If Democrats embrace socialism to get away from Donald Trump, they can kiss the midterms goodbye This is a strange presidency. But embracing socialism is no way for Democrats to win the hearts and minds of voters in November.

Jon Gabriel | The Arizona Republic Opinion

President Donald Trump is a divisive, unpopular president. This year, his disapproval rating has remained above 50 percent, sometimes topping his approval rating by more than 16 points.

Republican voter enthusiasm is lagging, independents want to see a Democratic-run Congress by a margin of more than 20 points, and the Washington press corps hammers the president relentlessly.

Given this unprecedented opportunity for the midterms, it seems like all the Democratic Party has to do is sit back, remain calm, and not screw this up.

Well, about that.

Trump is known to charge up his supporters at his pro-wrestling-style rallies, but the fact that he even exists charges up his critics even more. Whether it’s a bizarre tweet, an offensive comment or just an abrupt change in White House personnel, many Democrats have come unglued.

To be fair, it’s hard to blame them.

Overreacting could hurt their chances

Two years ago, they held the most powerful bully pulpit in the world and seemed headed for an easy return to the White House.

For many, the shock of the November 2016 election is yet to be processed, a strange bug in The Matrix that needs to be fixed so the country can get back to the presumed norm of Democratic ascendancy. But in overreacting to this strange presidency, Democrats' prospects for the November 2018 elections could dim. Despite the predictions of a mammoth blue wave washing over Congress, there are troubling signs for Team Donkey.

Poll: Democrats like socialism better

A Gallup poll has discovered that, for the first time, Democrats have a more positive image of socialism than they do of capitalism. Fifty-seven percent of Democrats and Democratic leaners support the state-run economic system, while just 47 percent support free enterprise.

Did these people fall asleep in history class during the lectures about the Soviet Union and the Khmer Rouge? Miss the past few years of Venezuelans unable to find medicine, milk or toilet paper? Forget that just last month, Nicaraguan strongman Daniel Ortega shot up a bunch of university students in a church?

More: CNN thinks that socialism is cool. My grandparents from the USSR would disagree.

The Democratic Party left me behind — and I'm not alone

Will 2018 be the year Democrats banish the demons of 1994? Signs point to yes.

Socialism has never worked and never will, but the majority of Democrats want to give it another shot.

To show how far out of the mainstream this is, Americans as a whole support capitalism over socialism by nearly 20 points. The Democrats think the reverse by 10 points.

Perhaps the poll shouldn’t be a surprise.

The left lost big in recent primaries

Sen. Bernie Sanders was embraced by nearly half the party in 2016 despite (or because of) his avowed socialism.

More recently, Democratic Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ousted a longtime incumbent congressman in New York and became a news media darling in the process.

While the leftward lurch might be popular in cable news studios, other socialist candidates haven’t fared so well. In recent primaries, the far left lost in a big way in campaigns across the heartland.

What sells in the Bronx doesn’t sell in Kansas City.

Delving into Gallup’s data, the strongest supporters of socialism are younger voters. Millennials are far more likely to support the failed system that their parents and grandparents fought against and defeated.

Ocasio-Cortez is a good representative of this trend. A member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the candidate is leading the move to drag Democrats further to the left.

Tying themselves to this is a loser

While she presents the DSA’s aims as more in line with the Nordic model, her organization wants nothing like the nanny-state capitalism of Sweden or Denmark.

Joseph Schwartz, the DSA’s national vice chair, calls for "a militant labor movement and a mass socialist presence strengthened by accumulated victories, looking to not merely tame but overcome capitalism."

For Democratic Socialists, abolishing capitalism is just the opening act.

"Socialism is about democratizing the family to get rid of patriarchal relations; democratizing the political sphere to get genuine participatory democracy; democratizing the schools by challenging the hierarchical relationship between the teachers of the school and the students of the school," says Jared Abbott, a member of the DSA’s national steering committee.

Even Hugo Chavez wasn’t that ambitious.

Why give the feds more power?

Mainstream Democrats understand how loony this kind of talk sounds to most Americans. Yet by embracing DSA candidates such as Ocasio-Cortez, they will tie their ailing party to theories that would be laughed off a university quad.

As Sanders proved, it isn’t just the young candidates donning the socialist label.

The GOP is hitting Maryland Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ben Jealous with his recent quote, "Go ahead, call me a socialist." (The rest of his quote was: "That doesn’t change the fact I’m a venture capitalist.”

In New York’s race for governor, candidate Cynthia Nixon said, "Republicans are going to call us socialists no matter what we do, so we might as well give them the real thing."

One last data point from that Gallup poll: Only 39 percent of respondents said they had a positive view of the federal government.

Perhaps voters should mull that over before handing those wizards in Washington even more power over our economy.

Jon Gabriel is editor in chief of Ricochet.com and a contributor to The Arizona Republic, where this column first appeared. You can follow him on Twitter: @exjon.