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Parsing the Appeal of Socialism to Today's Young People
American Thinker ^ | 10/30/25 | Anthony Matoria

Posted on 10/30/2025 7:23:38 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

Young people seem to have a favorable view of socialism.

This comes as somewhat of a surprise to older generations, whose experiences with that doctrine have understandably led to less approving opinions of it.

It seems that young people approve of socialism in defiance of indisputable facts.

Relevant facts may be summarized in such observations as “socialism has failed every time it has been tried,” and “socialism has been responsible for hundreds of millions of deaths in the last century.”

Despite readily available evidence in support of these assertions, young people seem unmoved by them.

The reasons for this are not likely to be mere ignorance of the facts. The documented failures and atrocities associated with socialism can be readily explored and demonstrated to people that have virtually all of human knowledge available to them on their phone or computer.

The youthful romance with socialism does not appear to result from ignorance of facts, but rather a resistance to understanding those facts and the truths that they demonstrate.

Like many of the criticisms of the past, young people tend to attribute the failures of socialism to the unenlightened generations that tried to implement them rather fundamental defects in the doctrine itself.

Someone who points to the killing fields of Cambodia, the Holodomor, the tyrannical excesses behind the Iron Curtain, or the torture, disappearances and impoverishment of Venezuela and Cuba are more likely to met with a dismissive “O.K. Boomer,” than an open-minded “tell me more.”

Young people may have a favorable view of socialism, not because they do not have access to historical facts, but because they do not care about them. They do not care to reason from them, and therefore are willing to substitute slogans and social media sophism for actual thinking.

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: communism; intercession; socialism; youth
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1 posted on 10/30/2025 7:23:38 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

He who promises to rob Peter to pay Paul will always get Paul’s vote.


2 posted on 10/30/2025 7:26:24 AM PDT by dfwgator ("I am Charlie Kirk!")
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To: SeekAndFind
Parsing the Appeal of Socialism to Today's Young People

Turn America's colleges into socialist indoctrination centers and 25 years after 9/11, this is what you get. 90% of Mamdani's voting base consists of white women who either are in college right now or graduated from college sometime in the last 20 years.
3 posted on 10/30/2025 7:27:17 AM PDT by AnotherUnixGeek
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To: dfwgator
He who promises to rob Peter to pay Paul will always get Paul’s vote.

And if Peter is a 1%er, the math works for the robber.

4 posted on 10/30/2025 7:27:46 AM PDT by 1Old Pro
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To: dfwgator

Unless we have enough Paul’s who can see through the facade…


5 posted on 10/30/2025 7:28:02 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind
...but rather a resistance to understanding those facts and the truths that they demonstrate.

God does not exist. Rather, I am God. If I don't like facts, then they don't exist. The truth is completely malleable and at my whim.

6 posted on 10/30/2025 7:29:38 AM PDT by 17th Miss Regt (Fascist, deplorable, and proud of it!)
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To: SeekAndFind

They don’t even know what socialism is. To them it’s “yeah, the busses should be free”.

It would be like explaining to them that when you pay fast food workers $20 an hour, the cost of their food is going to double.

Oh, can’t the company just make less so we can have our hamburger?


7 posted on 10/30/2025 7:29:56 AM PDT by Williams (Thank God for the election of President Trump!)
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To: SeekAndFind
Young people are raised in socialized schools taught by socialist teachers educated in socialist universities.

Repetition works.

8 posted on 10/30/2025 7:30:46 AM PDT by Carry_Okie (The tree of liberty needs a rope.)
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To: SeekAndFind

When the socialists promise to make everyone equal, youngsters think it means they will be lifted up to be more wealthy.

They don’t know that it means anyone who has more will be brought back down to the youngsters’ wealth level, and from there everyone sinks.


9 posted on 10/30/2025 7:30:54 AM PDT by MortMan (Charter member of AAAAA - American Association Against Alliteration Abuse)
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To: Carry_Okie

Absolutely!


10 posted on 10/30/2025 7:34:23 AM PDT by Georgia Girl 2 (The only purpose of a pistol is to fight your way back to the rifle you should never have dropped)
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To: SeekAndFind

“Unless we have enough Paul’s who can see through the facade…”

Yeah but that’s the problem. They don’t see through it, they grow up with leftist education, and they are told they are being mistreated and the rich people owe them something.

Scariest movie I’ve seen in a while was set in South America, the radical group kidnaps a pretty rich girl. They were going to rape and kill her, but luckily the handsome young communist saves her.

But not until he gives her a long speech about how wrong it was of her to ride around in a nice car wearing expensive clothes. And we’re suppressed to agree with him.

It’s not, you can have a nice car too, it’s take the car and burn it because you can never afford one.


11 posted on 10/30/2025 7:36:56 AM PDT by Williams (Thank God for the election of President Trump!)
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To: Williams

RE: Oh, can’t the company just make less so we can have our hamburger?

Colleges emphasize courses on America’s unbridled, greedy capitalists, especially the ones in the early 20th century — The Robber Barons they call them. As a result, the young college students tend to think that capitalists are exploiters of those who work and should be brought down.


12 posted on 10/30/2025 7:38:40 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

Knew a guy from a rich Italian family, with a hot little communist wife. He would say “Look at her, she’s wearing 5000 Euro boots and she’s a communist! “


13 posted on 10/30/2025 7:39:38 AM PDT by Williams (Thank God for the election of President Trump!)
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To: SeekAndFind

.


14 posted on 10/30/2025 7:48:10 AM PDT by sauropod
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To: SeekAndFind

The young people are smarter than their predecessors, and can make it work. (Wink wink)


15 posted on 10/30/2025 7:49:18 AM PDT by GingisK
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To: SeekAndFind

“..Young people seem to have a favorable view of socialism. ..”

Could it have anything to do with what is being taught in our high schools and universities???


16 posted on 10/30/2025 8:10:27 AM PDT by elpadre
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To: SeekAndFind

They think socialism is Sweden. Sweden is not socialist-they have a welfare system that is paid by taxing its citizens.


17 posted on 10/30/2025 8:24:19 AM PDT by kaktuskid
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To: Williams
Oh, can’t the company just make less so we can have our hamburger?

Prices are not inelastic: as the prices rise to pay the higher wages, demand will fall.

So usually, the company profits will decline; or, to put it another way: labor's proportion of the business income will rise and that of capital will fall.

Sixty years ago, labor's proportion of national income was much higher than today and our society was much better for it.

18 posted on 10/30/2025 8:31:23 AM PDT by pierrem15 ("Massacrez-les, car le seigneur connait les siens" )
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To: SeekAndFind

19 posted on 10/30/2025 8:40:11 AM PDT by Jeff Chandler (The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution.)
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To: SeekAndFind

The left has been doing the indoctrination since the 1950’s. I’m just surprised it took this long since they put it into high gear with candidates like H. Clinton and B Sanders 40 years ago. It was just a matter of time since the conservatives did nothing to counter their lies and mistreating of the citizens to protect their appearance.

wy69


20 posted on 10/30/2025 8:41:41 AM PDT by whitney69
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