Washington • This, one of the pleasures of being a conservative, is not for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 28. She recently won the Democratic nomination — effectively, election — in a Bronx and Queens congressional district, running as a “democratic socialist.” In response to her, progressives and conservatives are experiencing different excitements.
The left relishes the socialist label as a rejection of squishy centrism — a naughty, daring rejection of timidity: Aux barricades, citoyens! The right enjoys a tingle of delicious fear: We told you that the alternative to us is the dark night of socialism.