Fox News, despite its near-constant crowing about socialism during Obama's time as president, is actually quite out of practice at demonizing the real thing. Faced with politicians and activists with actual socialist agendas—instead of the milquetoast, preemptive compromise that's characterized Democratic policy for the last couple decades—Fox commentators and rightwing pundits keep tripping over themselves. More often than not, their smear efforts turn into free promos.

But first, let's take a step back. Last week, Charlie Kirk, a self-styled conservative intellectual who started a college org that wears diapers to own the libs, called out Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter. Like most rightwing figures, Kirk has been critical of Ocasio-Cortez since her surprise victory earlier this summer that made her the first openly socialist candidate elected to Congress in decades. This time, he was specifically taking issue with her appearance in Interview, when she posed for a photoshoot, tweeting:

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who pretends to be a champion of the people & believes the unemployment went down because were taking two jobs, just posed in a photoshoot with a $3,500 outfit, $625 shoes all while saying the rich have too much power and that socialism hasn't been tried.

Kirk is renowned for making half-assed points, and this is another example of that: There are photos of Ocasio-Cortez wearing expensive clothes and therefore she doesn't actually believe that people shouldn't go bankrupt over cancer treatments. He deserves to be rebuked but not taken seriously, and that's exactly what Ocasio-Cortez herself did in response:

Since his entire shtick is based around never being wrong, Kirk replied by changing the subject, again trying to bait Ocasio-Cortez into a public debate with him (he claims it's to give her a chance to defend her ideas, but in reality it's a way for him to pose as her equal on a national stage and leech off the legitimacy of a popular congresswoman-elect).

Not to be outdone, over the weekend the hosts Fox and Friends also tried to call out Ocasio-Cortez, calling her a hypocrite for not "redistributing" her suit and shoes. (This is a popular and idiotic critique on the right, that if people are socialists they should give up all their property or they aren't sincere.) And whoever designs the graphics for the show, well, they definitely seem like they're into Ocasio-Cortez's message.

Democratic leadership might be threatening to hamstring progressives in Congress, but left-wing politicians look like they have an ally in Fox News, as long as they keep making them look cool on accident.