On Thursday, a video of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – the youngest woman to be elected to the US Congress – surfaced on social media, in what was meant to be a smear campaign against her. But instead of creating a scandal, the video ended up endearing her to more people.

The 30-second video was initially posted by a twitter user called AnonymousQ and featured Ocasio-Cortez dancing to the song Lisztomania by Phoenix on the roof of a building in her college years. “Here is America’s favorite commie know-it-all acting like the clueless nitwit she is,” read the tweet by the now-deleted account, according to CNN.

But social media users jumped to her defence. The edited clip is part of a four-minute-twenty-second video posted on YouTube eight years ago (bottom).

Singer-songwriter Jonathan Mann turned the video into an advertisement for the US medical insurance campaign, Medicare for All, of which the congresswoman is a supporter.

Ocasio-Cortez, meanwhile, was too busy making history by being sworn in as the youngest ever US Congresswoman, at 29. On Friday, however, she hit back at her critics by posting a new video of herself dancing outside her new office in the halls of Congress as War by Edwin Starr played in the background.

Play