Posted on 05/14/2026 9:27:06 AM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
...Exhaustion helps explain why ideas once treated as radioactive — socialism, in particular — are now discussed less as utopian fantasies and more as possible exits from a stalled national project.
For younger Americans, the appeal is less ideological romance than hunger... They face unaffordable rents, unstable work, medical debt and student loans that metastasize faster than they can be paid down...
When people can’t eat, can’t save and can’t think clearly, the abstractions of “free markets” lose their magic. Systems are judged not by theory but by outcomes. Right now, the outcomes for average Americans are brutal.
This is where figures like Zohran Mamdani come in...
To many on the right, he sounds like a revolutionary... But to many voters in New York City and beyond, he sounds less like a radical than someone asking why, in the richest country on earth, basic material security is still treated as a provocation.
Mamdani’s upset victory in New York has already begun to reverberate far beyond America’s cultural capital...His win has boosted membership in the Democratic Socialists of America and emboldened activists who see confirmation that openly socialist policies — especially on housing and affordability — can win elections...
Younger Americans are less committed to capitalism, not because they have read Marx, but because capitalism, as currently practiced, has written them out of the story...
“Drain the swamp” became a punchline, then a lie, then background noise. What was drained was not corruption but trust. Power did not disappear; it simply reorganized itself around loyalty tests and personal whim. Contracts flowed to friends. Grievance replaced governance. The market was supposed to be free. Instead, it has become selectively generous.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
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We're an election or two from not being able to vote our way out of it, and it then fails as every socialist construct has.
100% voter apathy. Conservatives are too damn lazy to show up and vote.
Fact. Apathy will kill.
I would put the introduction of Socialism to the US a bit earlier.
Woodrow Wilson gave us the Federal Reserve and the beginnings of the Income Tax. This supposedly would give us a Scientific Economy (socialism).
Wilson called himself a Progressive. Even a lot of the Democrats didn't like him.
His New Freedom programs gave us The Federal Farm Loan Loan Act to give Loans to farmers, the Federal Trade Commission and labor reforms.
THE HELL IT WILL
BLOAT. America will never be a Marxist Nation. WHATEVER IT TAKES!
Scamming is apparently an acceptable art form now. Sad days ahead. But, I’m 79 soooooooooo.
John Mac Ghlionn …John McGlynn, to use Anglicization. (Why not “Seán” or “Eoin” instead of “John”?) Author at the Daily Beast and Newsweak, and also the NY Post and American “Conservative”. Talk about a double-minded man.
LBJ and his great society:
“I’ll Have Those Negroes Voting Democratic for the Next 100 Years.”
I thought that John is recounting the gist of his wet dream
Sleepwalking? What do you think it is that “progressives” are progressing towards?
Euro Utopia of course.
Canada is trying hard but is pretty much ignored
Bkmk
America has split into two Nations by States. Magenta America vs Blue America. It is a broken marrige.
“once treated as radioactive — socialism”
Under what rock did this author live?
In 1959 my US teacher was either a socialist or communist. In 1960-61 my world government teacher was either a socialist or communist...depending on who was describing the teacher.
Then LBJ came along with the ideology that if you throw enough money and enough people at the war in Vietnam...or the War on Poverty you are bound to outlast the enemy.
Then Nixon came along and changed state & local government from mostly independent of the Federal government to be financially dependent on the Federal government. Previously a School District tax or Water District tax was decided on its merits. Post LBJ-Nixon every local government decision is based on how much money they have to raise to get the matching money from the Feds.
The kicker is that the Feds can (seemingly) borrow & print unlimited amounts of money. The State & Local government can’t.
Post Nixon every President, most every political decision is based on “How will this fit in or change the LBJ-Nixon framework?”
How does MAGA fit in or change the LBJ-Nixon framework ... which is the big government can borrow and print money framework.
Corporate statism. Privatise the profits, socialize the labor costs.
I would not regard it as sleepwalking
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