Posted on 08/20/2026 1:33:58 PM PDT by MacNaughton
Every generation searches for answers. Young people have always challenged the status quo, questioned authority and sought a better future than the one they inherited. That impulse is not only understandable, but it is often essential to a healthy democracy. It is how societies reform, innovate and correct injustice.
Yet one question has resurfaced with increasing frequency on college campuses, social media and in political discourse: Why are some young people embracing communism or openly expressing sympathy for socialist and communist ideas despite the overwhelming historical record of communist governments?
The answer deserves more than slogans or political attacks. It deserves honesty, humility and historical perspective.
Most young people are not attracted to communism because they desire dictatorship or political repression. They are attracted to ideals such as equality, fairness, affordable housing, universal opportunity and a belief that no one should be left behind. Many have grown up during financial crises, rising tuition costs, crushing student debt, unaffordable homes, stagnant wages and widening wealth disparities. They see billionaires becoming wealthier while many working families struggle to pay rent or afford healthcare.
These concerns are real. Ignoring them only pushes young people further toward ideologies that promise sweeping solutions.
But history teaches us that noble intentions and successful outcomes are not always the same thing.
Communism has consistently promised equality. In practice, however, it has often produced concentrated political power rather than shared prosperity. The Soviet Union, Mao's China, Cambodia under Pol Pot, North Korea and other communist regimes did not eliminate injustice. They frequently replaced one form of inequality with another one in which the state held enormous power over individuals, controlled speech, suppressed religion, limited private enterprise, imprisoned political opponents and, in many cases, was responsible for immense human suffering.
These are not partisan talking points. They are historical realities documented across decades of scholarship.
Why, then, do these lessons seem to resonate less with younger generations?
Part of the answer may lie in historical distance. For many young Americans, the Cold War is as distant as World War II was for previous generations. The Berlin Wall exists only in textbooks. Soviet bread lines, Mao's Cultural Revolution and the Cambodian killing fields are not lived memories but instead historical chapters competing for attention in an age dominated by social media and 20-second video clips.
History loses its urgency when it is no longer personal.
There is another factor we should honestly acknowledge. Capitalism itself has not always lived up to its highest ideals. Free markets have created extraordinary innovation, lifted billions worldwide from poverty, and rewarded creativity and entrepreneurship. At the same time, capitalism can produce monopolies, corporate greed, corruption, environmental harm and staggering inequality when ethical standards and effective institutions fail.
Recognizing those shortcomings does not require abandoning free markets. It requires improving them.
The answer to the imperfections of capitalism is not necessarily communism any more than the failures of democracy justify authoritarianism. Free societies possess something centrally planned systems often do not: the ability to reform themselves through open debate, free elections, independent courts, entrepreneurial innovation and a free press.
That ability to self-correct is one of democracy's greatest strengths.
Our educational institutions also bear responsibility. Students should not be taught that capitalism is beyond criticism or that communism is beyond examination. They should learn both honestly. They should study the achievements and failures of free-market economies alongside the documented consequences of communist governments. Education should encourage inquiry rather than ideology.
Parents have a role as well. So do faith communities, civic organizations and the media. Young people need mentors willing to answer difficult questions rather than dismiss them. Condescension rarely changes minds. Conversation often does.
Perhaps the deeper issue extends beyond economics altogether.
Many young people today are searching for meaning, purpose, belonging and identity. Political movements often become substitutes for the communities that families, neighborhoods, religious institutions and civic organizations once provided. When people feel isolated, they naturally gravitate toward movements that promise certainty, justice and belonging.
This is not merely a political challenge. It is a cultural one.
Our response should never be to fear young people or ridicule them for asking difficult questions. Curiosity is not the enemy of freedom. Ignorance is. We should encourage rigorous debate, careful reading, historical literacy and intellectual humility. We should welcome disagreement while insisting that every ideology, including our own, be measured against evidence, history and respect for human dignity.
Every generation believes it can build a better society. That aspiration is one of humanity's greatest strengths. But history also reminds us that societies flourish not when government becomes all-powerful but when liberty is protected, opportunity is expanded, institutions remain accountable, and individuals are free to speak, worship, create, disagree and pursue their own dreams.
The challenge before us is not choosing between compassion and freedom. America is strongest when it insists upon both. Justice without liberty risks oppression. Liberty without responsibility risks indifference. A healthy republic demands the wisdom to preserve both.
The greatest gift we can offer the next generation is not ideological certainty but historical truth, moral courage and the confidence to think critically. Freedom has always depended not on people who simply accept ideas but on citizens willing to examine them honestly, question them respectfully, and learn from history before repeating it.
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Jim
Communism means you get everything for free ... after you wait in lines miles long.
Because they were never taught that you can’t have a pony if you live in a one-bedroom upstairs apartment.
Is it possible that so many young people are STUPID and or immature?
Perhaps I am too simplistic, but I think a lot of young people have been indoctrinated by the system to think that some individuals are just sitting on top of a big pile of goodies. And the young people don’t have a lot of goodies, do they? So it’s only fair to take goodies away from the people who have so much, and give goodies to the people who have so little, right? I don’t think there is any sort of deep thinking going on.
BTW - I have real sympathy for Gen Z. I do think they were handed a bad deal in the aftermath of Obama,COVID and Biden (not to mention the ravages of social media). I think this is a very tough time to be young. But communism is no solution.
“Is it possible that so many young people are STUPID and or immature?”
I’d say it’s more like ignorant and immature. I don’t mean “ignorant” as an insult, but as lacking knowledge.
Because a large majority of the young are imports from 3rd world shitholes and they came here to solely to get free stuff from YT
The indoctrination of a few generations of students who are taught that trusting your feelings is more important and more honest than critical thinking is now bearing fruit in our culture.
Now, now, someone will call you racisss for pointing out the underclass overbreeding.
They’ve been pumped full of it in school
Their mothers leave them alone in grief their whole childhood
We have allowed ourselves to be taxed into oblivion and paid no attention to the ridiculous spending, money laundering and fraud
Because the public schools made a point of NOT educating them.
It promises free sh!t, and they’re lazy.
(1) Big Media is doing nothing to point out the dangers & bad results of communism ... so people don’t get educated that way (if anything, Big Media *sympathizes* with the commie countries, and puts down the US!)
(2) There’s fewer commie countries around, when we were growing up there were lots - all of Eastern Europe and the giant USSR.
Now there’s still China, Cuba, Ethiopia and a few others, but the “communist” label is never applied anymore!
So unless you’ve seen it before, today you don’t get a true picture of the many horrors that communism always brings ... if you only hear positive things about something, you’ll think it’s great
true, which makes me wonder why welfare pays more when the father is NOT present. 73% of black kids are from single-parent homes. In the early 1960’s, it was just over 20%. How about this: reduce current welfare payments by 20% if the father is NOT present. I think that cash hit would make momma look for the father.
Children have a “failure to launch”. They will live with parents for life, even having multiple generations in one place to keep up the grift. Lazy and worthless barnacles on the buttocks of whomever they can attach to. Why wouldn’t they like Communism?
Why? Because they did not get a proper AMERICAN education. A book came out about 50 years ago titled, “The Dumbing Down of America”. It explains why we have a bunch of idiots trying to take over what was once a great country and why there are so many problems in society today.
Communism = religion.
Young people fall for it because they are ignorant, inexperienced, and easily duped.
Why? Useless college participation, six spring breaks, a job at Starbucks, and six digit loans to show for it. That’s why.
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