A handful of Republicans split from their party on Tuesday, voting against a rule to allow a measure condemning socialism and the platform of the Democratic Socialists of America to reach the House floor. Among the Republicans to buck their party on the rule were Reps. Andy Harris (R-MD), Clay Higgins (R-LA), Ralph Norman (R-SC), […]
Page A3From§Eachthe milkman edition — 2 September 2026
Op-ed warns socialism promises misery for all; five of the resolution's own sponsors vote no.
As it ran on the front
Here's how the trick works, and it works every single week, so let's just watch the gears turn once, slow. The House puts up a resolution condemning socialism — not a program, not a dollar figure, a word, a resolution condemning a word — and the opinion pages spend that same week telling you the word promises misery for all, capital M, no receipts required, just vibes and a byline. Then the vote happens. And five of the very people who write that word on their door like a warning sign vote no on their own side's resolution. Not five Democrats. Five of theirs.
Now, I've been doing this long enough to know that when the people selling you the fire alarm won't pull it themselves, the building's not on fire — the alarm's the product. Nobody bought stock in 'misery for all' this week. They bought a floor vote, a press release, and a week of cable segments about a word, while the line items with actual dollar signs on them moved through committee with nobody live-tweeting the markup. That's the con. You get handed a word to be afraid of so you don't go asking what happened to the number.…
…(cont) And look what the word is doing double duty for. It's covering a floor vote nobody outside the building will remember by Thanksgiving, and it's covering an op-ed panic about one candidate in one primary, like the whole apparatus of a national party is one recruitment away from collapse. If the ideology's that fragile, it's not the ideology that's the problem — it's the fundraising email that needed a villain by Friday and found one with a name easy to spell.
Here's the plain version, the one that fits on a bar napkin: they can't unite on condemning a word they use every single day to raise money, because uniting on it for real would mean admitting it's a fundraising word and not a policy word. Five of them just told you that out loud, with a no vote, on the record, in the Congressional Record, where anybody with a library card can go look it up. That's not a scandal. That's a receipt. Keep it in your wallet, right behind the one for the ballroom, and pull it out next time somebody on the mail piece asks you to be afraid of a word instead of a bill.
“Here's the trick, slow, so you can see the gears: the opinion page spends the week telling you socialism means misery for all, capital M, no receipts required, then the floor vote comes and five of the very people who write that word on their own door can't even keep the bit straight. When the folks selling you the fire alarm won't pull it themselves, the building's not on fire — the alarm's the product.”
“The resolution passed, that's the headline, a strong stand against socialism with broad support. The five defections were about specific language in the text, not the substance of the vote — well, the substance is the language, that's what a resolution is. Let me circle back on that one.”
The receipts
The Democratic Socialists of America are proving an old principle of politics: You can win a lot of votes by promising "free stuff" — and not worrying if you could possibly deliver.
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.