Things appear to be sharpening in a special congressional election between GOP nominee Matt Van Epps and Democrat Aftyn Behn, known as the AOC of Tennessee, in a congressional district that voted overwhelmingly for President Donald Trump.
The strange thing isn’t so much that the race is in question (special elections are always strange and unpredictable birds), but rather that Behn is a far-left socialist in a part of the country where conventional wisdom says a socialist shouldn’t have a chance.
The race was rocked by a law enforcement controversy after Van Epps challenged Behn over resurfaced anti-police posts on social media, sparking a statewide debate ahead of Election Day. (George Walker IV/AP Photos)
So why is this happening, and is this a warning sign for Republicans who think they can win the midterm elections by running against socialism and making newly elected New York Mayor Zohran MamdaniMamdani the face of the Democrats?
Behn is the role model for the left-wing idiots. She continues to support defunding the police to this day and has advocated that American women should refuse to have children unless government demands meet them. Not only that, an old interview has surfaced in which she said she hates Nashville, the largest city in her district.
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Tuesday afternoon I heard Clay Travis, who lives in the neighborhood, on his radio show apoplectic about the support Behn is receiving. But is it really that strange?
I’ve spent much of the past two years traveling across America. One of the rarest types of people I ever encounter on the road are moderates, what we used to call Blue Dog Democrats. Those I occasionally meet are usually over 60.
Democratic congressional candidate Aftyn Behn, a Tennessee state representative, is running in a special election for a vacant U.S. House seat on Dec. 2. (Aftyn for Congress)
The Democrats I usually encounter are not afraid of socialism; they often like aspects of it, as a recent Gallup poll shows. It found that 66% of Democrats have a positive view of socialism, a number that will only grow as the older, more conservative cohort ages.
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There are many white people in their twenties and thirties in the humanities who think they belong to the intellectual upper class, but who have $200,000 in student debt and can’t even dream of buying a house. They’re not wrong to think the system is rigged against them, they’re just wrong to think socialism can save them.
There’s also an intense and generally successful effort by Democrats to sway female voters, especially with policies that seem empathetic, like cashless bail, coddling the sweet and tender hooligan even if it means committing more crimes.
Another argument that doesn’t hold water, especially among young Democrats, is: “Where has socialism ever worked?” I recently asked that question to two guys in Texas, the first said, “Sweden,” and then the other said, “Denmark, Finland….”
I often hear that when younger Americans conjure up a vision of socialism, it’s not about bread needs in Cuba or the former Soviet Union, but about free health care and generous vacation benefits in Scandinavia.
Finally, the continued polarization of our congressional districts has made the red more red and the blue more blue, creating the richest environment socialists have ever had in America.
What Republicans need to understand now is that socialism as a concept is not as disqualifying as it once was, or as they still think it is. If this realization is not realized, it will be a difficult midterm for the Republican Party.
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This moment sounds a lot like 2016, when Democrats were licking their chops because Republican voters chose the supposedly unelectable Donald Trump as their candidate. We all know how that turned out.
What’s critical in the coming year is that Republicans advance ideas that will reduce the affordability problem that, fairly or not, Democrats have seized, and as the fruits of the Big Beautiful Law come to life, ensure that benefits like no taxes on overtime or tips are emphasized.
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Behn does not need to win next week’s special election to strengthen the socialist wing of the Democratic Party. Even if it stays within single digits, the far left will use it as a cudgel to insist that socialism can thrive in flyover country. And maybe they’re not wrong.
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The political battle of the next decade in America appears to be between socialists on the left and whatever form of Trumpian populism emerges in the president’s wake, including certain policies such as taking stakes in private companies that traditional Republicans consider socialist.
The important thing to recognize now is that it is no longer a shock or an anomaly when Democrats elect socialists. Today, it’s honestly even more shocking when they don’t, and no longer just in New York and San Francisco. Don’t expect this to change anytime soon.
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