House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is refusing to denounce socialism as the left-wing ideology continues to uproot the Democrat Party and as she works to get enough support for yet another term as House Speaker.
Pelosi acknowledged during a Friday press conference there was a “difference of opinion” in her party as the divide between moderates and progressives has only grown since the 2020 election.
In a 2019 60 Minutes interview, Pelosi said socialism was “not the view” of the Democrat Party.
Despite Pelosi’s statements, self-described Democratic socialists have become some of the most prominent figures of the Democrat Party.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) earned the second-highest amount of delegates in both the 2016 and 2020 Democrat primaries and said his achievements, as well as Biden’s eventual victory in the primaries, would not have been possible without socialist groups.
The subject of socialism is worrying Democrats behind closed doors.
Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) said during a recent press conference call that Democrats should never say “defund the police” or “socialism” ever again after her party lost many seats in Congress.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), one of the most prominent congressional Democrats who identifies as a Democratic socialist, disagreed, saying on Twitter that the “progressivism is bad argument” does not have “evidence.”
“So the whole ‘progressivism is bad’ argument just doesn’t have any compelling evidence that I’ve seen,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote. “When it comes to ‘Defund’ & ‘Socialism’ attacks, people need to realize these are racial resentment attacks. You’re not gonna make that go away. You can make it less effective.”