The burning debate on the American left this week: is sunscreen socialist?
It was sparked last Thursday when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spoke out about the poor quality of sun creams in the US compared to elsewhere. “I was in South Korea earlier this year and it is so clear how far advanced the rest of the world is on sunscreen, and we deserve better in the US,” the congresswoman said in a social media video filmed with Charlotte Palermino, a skincare brand CEO.
Ocasio-Cortez said that the Food and Drug Administration’s regulations on sunscreen, which haven’t been updated since 1999, are needlessly blocking Americans’ access to higher-performance UV filters that can be found in other countries. “It’s not too corny – please contact your member of Congress,” Ocasio-Cortez instructed her viewers. “Ask them to break through some of the regulatory barriers at the FDA.”
The idea isn’t particularly controversial among skincare experts. For years dermatologists have pointed out the advanced ingredients in non-US sun creams would provide better cancer protection than the ingredients that are allowed in the US.
But AOC’s video touched off a surprisingly fiery reaction from some elements on the left, who accused her of a pale imitation of the anti-capitalism she promised.
On Monday, the Rhode Island chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America torched Ocasio-Cortez, the DSA’s most famous member, over the sunscreen video. “A true tribune of the working class,” the chapter wrote sarcastically on X, formerly known as Twitter.
When the United Farm Workers union replied in a comment that “protection from the sun is absolutely a working-class issue”, the Rhode Island DSA shot back: “Even if this is a workplace safety issue, her analysis is not socialist, but soccer-mom consumerism, complete with her ‘brand owner’ partner.” The DSA chapter also reposted a meme by the leftwing podcast Due Dissidence that said anyone who wasn’t “triggered” by AOC’s sunscreen videowas “not a leftist”.
The chapter was joined by other voices on the left, including Margaret Kimberley, executive editor of Black Agenda Report, who wrote that Ocasio-Cortez was the “most unserious member of Congress”. The Marxist party Socialist Alternative, which launched its own caucus within DSA last year, published a two-page tirade blasting AOC’s video: “The beauty industry is fundamentally sexist, racist, and anti-worker,” it wrote. “Anyone who’s comfortable working within this system is not on our side. It’s past time for the left to say, once and for all, no more sellouts!”
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is no stranger to attacks over her skincare passion. In her first month in office, she posted a five-page Instagram story detailing her skin routine which was met with derision from conservatives. But this may be the first time that it’s caused actual controversy on the left. (In an email, Lauren Hitt, Ocasio-Cortez’s spokesperson, said that the congresswoman wasn’t available to comment due to her trip to South America to meet with leftist leaders.)
The Democratic Socialists of America calls itself a big-tent organization: its members include leftists from Scandinavian-style social democrats to Stalin-venerating Marxist-Leninists. So while some chapters attacked Ocasio-Cortez for her consumerism, others, like Neal Turnquist, a co-chair of DSA’s Santa Fe chapter, who calls himself a democratic socialist, offered only praise. DSA Santa Fe wrote on X: “With our high altitude and sun exposure, access to quality protective sunscreen is essential for New Mexican workers.” Turnquist says the post wasn’t meant as a response against any other DSA chapters. “It was just, we live in New Mexico, and the sun is a constant presence here,” he says. “It’ll roast you real quick.”
In an emailed statement, the Rhode Island DSA said the posts were made by one of its members, before “our Executive Committee asked for the tweets to be deleted because we felt they were causing unproductive conflict. Our chapter has no official position on the sunscreen issue.”
But the fight within DSA isn’t actually about sunscreen, Turnquist says: “It’s about AOC.” Not everyone agrees on how much socialists should work with the Democratic party, and “there’s a debate within the DSA about how much socialists who are elected should be held to account”.
