It’s starting to look like yet another Socialist shakedown in the Big Apple.
Remember when NYC Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani waited one day after his victory to tell supporters of his “everything for free” fantasy that, actually, he needed donations to make any of it happen? Classic bait-and-switch socialism: promise the world, then pass the bill to the suckers who believed you.
Well, now there’s a new Socialist scam brewing — and this one is even more stomach-turning because it involves Thanksgiving turkeys meant for families who might otherwise go without. And right in the middle of it? None other than Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14).
According to a report by the New York Post, AOC recently dispatched an email to her supporters, which seemed to be her yearly request for assistance in helping charitable organizations provide dinner for families in need. The report included a passage from the letter, which said:
“Thanksgiving is two weeks away…Will you chip in $5 or anything you can today to help us bring the joy of the holiday season into homes around NYC this year?”
AOC email seeks donations for turkey giveaway — but money goes straight to her campaign coffers https://t.co/GzpoYWEqch pic.twitter.com/UfhmscC8HI
— New York Post (@nypost) November 22, 2025
Back in 2021, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez was sending out warm, fuzzy emails asking New Yorkers to donate generously so she could help buy Thanksgiving turkey dinners for those in need. That year, she reportedly “raised $33,589.64 for three local charities,” and since 2019 she’s touted her involvement in providing hundreds of turkeys, according to the New York Post.
All very heartwarming — until 2025 rolled around.
Because this year, the generous New Yorkers who thought they were helping put turkey on the tables of struggling families ended up getting something closer to a Halloween trick. As the Post uncovered, clicking her contribution link didn’t take donors to a charity at all.
Instead, it sent them straight to an ActBlue campaign fundraising page, The Post noted.
And a disclosure on the screen where you enter a donation amount tells people it’s “paid for by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for Congress.”
As noted, in past years the congresswoman actually directed people to real charities, where donations went straight to helping families who were struggling. Naturally, most well-meaning New Yorkers assumed the same thing was happening this year — that clicking her link would once again support those in need.
Any decent human being can see exactly what’s going on here. This little bait-and-switch from Sandy is flat-out wrong. Whether it crosses legal lines is for the lawyers and regulators to figure out — I’m not pretending to play an attorney. But morally? It’s indefensible. People clicked expecting to help families in need, not bankroll a politician.
If folks want to make sure their Thanksgiving donations actually reach real people, they can go straight to reputable groups like the Salvation Army’s Operation Thanksgiving page rather than funneling money through a political machine.
At the very least, someone at the Federal Election Commission should be combing through these “turkey emails” immediately. Because if a charity appeal is being used as a campaign fundraising tool, that’s not just shady — it’s the kind of thing the FEC was created to investigate.
