Great Expectations

A new class of fiery progressives is taking Congress by storm. But some Democrats worry their own party is the one that could feel the burn

- Nina Burleigh

DEMOCRATS HAVE ENTERED THE Great Expectations era.

The 116th Congress, with its diverse, female and feisty class of new House members, is offering up some of the progressive wing’s wildest dreams. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez has already broached a crowd-pleasing, eat-therich 70 percent tax on multimillionaires to pay for stopping climate change. Others are reveling—profanely—in the possibility of ousting a president. “We’re going to go in there, and we’re going to impeach the motherfucker,” Representative Rashida Tlaib told a crowd.

The progressives are unabashedly communitarian and social justice warriors, arriving in D.C. as a new socialism, somewhere to the left of Senator Elizabeth Warren, is ascendant. According to a Gallup poll in August, Americans aged 18 to 29 are as positive about socialism (51 percent) as they are about capitalism (45 percent), a 12-point decline for the c-word in the two years since President Donald Trump got elected.

So is the ghost of Franklin Delano Roosevelt inspiring the new House to put the poor to work with federal dollars, building infrastructure and fighting climate change, all the while infused with post-millennial concepts of inclusivity and intersectionality?

Maybe. Maybe not. The House Democrats have an ambitious agenda that includes doing something about climate change, saving the Affordable Care Act (if not expanding it into “Medicare-for-All”), lowering drug prices, expanding gun control, funding infrastructure, saving the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, strengthening voting rights protections and, last but not least, addressing public corruption.