Sunscreen socialism: AOC divides the left with call for better skincare options
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 nonUS 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 Stalinvenerating 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 annual national convention in Chicago, as hardline factions including Socialist Alternative proposed that DSA should only run third-party candidates and should enforce party rules on members who win public office, like OcasioCortez. These kinds of proposals, which were both voted down, “should not be top priority”, says Turnquist. With around 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.” (Socialist Alternative did not respond to a request for comment.)
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