New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is once again at the center of online debates, as left and right battle over an Instagram livestream where she described her experience during the latest riot at the U.S. Capitol by telling her audience, “I thought I was going to die.”

The right argued that Ocasio-Cortez wasn’t actually in any danger. Rioters that day never breached the office building she was in; Capitol Police made sure she was never harmed. The left, meanwhile, insisted that nobody has any right to tell her how she should feel about what she lived through; we should “stop invalidating” her experiences.

There can be no doubt that the riot at the Capitol was a terrible event. More than 100 police officers were injured, and one, Brian Sicknick, gave his life defending Congress; several rioters were killed in the melee, including one who was shot dead. Although some of Ocasio-Cortez’s claims afterward about what transpired are flatly false — Ted Cruz did not try to have her murdered, as she claimed in an inflammatory Tweet — you can hardly blame her for being fearful that day.

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