Until recently, Cynthia Nixon was best known for playing Miranda on the HBO series Sex and the City and its big-screen movie spinoffs. Of the four women who were the main characters, Miranda was the sensible one. She was a serious-minded lawyer and, unlike her three friends, she didn’t fall instantly into bed with every guy who made a pass at her.
Though we may know better, we often think of famous actors as being more or less like the people they play. You could be forgiven, then, for assuming that Nixon is, in real life, a brainy, level-headed type. In recent months, however, Nixon has appeared to be on a one-woman mission to prove otherwise.
As a candidate for governor of New York State who is challenging the Democratic incumbent, Andrew Cuomo, from the left, Nixon has, not to put too fine a point on it, demonstrated to all and sundry that she is a world-class pinhead. On July 10, Politico published a statement by Nixon in which she admitted to being, in her own words, a “democratic socialist.”
“Some more establishment, corporate Democrats get very scared by this term but if being a democratic socialist means that you believe health care, housing, education and the things we need to thrive should be a basic right not a privilege then count me in,” Nixon wrote. “As Martin Luther King put it, call it democracy or call it democratic socialism but we have to have a better distribution of wealth in this country. I have long stood in support of a millionaires tax, Medicare for all, fully funding our public schools, housing for all and rejecting all corporation donations — all of which align with democratic socialist principles.”
Nixon’s campaign confirmed that she wasn’t using her words lightly. Her handlers had been in touch with the Democratic Socialists of America. She feels that socialism is on the rise in America and, especially, in the Democratic Party – and she thinks it’s a terrific development. Marc Molinaro, the GOP candidate for New York governor, had a pointed response to that: “Millionaires like Cynthia Nixon may be able to dream about socialist paradises, but here in the real world, people can’t afford the taxes they have,” Molinaro said. “If Ms. Nixon thinks socialism is the answer, she should ask the people of Venezuela.”
More on Tuesday.