This month, tensions flared at DSA’s national convention in Chicago, as some members proposed that DSA should enforce party rules on members who win public office, like Ocasio-Cortez. The proposal, which was voted down, “should not be top priority”, says Turnquist. With about 100,000 DSA members nationwide, “we’re still tiny”, and elected officials like AOC are valuable “because they’re getting a general socialist message out to the general public”, he says. “Worrying about exactly how close they toe certain lines, I think, distracts from our broader project.”
What’s fueling the tensions is uneasiness about how that broader project is faring. Anders Lee, a self-described Marxist and DSA member in Brooklyn, has noticed an “ebb” in leftwing enthusiasm since the collapse of Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign. “From 2017 to 2020, it really felt like there was an opening for social democratic policies to be implemented in the United States,” and for many leftists, “that was a really exciting time.” Now, he says, “the post-Bernie moment can feel very dark. We’ve lost a central organizing force.” It’s true that figures like Bernie Sanders and AOC don’t talk as much any more about big proposals like Medicare for All or a Green New Deal, “and I think that people are disenchanted and frustrated by the lack of progress. So if all you see is the sunscreen stuff and you’re not seeing the other organizing work that’s happening, then there’s definitely a perception that the left is dead and it’s got to be someone’s fault,” he says.
One of those disillusioned leftists is Russell Dobular, a Manhattan-based theater director and co-host of Due Dissidence, the podcast that tweeted the attack on AOC’s sunscreen advocacy. Back in 2018, “I went out and volunteered for her, I was arguing with old ladies on the streets of Astoria,” he says. But since then he’s grown bitter over Ocasio-Cortez’s closeness to Democrats like Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi, as well as her failure to “hold the line” on issues like Medicare for All, the infrastructure bill, and the railroad strike. “I would not campaign for this sunscreen AOC,” he says. He now refuses to support Democrats or the DSA, and prefers third-party candidates like Cornel West.
Another attack came last month from Freddie deBoer, a self-identified Marxist who wrote “AOC is just a regular old Democrat now” in a controversial essay last month for New York Magazine. The congresswoman “seems increasingly comfortable with leaving her past radical branding behind”, deBoer wrote. “If she wants to be a docile Democratic senator one day, she should.”
But some DSA members argue that national media narratives, and the social media algorithms that amplify them, overlook the progress socialists continue to make – especially at local and state levels, where a growing number of leftist lawmakers take office every year. Recently, New York’s local DSA chapters helped pass the historic Build Public Renewables Act, the first major Green New Deal policy in any state, creating a publicly funded renewable energy program to challenge private fossil fuel giants. In Santa Fe, Turnquist’s chapter has been campaigning for a new excise tax on million-dollar-plus homes, which would fund a new affordable housing trust. And like other chapters, Santa Fe has been fueling labor organizing by workers like UPS drivers. “I hope that [leftists] who are more angry and more critical are also out there, on the ground, doing work,” he says. “Because if you only spend your time angry online, that kind of eats at you.”
Lee says the sunscreen fight is a sign that DSA needs more unified public messaging. “People are really thinking about: how do you deal with that tension of wanting a democratic organization where people are allowed to express themselves, while having the organizational discipline to not convolute the message or just create unnecessary drama?”
The question remains, however: is it socialist to want better sunscreen? Lee says the sunscreen issue isn’t “necessarily Marxist or not Marxist”. But as an “extremely pale” Irish person who depends on sunscreen, he “would love to get some Korean sunscreen”, he says.
In an email, a United Farm Workers spokesperson said farm workers “experience higher rates of melanoma compared to other occupations, and protecting their skin from sun exposure is crucial. Sunscreen is not a cosmetic, it is a cancer prevention tool.
“It might be difficult to understand the importance of sun protection if you do not actually work outdoors exposed to the elements,” the spokesperson added. “In that case, it would be pragmatic to learn from the workers who do.”
• This article was amended on 18 August 2023. An earlier version said that DSA’s convention is annual, rather than biennial. Also, Socialist Alternative did not sponsor any resolutions, and there was not a proposal to only run third-party candidates.
