Socialism has long been deemed a dirty word in American politics.
It smacked of a rejection of the capitalistic system that had fueled the country’s rise to superpower status, too reminiscent of a dreamy, share-the-wealth philosophy that goes against the grain of fierce corporate competition.
Looked at another way, the U.S. has a mixed system, with a government-run retirement program, government-run health care systems for the elderly and the poor, and a spate of programs to help farmers, small businesses, schools, veterans, the unemployed and so on. It isn’t exactly a European-style welfare state, but perhaps a close cousin.
Right now, socialists are on a roll in Democratic politics.
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Following the lead of its most visible champion, Zohran Mamdani, they are shoving the party dramatically to the left – and with some deep, dark elements, especially on foreign policy.
This amounts to a gift-wrapped Fourth of July present to the Republicans, who are happy to spend the next few years running against these new-wave socialists.
Maybe that word no longer carries sinister overtones, because President Trump says the three far-left candidates that the New York mayor successfully pushed for Congress are “Communists.” That sounds like a throwback to the 1950s witch hunts known as McCarthyism.
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But this goes beyond Washington and Seattle also electing socialists as mayors, and the obvious point is that most of the country is far to the right compared with the liberal cauldron that is New York City.
The new socialists may have excitement on their side, but some of their views are downright dangerous. And they wage their warfare quite openly under the banner of the Democratic Socialists of America.
“The Democratic Party lets DSA candidates run as Democrats, even though the DSA is ideologically committed to a hostile takeover of the party,” says Jonah Goldberg, editor-in-chief of the Dispatch, a conservative, anti-Trump news site. “The DSA isn’t a formal party; it calls itself ‘a political and activist organization, not a party.’ What it is is a fifth column within the Democratic Party. There is no sensible, informed Democrat who thinks these people are good for their party.”
What about the left? On the liberal show “The View,” Joy Behar announced that “I’m not scared of the term. Social Security is democratic socialism. Partly unemployment insurance is. The people who pick up your garbage, the people who take the fire out of your house. All of these are democratic socialism.”
But it gets worse.
The new socialists are fervently anti-Israel, which clearly deserves criticism for Bibi Netanyahu’s endless wars, but cements the view that the Democratic Party, even in New York, has turned its back on our longtime Middle East ally. That reflects the party’s shift as well.
Based on their own words, many of them hate America as well as Israel.
Trump wasted no time escalating his rhetoric: “Assassination is a big deal for them. They are animals… They will kill your people. And that’s what they’re about.”
The three congressional candidates successfully pushed by Mamdani are openly pro-Palestine. And the mayor, who has used the phrase “from the river to the sea” – meaning wipe Israel off the map – takes the same stance, even in a city with the largest Jewish population outside Israel.
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That seems to be their overriding issue. There’s nothing wrong with the Democratic incumbents who were knocked off – they just weren’t sufficiently anti-Israel.
The most outrageous of the Mamdani-backed winners is Darializa Avila Chevalier, a community organizer and doctoral student who has supported defunding police and prisons, abolishing borders, eliminating ICE, seizing private property and nationalizing major industries.
The day after the savage Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas that butchered 1,200 Israelis and took hostages, Chevalier attended a pro-Palestinian rally in Times Square. She was celebrating a horrifying terrorist assault.
Chevalier has also called Joe Biden a “rapist” and used the F-word against Kamala Harris. And this is not ancient history, with some of the messages posted as recently as 2022.
As pointed out by National Review, Chevalier is hardly alone.
Aber Kawas, the Democratic nominee for a New York state Senate seat, contends that America deserved the 9/11 attacks: Seriously.
“The idea that we have to apologize for, like, a terror attack that, like, a couple people did, and then there’s no apologies or reparations for genocides and for slavery, et cetera, is something that I kind of find, like, reprehensible,” Kawas says.
Chris Rabb, a Pennsylvania state rep and Democratic nominee for Congress, blamed the Bondi Beach massacre of Australian Jews on “Zionists.” Adam Hamawy, a former Army doctor and now a Democratic nominee for Congress from New Jersey, worked with the “blind sheikh,” Omar Abdel-Rahman, who was convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He even testified on the sheikh’s behalf. He now says he’s disavowed Abdel-Rahman’s calls for violence.
Another of Mamdani’s winners, Claire Valdez, would not only abolish ICE but says “detention and deportation have been used as a weapon, not just against immigrants, but against the entire working class.”
And out west, Melat Kiros, another socialist running in Colorado, was asked by a local anchor about a firebombing attack on peaceful protesters supporting Jewish hostages held by Hamas – and refused to condemn it.
“I don’t know what was in the heart of the perpetrator,” she said.
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Ugh. That’s a really low bar – and she failed to clear it.
Do these sound like the kind of people who should be the face of the Democratic Party?
New York Rep. Tom Suozzi has rounded up 12 other Democratic lawmakers to fight back. Under the banner “Promise to America,” these more moderate liberals are declaring themselves champions of capitalism, police and patriotism.
“We disagree with MAGA. We disagree with socialism,” Suozzi says. “We believe the vast majority of America wants common-sense, mainstream leadership, not political extremism.”
It’s a tiny group with little influence, but the Suozzi gang is trying to send a message that the party is not the captive of crazy socialists.
“I’m a capitalist, not a socialist… I’m not ashamed of America,” Suozzi told Fox News Digital.
James Carville flipped out in an X-rated rant, invoking Chevalier and saying: “Lady, I ain’t in the same party as you… I don’t want to be in a political party that denies the right of the state of Israel to exist. I just can’t do that.”
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The socialists are hot right now, a fringe group that has somehow seized the national spotlight, and which Republicans will spend years attacking.
America deserved 9/11? A barbaric terrorist attack on Israelis should be celebrated? Get rid of the police?
Even if only a handful of far-left zealots are elected, they will set the tone for an increasingly extreme party with views that most voters would deem repulsive.
