CLAIM: Ocasio-Cortez’s Socialism Can Work in the Midwest — With a Rebrand.

The most radical economic policy on Ocasio-Cortez’s platform — a federal job guarantee — meanwhile, actually polls quite well in “flyover country.” In a survey commissioned by the Center for American Progress, a supermajority of voters agreed that “for anyone who is unemployed or underemployed, the government should guarantee them a job with a decent wage doing work that local communities need, such as rebuilding roads, bridges, and schools or working as teachers, home health-care aides, or child-care providers.”

Critically, support for this premise was almost exactly as strong among rural-dwelling demographic groups as it was among urban ones: According to DFP’s modeling, CAP’s proposal boasts roughly 69 percent support in urban zip codes, and 67 percent in rural ones.

There are a lot of reasonable, technocratic objections to the job guarantee as a policy. But polling suggests that there is majoritarian support for a massive public-jobs program of some kind — and that framing said program as “guaranteed jobs” might be politically effective.

Other items on Ocasio-Cortez’s platform poll similarly well. A bipartisan majority of voters have espoused support for “breaking up the big banks” in recent years, while nearly 70 percent of Americans want the government to take “aggressive action” on climate change, according to Reuters/Ipsos.

Everything is popular until the bill comes due.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): There’s always been support for WPA and CCC-like programs. But the unions, which hated them even back in FDR’s day, have blocked them. Bundle this with repeal of the Davis-Bacon Act’s “prevailing wage” rule — which is basically a union subsidy — and you might have something. Of course, with today’s critical labor shortage, none of this is exactly a priority.