Rep. Chris Rabb (D-Philadelphia), the Democratic nominee for the 3rd Congressional District seat being vacated by retiring Rep. Dwight Evans, had strong words when talking about some fellow statewide Democrats during a recent podcast interview.<\/p>\n
Talking on the PoliticsPA podcast \u201cVoices of Reason<\/a>,\u201d Rabb called Sen. John Fetterman a \u201csellout\u201d and said it was unfortunate that Pennsylvanians \u201chad to learn who he was after he took office.\u201d<\/p>\n Rabb, who has served in the state house since 2016 and has seen Gov. Josh Shapiro as a legislator, Attorney General and governor, also said that Shapiro would not be acceptable to Democratic Socialists as a presidential candidate.<\/p>\n \u201cHis politics do not align with Democratic Socialism,\u201d said Rabb. \u201cBut there are very few viable candidates for president who do. So the question is not so much who would Democratic Socialists endorse or get behind, but who is the most viable Democratic candidate for president? Who can be held to the greatest account?\u201d<\/p>\n A self-proclaimed Democratic Socialist, Rabb is one of the success stories from recent elections which also saw that faction rack up mayoral wins in three of the largest cities in the U.S.: Zohran Mamdani (New York), Katie Wilson (Seattle), and Janeese Lewis (Washington DC). Three establishment Democratic representatives also fell to Democratic Socialists in their New York and Colorado primaries.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the Democratic Party has ideological diversity in it much like the Republican Party used to have,\u201d said Rabb when asked about Democratic Socialism. \u201cYou have liberals who are Democrats. You have conservative or blue-dog Democrats. There are folks like me who believe that government needs to serve a greater and more substantial role in addressing things that we believe are human rights and not just things that can be won over legislatively. So whether it\u2019s housing or education, it is an approach that separates us.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the other thing we acknowledge is that in our current system, our electoral process has been hijacked by corporations,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n \u201cFor those of us who identify as Democratic Socialists, we take a more structural approach to governance where we believe that the things we need to do in elective office need to be systemic and not be incremental.\u201d<\/p>\n A Gallup poll last year found that only 39 percent of U.S. adults had a positive image of socialism. This includes 66 percent of Democrats, 38 percent of independents and 14 percent of Republicans. And many Americans recoil when hearing the names of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) or Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).<\/p>\n \u201cI think there\u2019s some words that we use quite a bit that we need to simply define. Let\u2019s start with radical. People are afraid of radical this, radical that,\u201d said Rabb. \u201cRadical means at the root. What are the root causes of the things that sustain our misery as working people? The things that provide us with the safety net that we\u2019re accustomed to \u2013 social security, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, public housing, public education \u2013 those are all socialist programs. That\u2019s not an opinion. Those are facts because in a pure capitalism system, they would not exist.<\/p>\n \u201cSo if you take a social security check, you embrace certain parts of socialism,\u201d said Rabb. \u201cYou may not like that, you may not understand that, but it doesn\u2019t make it untrue.\u201d<\/p>\n The Democratic Party has come under fire recently \u2013 much of it from within its own ranks \u2013 for its support of Israel. On Wednesday, 103 Democrats voted for a amendment to cut off U.S. aid to Israel<\/a> in a presumed doomed show vote, but it provided a test for Democrats who have been increasingly under pressure from the activist base over Israel.<\/p>\n