Spencer Platt/Getty Images opinion Sorry Democrats, but Your Stars Are Socialists The most compelling stars of the Democratic Party are self-described socialists.

Rich Lowry is editor of National Review and a contributing editor with Politico Magazine.





There was Bernie Sanders at a Fox News town hall, not giving an inch in a forum every Democratic presidential candidate has shunned.

His reward was a cataract of good reviews, even from some conservatives, and monster ratings. Sanders had a solid hour to reach people not favorably inclined to his worldview, at the very least demonstrating that he’s willing to show up outside his political silo.


Why hadn’t any of the other Democrats done it before? Because they lacked the verve and ideological self-confidence Sanders has, as well as the independent streak to buck the Democrat Party’s attempt to hold the line against Fox. As a message candidate, Sanders is willing to take his anywhere.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, miraculously transformed over the past few months into a relatively moderate Democratic elder stateswoman, has understandably been pushing back against the notion that she leads a socialist party defined by a few radicals in the House.

On 60 Minutes, she stalwartly declared: “I do reject socialism as a economic system. If people have that view, that’s their view. That is not the view of the Democratic Party.” She dismissed the left-wing members in her caucus as, “like, five people.”

In a speech at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer expressed the same sentiment, telling the crowd that there are 62 Democratic freshmen, “not three.”

In sheer numbers, this is true. But it’s the wrong way to count.

The problem Democrats have is that the most compelling stars of the party are self-described socialists with a knack for generating controversy and media attention, and with committed mass followings. Pelosi might wish it weren’t true, but poll numbers, fundraising and follower-counts don’t lie.

Sanders is reliably second—sometimes first—in national and state presidential polling of Democratic candidates. He’s out-raised everyone in the field, and with his massive small-donor base, probably can continue to do so for the duration. More than anyone else, he has defined the Democratic Party’s current agenda. He can clap back at establishment critics, as he did the other day at the Center for American Progress, and make their lives very uncomfortable.

It’ll be much harder to maintain that the Democratic Party isn’t a party of socialists if it nominates one as its presidential candidate, which everyone paying attention realizes is a real possibility.

If that happens, it won’t be the work of conservatives hoping to negatively brand the Democrats, but of the party faithful. The same goes for the prominence of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. It is often said that conservatives are “obsessed” with her; maybe so, but the same is true—and probably more so—of everyone else.

AOC has been on the cover of Time magazine, Rolling Stone (with Pelosi, as it happens), the Hollywood Reporter, and Bloomberg Businessweek. Annie Leibovitz photographed her for Vogue. She’s been interviewed on "60 Minutes."

She has nearly 4 million Twitter followers and more than 3 million followers on Instagram, where she feeds the insatiable obsession of her fans—not her critics—with videos from her apartment.

There is a documentary about her congressional campaign, purchased by Netflix for a record-breaking $10 million. She’s the hero of a comic book (or as an admiring website put it, “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is so badass there’s literally now a comic book about her”). A video narrated by her and set in the future about how she saves the planet with her "Green New Deal" quickly garnered more than 1.7 million views.

She was among the top 10 House Democrats in fundraising the first quarter of the year and had the highest percentage of small donors. Her ally, Rep. Ilhan Omar also excelled.

As Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote in a piece about AOC for her in Time’s most influential list, not exaggerating, “millions are taking cues from her.”

It’s obviously vexing to Pelosi to see a House majority built by the careful avoidance of ideological extravagance and won in marginal districts hijacked, at least in terms of public attention, by a few freshmen and a 77-year-old Vermont socialist.

They might not define the center of gravity of the party at the moment, and the radical freshmen have lost most of their tussles with Pelosi, but there is a reason they are so famous, with such fundraising prowess. The crusading purity of Sanders has an inherent appeal (think of Rand Paul, except with a chance to win his party’s nomination). The outrageousness of the freshmen (or their boldness, depending on your point of view), and willingness to respond to any criticism, attracts attention. And, as President Donald Trump will tell you, attention begets attention.

Yes, there are vast numbers of Democrats out there who aren’t on Twitter or Instagram and are old Obama-Biden Democrats, as Joe Biden himself put it the other day. Maybe there are enough of them to nominate Biden or a Pete Buttigieg on a progressive platform clothed in a moderate demeanor.

But the party’s stars will have something to say about it. The great Zionist Theodor Herzl maintained, “It is the simple and fantastic which leads men.” As Sanders showed, it’s also willing to go on Fox News.