Nothing Means Anything, and Everyone Is Okay With It

For as long as I can remember, the right wing in this country has decried democrats as socialists. They have been so scared and it is genuinely so, so, silly, especially when they say something like “Tony Evers is a socialist.” This leaves real socialists scratching our heads. “You mean this guy??” 

Well, after a trickle of exciting socialist victories, it seems the floodgates have finally opened up. This cycle kicked off with a socialist charming his way into becoming America’s new mayor, then like clockwork, lefties were winning all over the country. With some coordination, we may have a genuine voting block that pushes the national Democratic Party towards adopting better positions on a myriad of issues. Despite what grifters on the right will tell you, the people winning these elections are good for all of us.

Now, those grifters have been calling everyone to the left of George HW Bush a socialist since forever. I always thought it would be really interesting to see how they responded when suddenly someone was an actual socialist. How do they differentiate between a socialist, and someone they have disingenuously called a socialist for years? It seems like the new thing is to call us straight up “communist.” Because nothing means anything, and everyone is okay with it.

Everyone?

I suppose not. But it isn’t like centrists are running to these socialists' defense or anything. Rather the DNC is running the playbook they built in 2016 and warning the public of the encroaching threat of Melat Kiros, Darializa Chevalier, and Chris Rabb.

Is it the establishment Democrats’ job to defend their leftist infiltrators? It doesn’t seem to be, “big tent” be damned. At the same time, who do they think they are playing with by complaining about us? Democrat Party approval ratings cratered before socialist candidates injected some enthusiasm and raised the numbers. They have yet to internalize that triangulation doesn’t work, and there is no version of being a moderate that will win over Republicans. 

We recently learned that we have a huge fan in local right-wing journalist Jessica McBride – hey girl, love the hair! Her articles are genuinely instructive (not… good, but they do offer some insight into the Republican mind) in her articles about the primary, she will routinely talk up a Democrat as the most reasonable of the bunch, only to then throw the rest of the candidates under the bus by comparison. Make no mistake, McBride is committed to Tom Tiffany. No matter how clear Trump’s association becomes with the Epstein class, the tanking economy, and efforts to discard democracy, there is no Democratic candidate who could possibly sell her on voting against Trump’s stooge in November. Why would we even attempt to find one?

If national media is more your speed, then consider Fox News’ new favorite Democrat John Fetterman. He is someone Sean Hannity has called “a patriot,” which is one hell of a ringing endorsement. They love him right now, and he gets so much air time on their platform to talk about these dirty socialists infesting the Democratic Party. This works for him in 2026 because he doesn't have an election to win. However – and feel free to come back to this in 2028 to see if I am correct – he will have stiff competition from the left in his primary next time he runs for his seat. Even if he defeats that progressive challenger in that primary, it's not like the Republicans are going to vote for him instead of whoever their guy is. We have a two party system in this country, like it or not, and no Republican in Trump’s America is voting for Republican Lite. This brings us to our one-time-only segment:

Scoobert the Science Flirt

Hey hot stuff, why not sit down and let’s talk a little chemistry. There has been a lot of talk about the country becoming more polarized since… before I was born. But that term doesn’t just mean we all hate each other. It also doesn’t mean we suddenly have more polar bears (because we certainly do not.) 

Rather, polarity is established at the atomic level, as certain atoms do and do not connect to each other based on their electrical charge.These tiny molecules refuse to even get close to each other unless they can form a bond. Can’t they just get along? It’s disheartening – if they sat down and talked it out they might discover they have more in common than they think! Too bad though, electronegativity is the rule. Do you think two water molecules bond at the oxygen atom? Get real! This is basically how the two party system works in the United States. It isn’t ideal for most of us, but because of polarity, the two just don’t mix. The Democratic party is not able to decide when Republicans see Democrats as socialists or not.

Now, polarity isn’t the end of the story; it actually gives us an opportunity to work together. For example, if one tried to combine sodium hydroxide, ethanol, and a triglyceride, they would not mix, obviously. (It’s like a salad dressing – but poisonous!) But when heated together, they will start to coalesce, get a little more comfortable with each other. Combine this heterogenous mixture with sodium chloride and baby you just made soap! (It's a metaphor!)

How do we make soap out of America? Well, it’s gonna be tough. There are a lot of factors trying to keep us from our potential, but I believe that these fake-out “they are communist” attacks will fail to resonate with people as more socialist candidates are able to start delivering on affordability promises. It is also crucial that we as Democratic primary voters ditch the “electability” framework.

The Ghost of Electability

Electability is not a hard science, but it does combine a number of dubious factors that the layman can toss about to justify their gut instinct. In the spirit of Scoobert the Science Flirt, let’s think about this scientifically. Consider the electability of Sara Rodriguez and David Crowley. Rodriguez is clearly the more electable of the two for the governor’s race, and here is why:

Crowley has relevant executive experience, something that I think went wildly under appreciated during his gubernatorial bid. He is well-liked in his county, and for that matter has some personal clout in activist circles for just being the guy who showed up and was cool as hell. People I respect have good things to say about working with David Crowley. He has a beautiful family, he is a good public speaker that effectively communicates his ideas. But on the other hand, Sara Rodriguez won an election in Waukesha that one time, and is white. So she’s more electable, I guess? 

“Electability” is fake, and is made up to justify caution from a Democratic primary voter. I don’t mean to say that no one has ever found themselves genuinely moved by the irresistible supermassive charisma of Joel Brennan and decided he was the best choice for governor. But how much of his support comes from the idea that a white man has the best chance winning an election in Wisconsin?

On the other hand, there is presupposition that Fran Hong could never win over the “racist hicks” up north, so the prudent thing to do is to rally support around one of the other front runners (taking her supporters for granted in November). In the process of shutting down that Democratic Socialist candidate, Democratic operatives may think, “If right-wing outlets want to smear her as a communist… The enemy of my enemy is my friend!”

This is categorically false (see: Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party) and the Democratic party needs to learn this lesson right the fuck now. A Sara Rodriguez voter is more aligned with a Fran Hong voter and a Joel Brennan voter is more aligned with a Mandela Barnes voter than any of them are with a Tom Tiffany voter.* Meanwhile, the Tom Tiffany voter doesn’t give a shit which one of them wins the primary; the R is the deciding factor, and it always has been.

I’d like to close with an insight from the centrist ubermensch himself. I’m not really a fan, but for a liberal, he does have a solid vision of where he would like the party to go. Mayor Pete Buttigieg sums up what I am saying perfectly:

"It's time to stop worrying about what the Republicans will say. It's true that if we embrace a far left agenda, they're going to say we're a bunch of crazy socialists. If we embrace a conservative agenda, you know what they're going to do? They're going to say we're a bunch of crazy socialists. Let's stand up for the right policy, go out there and defend it.”

And there you go. The right wing will cry “it’s communism” or “it is crazy socialism!” None of it matters because whatever they are going to say they are just going to say. What we need to do is find the policy that is going to help the most people and pursue that.

*Actually, DNC campaign consultant Rob Flaherty had something interesting to add to the swing voter conversation that was brought to my attention too late to try and incorporate into this article. He submits that the real swing voters are the ones who oscillate between having hope in the system, or disengaging entirely.