The Real Reason Democratic Socialism Is Terrifying The Press

I’ve been watching with a certain amount of malicious glee as Mayor Zohran Mamdani wreaks havoc in New York City. By “wreaks havoc,” of course, I mean, “fix pot holes, freeze rents, raise taxes on the rich, balance the budget, and generally give the Editorial Board of the New York fucking Times bleeding ulcers.” Mamdani has been doing this with a giant smile on his face, like a kid in a candy shop. Or rather, a man given the power to piss off all the right people while fixing a lot of mundane (and some not so mundane) bullshit everyone complains about, but is always told nothing can be done to solve. Oh, and crime has plummeted in NYC. It’s almost like working to alleviate basic inequities removes the stressors that lead to crime…1

Now the press is foaming at the mouth about another “socialist” candidate. This time, it’s Abdul el-Sayed running for the Senate in Michigan. He has reporters in a rabid frenzy. Republicans are also outraged, OUTRAGED, I tell you!, at his socialist policies. Centrist Democrats, for their part, are rending their garments in sorrow that we’ve come to this. The shame of it all!

The legacy media has abandoned us in favor of sucking up to oligarchs and fascism. Find voices you trust (other than me) and subscribe where you can. Independent voices like the Opinionated Ogre will be needed in the coming days, and we require your support. This newsletter is free, but for $5 a month or just $50 a year (a 17% discount!), you can keep the lights on.

If subscriptions aren’t your thing, you can leave a one-time PayPal or Venmo tip instead!

It’s the same for every Democratic Socialist winning a primary and looking at a likely win in November. The loathing oozing from the legacy press is palpable. Far more so than for the White Christian Nationalism and fascism and Nazism and corruption and violence that have utterly consumed the entire American right in the last decade, after a half-century march towards extremism. You’d think that might warrant a little more handwringing from a press THIS fucking concerned about “extremists” asking for reproductive rights and a living wage.

Nah. That’s not a big fucking deal, but this socialism shit? That’s a five-alarm fire!

One might be tempted to chalk this up to leftover programming from the Cold War. America was conditioned for a very long time to fear and hate (insert terrifying/hilarious 1950s movie voice) COOOOMMMUUUNNIIISSSMMMM! And what is socialism but communism in disguise!?!?!? I mean, it’s not, but people are really fucking stupid and tell them the same lie enough times, and they’ll believe it. You know, like Trump is smart and handsome and has a giant penis and doesn’t rape little girls.2

But while your average idiot inbred incel doesn’t know Marx from being a mark, journalists are generally not that stupid. They goddamn know better. This is also not your typical “These darn college kids and their new ideas!” crap. The press has been whining about socialism long enough for a lot of those “college kids” to have mortgages and college kids of their own. So why, exactly, are they melting into puddles of terror over the equivalent of, say, the Scandinavian economic and political systems? Why do people like Mamdani and el-Sayed freak them out so much?

Well…this might be why:

Oh, a young, charismatic leader who explains a different economic system in a way that’s easy to understand and fairly appealing to most Americans? Yeah, that motherfucker needs to go!

How did we get here? How did our national discourse around normal economic topics become so…broken? That’s a funny story, actually.

Let me tell you this story. A story about the legacy press and unintended consequences.

Back in 2008-2009, there was, you may recall, a massive economic upheaval called The Great Recession. From the Great Recession came two movements: Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party.

The Tea Party was completely astroturfed. Paid for by the billionaire Koch brothers and heavily promoted by Fox News to distract the public from the vast crimes committed by the rich, which left tens of millions of Americans jobless, homeless, and wiped out their life savings. The legacy press loved it and ran endless segments about how huge this “movement,” comprised of a few dozen people in stupid costumes, was until it grew through sheer force of repetition. A true “fake it until you make it” moment.

Occupy Wall Street, on the other hand, was organic and truly grassroots. The legacy press fucking hated it with every fiber of their being. They ran endless segments about how awful it was. Drugs, rape, filth, violence. Just a bunch of lawless kids with no idea what they wanted or any kind of organization.

All of that was a lie, and I know this because I went down there more than once to see for myself and reported on it. This, by the way, is when I learned to deeply distrust the press. If they were lying this loudly about something this peaceful,3 they couldn’t be trusted with much of anything.

Now, the press managed to quash OWS, but the message never quite went away, which leads us to the legacy press’s huge mistake: 2016.

