Bernie Sanders is arguably more popular in 2020 than he was in 2016. But socialism is not.
Socialism has remained consistently unpopular within the United States for years, and that has not yet changed, despite the growing enthusiasm for self-described democratic socialist politicians such as Sanders and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. A new Gallup poll confirmed on Tuesday that a majority of the public (53%) still does not want to vote for a socialist candidate, even if that person is “generally well-qualified.”
But that majority is shrinking, especially among Democratic voters. More than 70% of Democrats said they would vote for a socialist, whereas just 17% of Republicans and 45% of independents said the same. The bloc of independent and moderate voters will be the group Sanders needs to convince if he hopes to beat President Trump in the general election, if Sanders wins the Democratic nomination, that is.
This won’t be easy, especially since the voters who tend to oppose socialism are also the voters with the highest turnout. Americans who are born before 1975 unanimously reject socialism. Even among Democratic voters, Sanders polls 30 points better among Americans under 45-years-old than voters older than 65.
Older Americans still hold onto individualism, and they’re still skeptical of big government. So when Sanders asks them to relinquish the independence of a free market system in the hopes that government-run programs will provide economic and social equality, very few are convinced.
Young Americans, however, are attracted to this exchange, and it’s not hard to see why. They’re facing unprecedented expenses, so it’s no wonder a candidate offering free healthcare, free college, and the elimination of outstanding student loan debt is so popular.
It would be easy to conclude that the difference between older and younger voters is naivety. Young Americans simply don’t understand the consequences, the older generations argue, and they take for granted the freedom and equal opportunity a capitalist system provides. Both assertions might be true, especially on today’s college campuses. But the irony is that older Americans currently enjoy benefits that resemble some of Sanders’s proposals — think Medicaid, Social Security, and mortgage-interest deductions, otherwise known as “boomer socialism” — while young Americans foot the bill.
Regardless, Sanders’s socialist platform will be his campaign’s biggest roadblock. This isn’t to say he can’t win, because he can. But in the general election, Trump will have the advantage of the economy. And convincing voters of any age to abandon the prosperity they currently enjoy will be no small task.
