel universe, there's a version of AOC who understands that you can't fight oligarchy with pancetta di oligarchia.

The Oligarchy Tour (First Class Section)

And speaking of the Fighting Oligarchy tour, let's review some of those expenses, shall we?

• $6,600 for lodging at the Hotel Vermont in Burlington (Bernie's turf, naturally)
• $2,000 at the Thompson Central Park Hotel in Manhattan
• $3,000 at the Arlo Williamsburg in Brooklyn

For those keeping score at home, that's over $11,000 in boutique hotel stays just to tell people oligarchs are bad.

It's like launching an anti-obesity campaign from a Cheesecake Factory booth. It's like hosting a financial literacy seminar at a payday loan office. It's performance art, except the artist doesn't realize they're the punchline.

Revolutionary Aesthetics, Bourgeois Budget

Here's the uncomfortable truth that AOC's fans will need to reckon with: this isn't an accident. This is what happens when revolutionary politics becomes a brand instead of a practice.

AOC didn't accidentally stumble into luxury hotels. She didn't randomly end up at a Bad Bunny concert with LeBron James and Iggy Azalea and think, "Wow, weird how the grassroots always leads to celebrity adjacency." She made choices — choices that prioritized comfort, prestige, and proximity to cultural capital over the stated values of her movement.

And look, I get it. Nobody wants to stay at a Motel 6. Nobody dreams of eating Subway for campaign dinners. But when your entire political identity is built on critiquing wealth inequality and gentrification, maybe — just maybe — you don't blow $50K on colonial luxury hotels in the place you're literally accusing of being gentrified.

Or at minimum, you don't post thirst traps from the balcony while doing it.

The Socialist Champagne Problem

This is the champagne socialist dilemma in its purest form: How do you fight the system when you're financially enmeshed in its rewards? How do you critique oligarchy from the oligarch section?

AOC's response, through her campaign manager, was that she "regularly travels to Puerto Rico to support local causes" and is "deeply proud of her investment in grassroots organizing."

Grassroots organizing. With a $23,000 venue rental. And $15,000 in luxury hotels. And wine at a Bad Bunny concert.

The word "grassroots" is doing Herculean labor in that sentence.

Final Scene: Dancing on the Grave of Credibility

Look, I don't begrudge anyone a good concert. Bad Bunny slaps. Puerto Rico is gorgeous. And if AOC wants to enjoy herself, fine — she's human.

But you don't get to build a political brand on class consciousness and then live like the class you're supposedly conscious of. You don't get to scream about gentrification while gentrifying. You don't get to call yourself a Democratic Socialist while your campaign burns through cash like a Succession character with daddy issues.

This isn't about purity politics or demanding AOC live in a tent. It's about basic fucking consistency. If your politics are grounded in economic justice, your economics should reflect some version of that justice. If you're going to tour the country telling working people that oligarchs are the enemy, maybe don't spend like one.

Because here's what this really signals: AOC has become what every revolutionary eventually risks becoming when the revolution gets a merchandising deal — a symbol that's been captured by the very systems it claimed to oppose.

She's not fighting oligarchy.

She's financing it, one boutique hotel at a time.

And somewhere in San Juan, in a neighborhood being priced out by wealthy tourists and tax-dodging mainlanders, someone's rent just went up again.

But don't worry.

AOC will definitely tweet about it from the Palacio Provincial.

Right after she finishes her $22 mojito