Amazon’s long-anticipated decision for the location of its new “HQ2” headquarters was announced with an unexpected twist — the new headquarters will be split between two cities: Queens, New York, and Crystal City, Virginia (a DC suburb). In the end, the reasoning behind this decision is obvious: direct access to the levers of financial and political power in two high-profile leftist enclaves. Instead of locating the new headquarters in the most business-friendly states and environments, Amazon chose leftist power centers knowing that the company will be able to seamlessly pass on any higher costs to consumers. And the tax benefits to Amazon work out to almost $50,000 per job created. Cronyism at its finest.

But there was another reason behind Amazon’s new headquarters’ “search.” In all likelihood, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos had made up his mind on the new locations when the search was first announced. As Reason speculates, “[Amazon’s] HQ2 search was not about HQ2: it was about market research. The mayors and governors and councilmen and commissioners and local developers of America handed priceless information about their plans, investments, and reserve prices to Jeff Bezos for free. … Amazon is now privy to information about where different municipalities are going to direct investment and infrastructure in the near future. The company can exploit this information.”

Interestingly, one of the biggest decriers of Amazon’s decision was none other than Bezos’s fellow lefty and newly elected Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). She blasted the announcement, writing, “Amazon is a billion-dollar company. The idea it will receive hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks at a time when our subway is crumbling and our communities need MORE investment, not less, is extremely concerning to residents here.” Mind you, this is the same Ocasio-Cortez that dodges questions over how she plans to pay for Medicare for All while dubiously complaining about not having enough money to rent an apartment in DC until she begins collecting her congressional salary in January.

Both the billionaire socialist Bezos and poor Ocasio-Cortez are cut from the same cloth — they look to government to dictate to the masses how Americans should live. In Ocasio-Cortez’s case, it’s the demand that taxpayers foot the massive bills for Medicare for All, free college, and a host of other socialist wealth-redistribution schemes. For Bezos, it’s pocketing $2 billion in tax breaks while at the same time working to get the government to create Amazon-favoring minimum-wage legislation that would squelch competition against the online-retail behemoth. Both lust after power. Neither appear interested in abiding by the Constitution or preserving America’s hard-won freedom and exceptionalism.