You see, in 2016, the legacy press looked at Hillary Clinton and saw its chance to exact revenge on Bill Clinton for humiliating them in the 90s. They tried to get him impeached, and it didn’t work. The legacy press NEVER forgave this outsider hick and his pushy wife for invading THEIR town and not obeying THEIR rules. They were going to fuck that bitch Hilary over and show those fucking Clintons who was really in charge of Washington DC!

There was, of course, no way Donald Trump would win. The man was a buffon, but they could beat the shit out of Hillary and leave her a limping wreck as president. That plan would start with the primaries, where the press put Bernie Sanders on a pedestal. Sure, he was a weird old socialist kook, but give him enough oxygen, and he could really fuck up Hillary’s day.

In their zeal to kneecap Clinton, the press poured gasoline on the smoldering embers of OWS, the fire they had snuffed out several years earlier. Oh, and they put a pedophile rapist traitor in power. Thanks for that, guys. Won't be forgetting or forgiving that anytime soon.4

But even as Donald Trump ran rampant with his corruption and cruelty and incompetence, Bernie Sanders and Democratic Socialism gained traction. The press tried really hard to pretend it wasn’t there, but it wouldn’t go away.

Then Joe Biden enacted the most progressive economic policies in a century, and the legacy press destroyed him in a blind panic.

But it was too late. Biden was just a hint of it, but the outline was there, and the left never stopped talking about the rest of it.

Millennials and Gen Z had gotten a taste of something different. Something better. They looked at Republicans and their message of white nationalist greed and corruption and tax cuts for billionaires. Then they looked at an economic message of pro-union, universal healthcare, student debt forgiveness, and affordable rent and childcare. Democratic Socialism, the policies and systems most advanced economies already have, didn’t sound so terrible.

The more people explained it in plain language, like Zohran Mamdani and Abdul el-Zayed, the better it sounded, and the more the legacy press lost its fucking mind.

Remember, the legacy press, along with Republicans and centrist Democrats, is heavily invested in the status quo. All for their own reasons. Republicans are fascists who know the system is broken and are pushing towards a collapse so they can seize permanent fascist power. Centrist Democrats think they can fix the broken system by working with a party of fascists. They do not understand the rules have changed, and they do not want to give up their own power.

The legacy press is the worst of all three, though. Republicans actively want to hurt the country. Centrist Democrats are fooling themselves. The legacy press, though? They protect an imaginary neutrality so they don't have to tell the truth, which is the literal definition of their job.

To tell the truth would mean having to explain that the Republican Party is filled with liars and thieves and sexual deviants and pedophiles and Nazis and violent animals and traitors.

To tell the truth would mean having to admit that Donald Trump works for Russia. That while Joe Biden was old, Donald Trump is dying in front of us. That he is suffering from advanced dementia. That he is unfit to be left unsupervised, much less be President of the United States.

To tell the truth would mean having to talk about how the rich have stolen trillions from us and given nothing in return. They didn’t create jobs. They didn’t innovate. They provide nothing of value or worth. They’re parasites killing their host body.

To tell the truth would mean having to admit that Democratic Socialism is not communism. That it will not destroy capitalism. That it will not bankrupt America. That it will not lead to bread lines and deprivation and chaos and misery. It won’t even get rid of billionaires. They’ll still be fucking rich. They just won’t be AS rich. Boo fucking hoo.

This is the real threat of Democratic Socialism. Not the scary nonsense that the press pushes 24/7. It’s that if enough people understand that something different is possible here in the United States, they won’t stop demanding it until we get it. And in THAT reality, the current power structure that allows pedophiles to run free disappears. Billionaires will not be able to buy elections. Silicon Valley will not be able to dictate policy. The rest of us will not be so desperate just to pay rent and put food on the table that we won’t be able to look around and see who is destroying everything for their own profit.

That is a world where the legacy press is held as accountable as everyone else and, holy fucking shit, does that terrify them. They would help Republicans burn it all down to keep that from happening. They’re doing it right now.

Are you going to let them? Or are you going to tell them to fuck off, take back our power, and then make them pay for what they’ve done?

Make your choice in November and then keep making it until 2028 and beyond.

I hope you feel better informed about the world and ready to kick fascists and their enablers in the teeth to protect it. This newsletter exists because of you, so please consider becoming a supporting subscriber today for only $5 a month or just $50 a year (a 17% discount!). Thank you for everything!

Not a fan of long-term subscriptions? That’s OK! I’ll be your one-night stand with a one-time donation through PayPal or Venmo! I’m easy like that! Just don’t tell Mrs. Ogre! 😜

There are 84 days until the most important midterm election in American history. The regime is afraid, and they should be. We are legion, and they are weak. Stay strong. You are never alone.