America’s wet hot socialist summer

commentary Fox News and Republicans are struggling to contain their desire when it comes to the progressive left Published September 13, 2026 6:45AM (EDT) Abdul El-Sayed, Zohran Mamdani, Hasan Piker and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. (Illustration by Salon / Getty Images / Finn Gomez / John Nacion / Noushad Thekkayil / ANGELA WEISS) In politics, refuting your opponent requires poking holes in their argument or, as is often the case, taking something they said out of context and wildly exaggerating it. But another approach, apparently, is to make an arena full of your supporters genuflect before the nearly nude, muscled form of your latest cultural villain, Hasan Piker. The veneration of the left-wing streamer’s thirst-trap image, which recently happened on the opening night of the Republican National Committee’s midterm convention, wasn’t the first time in recent memory that an attempt to Own the Libs turned into a moment to appreciate the other side’s . . . appeal. Who said bipartisanship is dead? This summer has been a high-water mark for the progressive left, filled with surprising electoral victories and an emerging wave of bold new leaders like Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan’s Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate. A progressive capitalist, he nonetheless earned the endorsement of the Democratic Socialists of America and has joined New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as lefty vanguards and prime think-piece fodder. Predictably, Fox News and the right are all hot and bothered by all this, clocking in to warn us about the dangers of democratic socialism and the nefarious threat posed by Medicare for All. But surveying the coverage, I can’t help but notice that their hearts just aren’t in it these days, and that your grandpa’s favorite talking heads would rather discuss, um, another hot topic. “AOC is an attractive millennial with a powerful surface appeal,” Fox News host Laura Ingraham recently observed in a segment devoted to speculation that Ocasio-Cortez might run for president in 2028. The host of “The Ingraham Angle” then raised the temperature, apparently taking AOC’s recent request to “don’t be weird” as a challenge, noting that “with her long, sleek raven hair and red lipstick, she’s at times played dual roles — kind of the earnest activist, up from her bootstraps, who wants to stick it to the man, and then at times, she’s kind of played the girly-girl who shares her favorite recipe on TikTok.” Not to be outdone, Ingraham’s Fox News colleague, Ainsley Earhardt, recently complained that the left’s new wave is so hot, it’s hurting her feelings. In a segment titled (oh dear) “Democrats Enter Their Thirst Trap Era,” she noted with vigor that “El-Sayed is out in these tight T-shirts. AOC with her pretty smile, she’s beautiful. She’s got the red lipstick. You have Mamdani, always smiling, always seemingly positive. It doesn’t make their philosophy any less dangerous, right?” Always one to go where the heat is, Ingraham also took a break from lusting after AOC to comment on El-Sayed’s “big manspread.” As this is a piece of political commentary in the summer of 2026, everything always seems to come back to Piker. Whether laudatory or critical, every profile of the controversial commentator is all but legally obligated to note that the socialist gadfly hits the gym. (Admittedly, I’m also guilty of this, as the editing process is always revelatory.) Fox News is not immune in this regard, either. Even their most critical segments on Piker often devolve into a debate on his attractiveness. (Really, Greg Gutfield — only a three?) Conservative commentators dismissing progressives as all image and no substance is old hat. But the undeniable lascivious edge of our current discourse feels new and striking. Conservative commentators dismissing progressives as all image and no substance is old hat. But the undeniable lascivious edge of our current discourse feels new and striking. At the heart of it, explained Dr. Tara Suwinyattichaiporn, a Kinsey-certified sexologist, author and co-host TLC’s “90 Day: The Last Resort,” lies shame and repression, the twin hobgoblins that have fueled the conservative movement since time immemorial. “The first thing that came to my mind is eroticized antagonism,” said Suwinyattichaiporn, who generously agreed to watch a few relevant — and overly horned-up — clips and offer their thoughts. “[This] happens a lot in movies or TV shows or storybooks where you find the opposition attractive and the feelings are even more intensified and even more erotic due to the fact that they are against your ideology or [that] it’s a taboo thing.” She pointed to the political rivals Alex Claremont-Diaz and young Prince Henry from the popular novel and film “Red, White & Royal Blue.” Being an elder millennial, I immediately thought of Buffy and Spike, and the forbidden lust between a vampire slayer and the vulnerable punk bloodsucker that ushered many WB viewers into their sexual awakening and inspired uncountable reams of ribald fan fiction along the way. Either way, these function as prime examples of hating yourself for finding the enemy hot, hating them for thrusting you into this situation against your will, and then hating your amygdala just for doing its job. “When you see someone, and you’re excited, or you’re angry,” Suwinyattichaiporn said, “it ignites a similar part of the brain.” I’ll note simply that I am not unsympathetic to finding noxious people kinda hot. My only justification for once being a bit into a notorious former progressive turncoat — completely against my will, mind you — was to meekly argue, “Well, I bet she listens to Liz Phair and Bratmobile and that, unfortunately, works for me.” So I know full well that the perplexing experience of finding the wrong person (however that may be defined) attractive can create an uncomfortable (and uncomfortably hot) cognitive dissonance, a feeling that an unruly part of ourselves is