Emotional manipulation isn’t just a tactic of the right. In a not so surprising public rebuke this week, New York Representative Laura Gillen (NY 4th District) declared: “We are not socialists.” Her comment, aimed squarely at NYC Democratically nominated mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, wasn’t just a political distancing—it was a public reminder—and what many of us have always known—that Neoliberal Democrats are more concerned with pleasing donors and swing voters than standing up for the people who built their party.
This moment isn’t about Gillen alone, or her corporate donors. It’s about the deep emotional manipulation at the core of both Republican and Democratic messaging in the United States. While the right has openly embraced fascism, Neoliberal Democrats teeter on the edge—masking their allegiance to corporate power behind moderate language and carefully staged outrage.
Emotional Manipulation & Identity Politics
The practice of emotional manipulation to keep people divided isn’t just a tactic of the right. Both parties rely on it to keep their voters in check and firmly on their side.
Republicans have weaponized identity politics into a finely tuned fear-based machine. They label anyone left of center a “radical socialist” or “leftist lunatic,” tying progressive values—which are simply working class values—to chaos, collapse, and un-American ideals. It’s not just messaging—it’s indoctrination.
Neoliberal Democrats are a bit more subtle, but just as manipulative. Well, they used to be more subtle. The tide is changing there as well, especially with Mamdani winning the Democratic nomination in what can only be called a sweep. Neoliberals use the language of inclusion and “sensible governance” and “safety” to distance themselves from real structural change. Gillen’s comment is a perfect example. She doesn’t engage with Mamdani’s policies—she flattens him into a symbol, then rejects that symbol to win favor with an imagined “middle.”
Here is the problem with that: the “middle” isn’t where the country lives anymore. It’s never where the working class have lived. It’s where donors live.
Neoliberal Democrats Are Two-Faced
Gillen is serving her first term in Congress and represents a swing district in Nassau County, New York. Instead of showing courage, she is using her platform to discredit Mamdani’s tax plan—a plan aimed at making the ultra-wealthy pay their fair share to help fund public services.
She called his proposals unrealistic. She flat out stated that Democrats aren’t “socialists,” brushing aside the fact that a massive portion of the party base is made up of people who believe in social investment, community care, and government that works for the many—not the few.
And here’s the kicker: Gillen is backed by AIPAC. She’s not an outlier. She’s the blueprint. This is who Neoliberal Democrats truly are. They talk like they’re for the people, but when the people start asking for more than slogans, they suddenly sound exactly like Republicans.
If your politics align more with protecting billionaires than uplifting workers—you’re in the wrong party.
Rep. Gillen’s Emotional Manipulation: A Case Study
Albiet, a brief one, here’s a case study on Gillen. During her recent interview with NewsNation, Gillen stated:
“We are not socialists. [Mamdani] ran a campaign based on a bunch of promises—free everything—without any real economic plan… other than raising taxes.”
That one soundbite says everything.
It appeals to fear.
It punches down.
It erases the people doing the most and working the hardest to build a better future.
When Gillen says “we,” she’s not talking about tenants struggling with rent, or nurses on strike, or students buried in debt, or families not being able to afford food. She’s talking about her donor base and the people who tell her to keep things comfortable—for them.
This is how Democrats lose. Not because the right is stronger—but because the neoliberals keep sabotaging the left by catering to the elite while kicking the working class to the curb.
What This Says About the State of Democracy
Policy isn’t the point anymore—performance is.
Instead of fighting for what actually works—paid leave, universal healthcare, living wages—Neoliberals scramble to sound “safe” for a shrinking pool of moderate voters and their corporate donor base. And the result? Millions of full-time, working-class Americans end up on SNAP—only to be branded as “freeloaders” or “lazy” by the right. The same right that gutted the system FDR built—a system designed to create a thriving middle class. The system that was actually moving America toward greatness.
Gillen and all Neoliberal Democrats need to learn something important: Progressives aren’t the fringe, they’re the future. They’re the now. And when Neoliberal Democrats run from that truth, they hand power right back to a party that’s fully embraced authoritarianism.
The divide we see now isn’t just political. It’s moral. It’s about who deserves to thrive—and who’s told to wait their turn.
The Broader Implication: Abandoning Genuine Progressive Policy
Mamdani’s success didn’t come from empty promises. It came from a clear, focused campaign to restore public goods and fund them by increasing taxes for those who’ve benefited the most.
This isn’t radical. It’s responsible.
But Neoliberal Democrats would rather throw him under the bus than admit the current system is broken. They would rather lose to fascists than win with “socialists.” Because progress threatens the comfort they’ve carved out for themselves in a rigged economy.
They aren’t afraid of losing elections. They’re afraid of losing control.
