After a wave of democratic socialist primary wins, a faction of Democrats is fighting back — arguing capitalism has raised more people out of poverty than any system in history and vowing to reclaim the party from the left.
“There’s a lot of us that don’t like what’s happening with the DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) — nobody’s organized,” Long Island Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) told The Post, lamenting that critics “go to cocktail parties and wring their hands” while democratic socialists keep scoring wins.
His concern was underscored by yet another win by a DSA-backed candidate who knocked off 30-year congressional veteran Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.).
“We’re for capitalism, not socialism. Capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any system in the history of the world,” he said. “It’s created better outcomes for people, but that’s not to say that we’re supportive of just the status quo.”
DeGette fell to 29-year old Melat Kiros — a DSA member herself endorsed by left-wing darling Sen. Bernie Sanders. (I-Vt.) — in last week’s primary after accusing Israel of committing “genocide” in Gaza while reaffirming comments calling the Sept. 11 attacks “inevitable.”
And Kiros is far from alone.
“Democrats have got to get back to traditional Democratic values about looking out for working men and women and trying to improve their lot in life,” Suozzi said.
He co-organized a “Promise to America” pledge along with Rep. Adam Gray (D-Calif.) for lawmakers that declares “we want safety, not lawlessness … We’re proud of America — not ashamed of America.”
Suozzi spoke while driving to the new Theodore Roosevelt Presidential library in North Dakota. He said he went on his own to check it out, not as part of President Trump’s visit that came a few hours earlier.
“I couldn’t hitch a ride on Air Force One,” he quipped, as he comments come days after Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) blasted what he called an “orgy of socialism” in the party.
The nation’s most prominent democratic socialist, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), on Thursday shook up the US Senate when she threw her support behind Abdul El-Sayed, the left-wing Senate candidate in Michigan. El-Sayed is battling Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer’s choice of Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.), and her loss could foil the Dems’ chances of retaking the Senate.
Suozzi and his brethren may have their work cut out for them. A Gallup poll last September showed just 54% support for capitalism — down from 61% in 2010 and a shock poll last week showed a third of Democrats want democratic socialists in office.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in 2021 even questioned captalism: “In America, capitalism is our system, it is our economic system, but it has not served our economy as well as it should,” adding that the US should “not depart from that, but to improve it.”
Five years later, she didn’t betray any panic when she spoke to The Post after socialist candidates swept a trio of New York congressional races.
“I wouldn’t make so much of it. Nobody makes a big deal when a left-wing person wins in San Francisco and all of a sudden, New York … I loved our incumbents. I wish they had won. But in terms of what it means, it’s what it means for New York – it isn’t what it means for the rest of the country,” she said.
“It turns out capitalism is alive and very well,” then-President Joe Biden declared as the nation added 850,000 to payrolls during the recovery from COVID-19 in 2021.
Vice President Kamala Harris, who picked up the baton after Biden’s 2024 debate disaster, has been conducting her own outreach to socialists, it was revealed last week. She has been phoning and texting Mayor Mamdani, and met one-on-one with AOC at an event on empowering black women in Chicago.
That was taken as a sign of her presidential ambitions.
During her failed sprint to the White House two years ago, she told the Economic Club of Pittsburgh she was “a capitalist.”
“I promise you I will be pragmatic in my approach,” she vowed then.