acting counter to our often-strict self-definition. Want more sharp takes on politics? Sign up for our free newsletter, Standing Room Only, written by Amanda Marcotte, now also a weekly show on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. The way past this mental quagmire is to accept that the mind is willful, that we all have limited control over who we find appealing, and that, of course, a person can be attractive yet also have opinions and other aspects we find repellent. Therefore, it is up to us to do the internal work of untangling these contradictions. This might require working through some shame, or reconciling some sexual trauma, self-limiting beliefs or whatever else one might be holding onto (no one gets out of this world unscathed), but it will be worth it in the end, as rigorous internal work is its own reward. But that is a tall order for people whose black-and-white viewpoints and cultural ideologies are built around repression, whether of everyone they think of as beneath them — and often secretly want beneath them — or of themselves, since dark impulses don’t have an off-switch once they are unleashed. (If you need further proof of this, look no further than Dallas, where Grindr usage apparently spiked during the RNC’s midterm convention.) “It all dates back to hundreds of thousands of years of organized religion and their beliefs of not celebrating human sexuality and freedom,” Suwinyattichaiporn said. “It’s always about control.” As anyone who has done even a bit of therapy knows (and I’ve done so much that I have become an honorary therapist), anything that is repressed will eventually reveal itself, which is apparently why some Fox News correspondents seem hopelessly compelled to obey their thirst. And considering that the right-wing has spent decades demonizing Muslims, then handsome, uber-competent leaders like Mamdani and El-Sayed will inevitably represent a potent taboo for many conservatives, a naughty little thrill they’re ever compelled to indulge. The result is that now we all have to deal with it as they work through their icky feelings in real time. “A lot of these conservative women, they live in a box with so many rules, and ‘you’re supposed to be this way as a woman,’” Suwinyattichaiporn said. “And [El-Sayed] doesn’t care. He’s buff, he’s hot, he’s wearing a T-shirt, he’s going to work and he’s so decisive and confident.” “A lot of these conservative women, they live in a box with so many rules, and ‘you’re supposed to be this way as a woman,’” Suwinyattichaiporn said. “And [El-Sayed] doesn’t care. He’s buff, he’s hot, he’s wearing a T-shirt, he’s going to work and he’s so decisive and confident.” They — along with some closeted Republican men, undoubtedly — may even be “fantasizing about him when they masturbate,” she added. “Because he breaks the rules.” Thanks to the boom in online fitness and beauty culture, our feeds are constantly overflowing with good-looking people who are just too boring to be hot. We all also have plenty of celebrities with idiosyncratic features who nonetheless have the confidence and quelque chose de spécial that makes them irresistible to many. (Benny Blanco, Selena Gomez’s husband, is ever happy to serve as an example here.) Beyond looks, taste or any notions of cool, the people we tend to find truly attractive in life inevitably have a comfort and ease with themselves, which is only possible via introspection and learned emotional intelligence. These hotties therefore naturally accept that when you desire someone, part of the game is that they have at least a morsel of power over you — and therefore part of the fun is being comfortable with that vulnerability and the possibility of surrender. This self-acceptance is irresistible to some and a threat to others, as Dr. Suwinyattichaiporn knows all too well. (She received some interesting emails after recently taking a couple to an S&M dungeon on TLC.) While she’s careful to say that she knows plenty of old-school, relatively normal Republicans who don’t recognize their party anymore, much of the right today “live in the supermax of beliefs, and they can’t get out,” she said. “They have to repress themselves. So they want others to be repressed as well. ‘How dare you live outside of this box and have freedom of choice and a comfortable, fun, beautiful life?” While Republicans often say they just want low taxes and no regulations on business, their true passion has always been taking away your freedom to do what you consensually want with your life, such as the ongoing attempts to limit access to contraception or repeal marriage equality (for the children’s sake, mind you), to say nothing of the surprising number of states that still have nebulous anti-sodomy laws on the books. Right now, as we approach the November midterms and, after them, the first rumblings of the 2028 presidential race, it’s unlikely that the right’s urges will subside anytime soon. Come January, El-Sayed could be in the Senate, toiling away on behalf of Michiganders as the nation’s first Muslim senator — and Capitol Hill’s resident zaddy. It’s also entirely possible that Ocasio-Cortez and Jon Ossoff, the low-key beefcake Georgia senator, will run for president. With Mamdani in his high-profile mayoral role and Piker on a live stream (and now always on Fox News), this situation could become even hotter, in all senses of the word. Suwinyattichaiporn is hopeful that society might progress to a moment where “sex positivity becomes more accepted,” and our culture begins to untangle the often knotty relationships we have with desire and ourselves. Some pessimists, though, may note that, in America, that’s an even more unrealistic notion than a socialist becoming president, even if we suspect that both parties would enjoy an AOC campaign, but for wildly different reasons. But whether we go forward or somehow even more backward, the next two years are going to be long and hard. We might all need to start taking more cold showers. 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