In a heated exchange on TikTok, Georgia’s 10th Congressional District candidate Lexy Doherty and retired United States Air Force officer turned political commentator Jahlon, clashed over whether the U.S. government’s decision to acquire a 9.9% equity stake in Intel qualifies as socialism. The back-and-forth highlighted not only differing views on political theory, but also deeper questions about accuracy, persuasion, and the role of education in political communication.
The Spark: Intel and the U.S. Government
The debate began with a TikTok video where Doherty argued that America buying shares of Intel should be understood as socialism. She characterized the investment as a form of “social ownership” because, in her view, it represented the people (through their elected representatives) owning a share in production.
In mid-2025, the U.S. government converted $8.9 billion in CHIPS Act grants into a 9.9% equity stake in Intel. As reported by Reuters, the Financial Times, Wired, and Tom’s Hardware, the stake was structured as a passive investment without board seats or operational control. Intel, facing multi-billion-dollar quarterly losses and significant layoffs of American factory workers, remains a private, for-profit corporation.
For Doherty, who is running against incumbent Republican Mike Collins, framing the issue as socialism fit into her broader messaging about economic fairness and corporate responsibility. For Jahlon, the claim raised red flags.
Jahlon’s Response: Accuracy Matters
In his stitched video response, Jahlon rejected the idea that the Intel investment qualifies as socialism. “Just because the government buys stock doesn’t make it socialism,” he said. Instead, he argued, it is closer to corporate welfare, industrial policy, or state capitalism. These are policies consistent with past U.S. interventions during the 2008 bank bailouts and the 2009 auto industry rescue.
Historically, the U.S. Treasury did not buy common stock in banks during the financial crisis. Instead, it purchased preferred equity stakes and stock warrants in institutions such as Citigroup, Bank of America, and Goldman Sachs. Those positions provided dividends and upside potential but no operational control, and they were later sold at a profit.
The auto bailout, however, did involve majority ownership. The Treasury took a 60.8% stake in General Motors during bankruptcy proceedings, as well as equity in Chrysler. While technically crossing the “majority ownership” line, the government still did not nationalize production. By 2013 the Treasury had sold off its holdings at an estimated $11.2 billion loss.
Jahlon noted that these examples demonstrate a recurring pattern. The U.S. occasionally takes temporary equity stakes in private companies during crises but exits after stabilization.
The Theoretical Divide: What Counts as Socialism?
The heart of the clash was definitional. Doherty dismissed precise distinctions as unnecessary for political messaging, writing that “If you ask 10 people to define socialism, five people won’t be able to and the other five will have different answers.” Her statement, whether intentional or accidental, suggested that many constituents of GA-10 are uneducated or undereducated on the topic.
Jahlon countered that these distinctions matter. He pointed to Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Vladimir Lenin, whose writings defined socialism not as partial state ownership but as the state (or the proletariat) owning and controlling the means of production. Marx and Engels saw socialism as the transitional stage where private ownership is replaced with collective ownership and planned production.
Lenin described instances of government ownership in capitalist economies as state capitalism, not socialism. He viewed such interventions as tools of capitalist governments, not steps toward socialism unless accompanied by revolutionary change.
“A government buying a 9.9% equity stake in a private company like Intel is not socialism,” Jahlon said. “Marx and Engels would call this state intervention in capitalism. Lenin would have called it state capitalism. None of them would confuse it with socialism, and they created these theories.”
The Rhetorical Clash: Persuasion vs. Education
The debate escalated when Doherty admitted openly that her goal was persuasion, not intellectual precision. “My focus isn’t an intellectual exercise,” she wrote, “it’s to flip a seat and I need to communicate in a way that most of them can understand.”
For Jahlon, this was proof of a deeper problem. He argued that Doherty was essentially admitting to manipulation. “You’ve basically said the voters are too ignorant to understand, and you are comfortable manipulating them instead of educating them,” he replied.
He also noted Doherty’s professional background. As an educational consultant who lists prioritizing education among her campaign’s top issues, Jahlon argued that her approach was contradictory. “If you truly believe the average American is too ignorant to understand, why say anything at all? Why base your post on fear instead of clarity? Weren’t you an educational consultant? Isn’t one of your top priorities supposed to be prioritizing education? Yet here you are admitting you would rather exploit ignorance than resolve it.”
The Broader Context: Politics in GA-10
Doherty is a Democratic candidate running in Georgia’s 10th Congressional District, a seat currently held by Republican Mike Collins. According to her campaign website her platform emphasizes:
- Rural economic development through education, job training, small business support, and renewable energy.
- Healthcare expansion, including Medicaid access, women’s health, and rural maternal care.
- Good governance, including the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, campaign finance reform, and banning insider trading in Congress.
- Environmental stewardship, focusing on renewable energy and natural resource protection.
Her messaging positions her against what she describes as extremism in the Collins camp, while focusing on issues she argues resonate with rural voters.
For Jahlon, however, her handling of the socialism debate revealed a willingness to “prey on ignorance” rather than elevate the public conversation. He likened her approach to indoctrination. “That isn’t simplifying, that’s manipulating, preying on people who lack the knowledge,” he wrote.
The Tone: Clash of Styles
The exchange between Doherty and Jahlon was not simply academic. It was also a clash of rhetorical styles. Doherty leaned into populist communication, prioritizing accessibility and messaging discipline over precision. She framed her goal as building an “opposition movement” capable of flipping a seat in 2026.
Jahlon insisted on intellectual rigor and definitional clarity, drawing on the original texts of Marx, Engels, and Lenin to refute her claims. He rejected the idea that simplification justified inaccuracy, arguing that once accuracy is abandoned, education becomes indoctrination.
He concluded one response with a pointed literary comparison. Referencing Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game, Jahlon wrote: “You’re like every politician who will scream on election night, ‘We won. That’s all that matters.’ But constituents will look at you and say, ‘No. The way we win matters.’”
A Microcosm of Political Debate
The TikTok exchange between Lexy Doherty and Jahlon reflects a broader challenge in American politics. Candidates and activists often struggle between simplifying for persuasion and staying true to precise definitions and historical context.
For Doherty, a candidate trying to unseat an entrenched Republican in a conservative district, using the language of socialism may help galvanize an opposition base. For Jahlon, accuracy is non-negotiable. He views her approach as proof of the dangerous slide from education into indoctrination.
The GA-10 race will likely attract more attention as 2026 approaches. For now, one thing is clear: even a debate about Intel’s stock buyout can quickly turn into a referendum on the role of truth, manipulation, and integrity in American politics.
The full back and forth between these two individuals is located on this TikTok video