Mamdani’s Policies Aren’t Radical—They’re Historical
What Rep. Gillen calls “unrealistic” is the same model that helped built the American middle class:
- Higher taxes on the wealthy
- Strategic public investment
- Government that actually served its people
That’s how we got the GI Bill. That’s how we built public schools, the interstate highway system, and the economic foundation millions of families relied on for decades.
It worked—until the political class decided to break it.
Since the 1970s, under Nixon and beyond, both Republicans and Neoliberal Democrats have twisted public policy to serve the wealthy. They’ve called it capitalism. But in reality, it’s been socialism for billionaires.
They rely on taxpayer-funded roads, ports, police, and massive subsidies. They sell in our communities, profit from our labor, and then balk at the idea of paying anything back.
They live off the public. And it’s time they started paying for it.
Newsflash, Gillen: Without Progressives, Democrats Lose. Every. Single. Time.
Without progressives, Democrats don’t win. Not in swing states. Not in blue strongholds. Not anywhere.
It was progressives who organized voters in Georgia, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. It’s progressive policies that excite young people (and this Gen Xer), working-class voters, and systemically marginalized communities.
When neoliberals punch left, they’re punching the very people who show up when it matters most.
So when Gillen throws “socialists” under the bus, she’s not saving the party—she’s gutting it.
There is no future for the Democratic Party without progressives. And if leaders like Gillen can’t see that, then maybe they’re not leaders at all. Let’s call them what they are: sellouts.
Billionaire Welfare Is Not Capitalism, It’s Corporate Socialism
Let’s break this down.
Capitalism is an economic system where private individuals or corporations own the means of production—and profits are the primary goal. The system runs on competition and accumulation. It doesn’t exist to meet public needs, or worker needs for that matter. It exists to generate wealth, even if that means exploitation, and it usually does.
Socialism is a system where the people—through democratic control—own the means of production: the land, factories, tools, and infrastructure that generate wealth. Not billionaires. Not corporations. The people.
That doesn’t mean the end of private property. Under socialism, you still own your house, your car, your clothes. What it challenges is private ownership of public necessities—like healthcare, housing, or energy—being used for profit.
This is where people get confused.
Social programs—like Medicare, public schools, or SNAP—are not socialism. They’re public services, funded by taxes, operating within a capitalist system. They don’t shift ownership of wealth or production, they are systems that help people survive.
Socialism, by contrast, is about changing who controls the systems that create wealth—so they serve the public good, not private profit.
But for decades, the right—and neoliberals—have deliberately blurred those lines. They’ve convinced the public through finely tuned propaganda (F you Henry Kissinger—see sidebar) that anything the government does to help people is “socialism,” while the billions we hand to corporations every year is just “business as usual.”
The truth is, we already live under a system that redistributes wealth—just not downward. It’s upward. We subsidize billionaires with tax breaks, bailouts, and public infrastructure that props up private profit. That’s not capitalism. That’s socialism for the rich.
If the government gives taxpayer dollars to working families, it’s called “welfare.” If it gives billions to oil companies, defense contractors, or Wall Street banks, it’s just called “the economy.”
This isn’t an exaggeration. It’s a rigged system where the public pays the costs, and the ultra-wealthy take the gains. That is, by definition, socialism for the elite that is masked as capitalism to keep the rest of us quiet.
And what about communism?
Communism, in theory, is a stateless, classless system where the community—not the government—collectively owns everything. There’s no private property, no money, no markets, and eventually, no state at all. That’s the original vision—one rooted in equality and shared power.
In practice, no society has ever achieved that. What we’ve seen instead are authoritarian regimes that claimed the label of communism while consolidating power through the state. That’s not collective ownership—it’s control. And it has nothing to do with the theory it borrowed from.
So here’s the question Gillen needs to answer:
If Zohran Mamdani’s plan to raise taxes on the ultra-wealthy so they actually contribute to society is too “socialist” for you… Are you calling for communism instead?
Because if we’re not going to tax the people who’ve profited most off our labor—off our schools, roads, ports, and police—then what’s the alternative?
Are you saying corporations should be forced to lower their prices? That they should be made to serve the people instead of themselves?
Because if not—then your only plan is to let billionaires keep bleeding us dry while telling the rest of us to tighten our belts.
Let’s be honest: Mamdani isn’t trying to destroy America like the Republicans, Neoliberal Democrats, and techno-fascists already are. He’s not calling for a revolution. He’s demanding fairness. He’s demanding Democracy. Yes, with a capital D. He’s saying: if you’ve built your wealth off the backs of working people, off public systems, off everything we all pay into—you owe something back.
That’s not radical. That’s responsible. That’s fairness. That’s Democracy.
But the fact that Gillen would rather smear that as “socialism” (which, is not a negative in reality) than admit the truth? That tells us everything about Neoliberal Democrats.