Turns out that headline-grabbing Democratic socialists like U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) are far from the only game in town when it comes to their political ideology.

Case in point: Colorado.

As KDVR-TV reported, Democratic socialism in the state is growing.

'I consider myself a Democratic socialist'

Candi CdeBaca — who last week won a runoff election for a seat on Denver's City Council — is squarely in the camp of Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez.

"I consider myself a Democratic socialist," CdeBaca told KDVR, which added that she's the first Democratic socialist to win a council seat.

Her victory was a major upset, as her opponent was an incumbent and establishment darling, the station noted — not unlike Ocasio-Cortez's primary upset victory last June.

CdeBaca also gave KDVR a reason why Democratic socialism is gaining ground: "Communism is when the government owns everything; socialism is when people have control of the distribution of ownership. People have more power."

'By any means necessary'

She underscored that during a candidate forum in March, during which she decried capitalism and advocated for her alternate political position "by any means necessary."



"I don't believe our current economic system actually works," she said at a microphone. "Capitalism by design is extractive and in order to generate profit in a capitalist system something has to be exploited — that's land, labor, or resources. And I think that we're in late-phase capitalism, and we know it doesn't work, and we've gotta move into something new, and I believe in community ownership of land, labor, resources, and distribution of those resources."

CdeBaca capped her point with an ominous ending: "And so whatever that morphs into I think is what will serve community the best, and I'm excited to usher it in by any means necessary."

Here's the clip:

Denver Decides 2019 Candidate Forum District 9 youtu.be

You might recall that By Any Means Necessary is the name of a violent Antifa group in California. One of its members is Yvette Felarca, a well-known "anti-Trump fighter" and left-wing activist who helped organize protests-turned-riots at the University of California, Berkeley, in early 2017.

Malcolm X also used the phrase "by any means necessary" in the 1960s.

Pushback

When former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper — a Democrat — said "socialism is not the answer" at the California Democrats' state convention, he was booed, KDVR reported.

Hickenlooper also tweeted the following on Wednesday:

Republican U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado agrees.

"Socialism is an issue already in the 2020 campaign because Bernie Sanders has made it that way. This is a very dangerous conversation. We have seen what socialism does around the globe," Gardner told the station, adding that "for the normalization of socialism to have occurred at the level that it has, I think it is quite shocking,"

(H/T: The American Mirror)

