Posted on 08/28/2026 5:20:35 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Here’s a headline that you might not be surprised to see today: “Have The Democrats Been Lost To Socialism?” Only it wasn’t written today. Issues & Insights crafted that headline way back in 2016, when it was already clear the Democrats had moved sharply leftward. Today’s extremist Dems are no different; they’re just more obvious about it.
“Polls show a shocking number of Democrats, in particular young ones, find socialist ideas not merely acceptable but preferable to capitalism,” I&I wrote then. “It’s hard to imagine a more stunning indictment of our schools.”
That still stands up pretty well today, we’d say.
It was prompted by the release of a then-shocking February 2016 poll of 1,000 likely Democratic voters by the American Action Forum in which 47% of Democrats described “socialism” and “communism” as either “very favorable” or “favorable.” And 60% said they’d be OK if America went socialist.
The numbers went up for young Democrats (those under 45), who favored socialism over capitalism by 46% to 19%, a landslide for leftism.
“How could average Americans of a supposedly mainstream political party throw their lot in with a creed that’s responsible for more human misery and poverty in the world than any other?” we asked. “It boggles the mind. Socialism, and its evil twin, communism, murdered well over 100 million people during the last century, a scale of slaughter unmatched in human history.”
That was Feb. 22, 2016. Those under-45s who answered that poll then are today no longer youthful idealists; they’re the Democratic Party’s heart and soul, its establishment, as an even-more extreme group today emerges each year from our nation’s far-left universities to take their place.
So what has changed? Nothing really, except today Democrats show a brazenness and shamelessness about their extremism. Today, socialism is edgy. It’s cool. It’s violent. It’s destructive. It’s online. And if allowed to take over, it will ultimately and inevitably metastasize into the moral cancer of communism, the worst political system in history.
This is no false alarm. The Democrats are already objectively socialist.
How do we know?
Last November, we asked those taking our own I&I/TIPP Poll the following: “Socialism is commonly defined as ‘a social and economic system that calls for public rather than private ownership or control of property and natural resources.’ Generally speaking, do you agree or disagree with the principles of socialism?”
Among Democrats, “55% agreed with the principles of socialism, while only 27% didn’t,” we found.
Of course, many of today’s Democratic leaders have emerged from colleges and universities where they’ve been taught that extreme leftism is the inevitable wave of the future (a page right out of Marx), and that capitalism is unfair, hateful and even anti-human. Rarely do they hear the historically proven creative genius of capitalism extolled.
Meanwhile, the old backbone of the centrist Democrats — blue-collar workers, who were socially conservative, but economically liberal — have been abandoning the Dems for more populist political choices. That includes President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement.
Today’s Democratic Socialists think they’re the avatars of a new America — one that can come about only by destroying the America of today. They call it “socialism,” because that polls well, but the truth of what they’re aiming for is something different: communism.
“Our enemies are not just individual bosses, but the entire global system of capital; not just this or that cop, judge, or president, but the entire anti-democratic structure of our society,” the socialist wing of the Democratic Party wrote in its “Workers Deserve More” manifesto. “We are workers fighting to transform society: to win the battle for democracy, draft a new constitution, and create a democratic socialist republic.”
What does that mean? Democratic Socialists would tear up the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees rights for all. They would destroy free-market capitalism, the very engine of our nation’s great economy, by seizing the means of production; they would shut down prisons and let violent criminals roam free; they would eliminate private property; they would open our borders; and they would get rid of the U.S. Supreme Court and replace it with leftist tribunals.
Sure, elected Democratic leaders publicly wring their hands over losing votes from the dwindling number of moderates in their party. But then they cozy up to extreme-leftist online heroes such as Hasan Piker, and coddle Michigan Democratic senatorial nominee Abdul El-Sayed. Both have used their bad-boy socialist credentials to build millions of online followers. Dems also empower and pamper hard-left socialists like New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib and members of the hard-left “Squad.”
As we said before, there’s no “nice” socialism. Socialism is based on theft, robbing citizens of their rights to life, liberty, and property. And make no mistake, the Democratic Socialists of America, now ascendant in the Democratic Party, have made clear their ultimate goal is communism.
As Deroy Murdock, writing for the Daily Signal, points out, the “socialists” of the Democratic Party these days sound an awful lot like communists.
“Our goal is communism,” David Jenkins, a member of DSA’s National Political Committee, said in 2023. DSA member Cea Weaver is New York City’s tenant tsarina. She posted via X in December 2017: “Elect more communists.” The next year, she demanded: “Seize private property.”
For the record, neither socialism nor communism has ever succeeded in any country, anywhere at any time. Communism as a creed has failed everywhere it’s been tried, bringing only grinding misery, state slavery, mass death, and horrible poverty. Quite a record.
Socialism is communism with training wheels. We doubt Americans want that. But is it what Democrats want?
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This election needs to be billed as freedom vs. communism.
“The objective of Socialism is Communism.” - V. I. Lenin...............
They were always communists.
The predictable result of Democrats abandoning the working class back in the 90’s to represent the ultra wealthy and urban hipsters.
People forgot their experience with the free 2-year trial subscription to communism during the ChiCom Flu.
“They were always communists.”
Lazy, frightened journalists need to look at the real problem. What they’re embracing that’s really new
This is a distinction without a difference. The Democrats love power and they know the way to get and keep it is to offer the largest number of voters a lot of free stuff paid for by the “rich.” And then they demonize the “rich.” Ever since the 1930s, the Democrats’ motto has been to promise more social spending paid for by the “wealthy”. They never define “rich” and “wealthy” because if they did, it would be obvious that the truly rich don’t have enough income to pay for the massive social spending promised by the Democrats. The country would need a massive middle class tax increase to pay for it. Which basically would mean Communism when most of your income goes to the government and then the governmetn doles out spending.
Socialism is the gateway to Communism democrats know every step to it comrades.
The college snowflakes, Che’ Guevara Dickhead T=Shirts have come back to bite Americans on the butt. We should have known better to not make fun of the Braindead Academic Walkers who aimlessly wonder around our college campi.
Total BS. The democrats have allowed the communists to be a part of their party since it’s embrace of Marxist ideas in the 1890’s. The party leaders have just been biding their time.
Short version: Democrat masks off now.
They just came out of the commie closet.
Lies built upon lies. There is no difference between socialism and commie.
This is like arguing that bubonic plague is actually OK since there are versions of it that do not kill.
Pull yer head out, yah commie trash.
That is right; it is freedom vs communism. I would have thought that the average citizen here in this country is smart enough to know the difference, but is it just TDS that’s causing all this problem?
No. It really is not. Not for over a century.
History does in fact, include the time beyond yesterday.
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