Stop Calling Democrats ‘Moderate’ For Hiding Their Socialism

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley narrowly defeated socialist Francesca Hong in the Wisconsin gubernatorial primary on Tuesday. Hong was best known for saying Thanksgiving should be canceled, the Senate should be dismantled, the police should be abolished, and that the sight of white people inside a fast food restaurant nearly gave her an anxiety attack.

According to outlets like Politico, Hong’s defeat proves moderates are still strong, and that an “emerging insurgency” of socialists is merely an overhyped narrative being peddled. Of course accepting Politico’s spiel requires you to also accept its central premise: that Crowley is a moderate.

It’s a label that has already taken hold. X user Polimath posted: “Crowley is going to run away with this election specifically because the left was clowning on him for being a reasonable moderate.”

Breaking911 posted on X: “Moderate David Crowley defeats far-left socialist Francesca Hong in Wisconsin’s closely watched Democratic primary.”

But Crowley is no “moderate.” Just because he hasn’t called for the abolition of Thanksgiving, the Senate, and the police doesn’t make him “moderate,” and calling him that only helps left-wing ideology win. On the policies that actually matter, Crowley and Hong were separated more by tone than actual substance.

Like Hong, Crowley supports “repealing Act 10,” legislation that curtailed collective bargaining powers for a lot of government unions and capped pay raises for public employees at the rate of inflation (unless overridden by local government vote). Both politicians support artificially raising the minimum wage, with Crowley pledging to increase it to $15 per hour immediately, and then $20 per hour by 2030. Hong supported raising the minimum wage to $20 per hour as well.

Crowley supports making abortion a constitutional right in Wisconsin. Hong similarly supported putting abortion access into the state constitution. Both have expressed opposition to local law enforcement cooperation with ICE, which in many cases puts ICE officers’ lives in danger and makes the job significantly difficult. Crowley has said he cannot envision “any scenario” in which he would work with ICE, while Milwaukee County under his leadership has even looked into legal action against the agency.

Crowley has also stressed that the door should remain wide open for mass migration. In a post on X accompanied by a video of a woman asking how he would protect illegal aliens, Crowley said, “Every generation of immigrants has made Wisconsin stronger. I’m not interested in shutting that door. As Governor, I’ll keep welcoming new Wisconsinites and build communities that work for everyone.”

Crowley may be less radical than Hong, but being less radical than a racist, anti-American Marxist doesn’t make you a moderate. On unions, wages, abortion, and immigration, Crowley’s positions are decidedly left-wing. The only real big distinction is he hasn’t said he hates Thanksgiving or called for abolishing the Senate.

But what the press and even regular people are doing is allowing Democrats to redefine “moderate” to mean basically anyone standing even half a step to the right of their most extreme member. Once the standard is set, the entire “moderate” claim becomes merely a campaign myth meant to deceive voters into electing an actual leftist who cosplays as a moderate but will still deliver Democrats’ overall left-wing policy goals.

Worse is when Republicans and right-leaning commentators repeat the “moderate” label, for they’re only helping Democrats sell left-wing candidates to swing voters. Most voters aren’t going to sit down and study Crowley’s position on everything. They’ll see a man who says things like “we have to listen to independents and Republicans because we [Democrats] don’t have a monopoly on good ideas” and hear outlets like Politico and so many others label him a “moderate” and assume that means he will govern as a moderate.

But Democrats have run this very playbook already, with all-too-inevitable results.

Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger campaigned as a moderate focused on affordability but has been anything but moderate and affordable. Since taking office she has embraced tax hikes on everyday items, signed away Virginia’s Electoral College votes to the popular vote winner (in other words, Virginians lose their voice to Californians and New Yorkers), and supported efforts that tried to rig rural Virginians out of representation in a mid-year redistricting battle.

The leftist-cosplaying-as-a-moderate playbook is rather successful; Joe Biden ran it too. NPR wrote in 2020 that Biden has “been generally moderate to center-left, and while he has moved toward Sanders and Warren on health care and other issues … big differences remain.” A YouGov poll from 2020 found “America sees Joe Biden as a moderate.”

But Biden was anything but moderate. He signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law, which was the largest climate boondoggle in U.S. history and ultimately fueled runaway inflation; extended pandemic-related unemployment benefits in the American Rescue Plan; rejoined the Paris Climate Agreement; unconstitutionally tried to end student debt; and most importantly, he opened the southern border for four years and let millions of illegal aliens into the country, incentivized illegal immigration, and strained cities struggling with the influx.

In other words, even when Democrats claim to be “moderate,” they are anything but. The “moderate Democrat” is a campaign myth, and Crowley is the latest “moderate” Democrat to don the moniker to mislead voters.

Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2