Mike Littwin argues 'socialism' label obscures why Melat Kiros beat Diana DeGette

Colorado —Melat Kiros just defeated Diana DeGette in Colorado’s 1st Congressional District primary, and the political class is busy trying to figure out what it means.

The victory wasn’t just a upset; it was a dismantling of the old guard. DeGette had held the seat for 15 terms. She went to Congress before Kiros was born. That longevity, usually a shield, became a liability in the deep-blue stronghold of Denver.

Mike Littwin, writing for the Colorado Sun, isn’t buying the panic. He argues that the label "democratic socialist" is being wielded like a weapon, not a description. It’s a scare tactic that ignores history.

Littwin points out that Ronald Reagan called Medicare socialism. Republicans labeled Social Security as such, too. They called the New Deal socialist. The list goes on. Medicaid. Minimum wage. The 40-hour work week. Child labor laws. Fannie Mae. The income tax amendment. Women’s suffrage. The Civil Rights Act. The Voting Rights Act. Obamacare.

Republicans warned us repeatedly that we were becoming a socialist country. They said liberals were communists. They said the country was sliding into a socialist hellscape whenever Democrats held power.

The U.S. is still the leading economic power in the world. The wage and wealth gap is growing wider, yes. But the country isn’t collapsing into socialism because of it.

Kiros, a Bernie-endorsed figure, represents a shift that feels radical to some but is actually just progressive to others. Littwin doesn’t know Kiros personally. He doesn’t know if she’s an antisemite or anti-Zionist, though he doubts it given the people who supported her.

What he does know is that democratic socialists aren’t taking over the Democratic Party. The people who voted for her in Denver aren’t socialists of any stripe. They are social democrats. That’s the system in most of Western Europe. It’s here, too, to a lesser extent.

The democratic socialists may be way to the left. But when you listen to figures like AOC, what you hear is less radical than simply radically progressive.

There are many reasons people voted for Kiros. It starts with Trump’s steady assaults on American democracy. It continues with the failure of weak-kneed Democrats.

DeGette’s defeat wasn’t just about ideology. It was about time. It was about a voter base that had grown tired of the same face for decades. The "major factor" in her loss wasn’t a sudden surge of Marxist theory. It was the weight of 15 years.

Littwin writes that the fear of socialism is a historical echo. We’ve heard it before. We’ve heard it while the country built the middle class. It’s an old refrain as we expand voting rights and build the infrastructure that still moves goods across the Western Slope.

The part everyone skips past is the definition. Socialism isn’t a monolith. It’s a spectrum. And the people voting for Kiros aren’t looking for revolution. They’re looking for representation. They’re looking for a party that doesn’t just nod along to the establishment.

DeGette went to Congress in 1996. Kiros was born in 1996. The timeline matters. The incumbent had seen everything. The challenger was new. The voters chose new.

Littwin’s point is simple. The threat isn’t socialism. The threat is ignoring why people vote the way they do. The threat is assuming that a label explains everything. It doesn’t.

The Democratic Party is changing. It’s not being taken over by extremists. It’s being reshaped by voters who want progress, not just continuity.

Kiros won. DeGette lost. The headlines are already writing themselves. But the story is deeper. It’s about a party learning that its base doesn’t always agree with its leadership. It’s about a country that’s still figuring out what it wants to be.

Littwin doesn’t offer a solution. He offers a perspective. The socialists aren’t coming. They’re already here. And they’re not taking over. They’re just voting.