Who’s afraid of socialism? College students certainly aren’t. In fact, a new poll reveals 70% of millennials are likely to vote for a socialist candidate.
Socialism as an economic system, on the other hand, has a mixed reputation. Capitalism is more popular among older generations and half of Gen Z and millennial types still view capitalism favorably. But neither one of the dueling economic systems holds a majority on college campuses, and the rise in popularity of democratic socialists such as Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez among young voters is hardly reassuring.
This poll reveals a few things: Young adults are hesitant to support socialist policies, likely because they don’t know how they’d work or what they’d cost. But given the right candidate, they could easily be convinced to join the cause.
Given the state of public higher education, this shouldn’t come as a surprise. Students are gullible and moldable because they have little conviction and no foundation. Too often, public universities teach students to accept basic, shallow “knowledge” at face value. They are not trained to ask why this knowledge matters or how it influences the rest of their education or how it relates to higher principles.
I doubt few self-described college socialists would be able to tell you how the government would seize the means of production under a socialist economy or how property rights would be eliminated. But they don’t need to because Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez have already done that for them, packaging socialism in trendy new policies such as Medicare for All and the Green New Deal.
Even fewer would be able to tell you the history of the Soviet Union (depressingly, 15% of students think the world would be better if it still existed) or how socialism has historically affected the countries that have adopted it. The problem is simply this: They’re not learning.
It doesn’t help that almost all professors at public universities lean to the political and cultural Left. In some cases, professors’ political opinions have so infiltrated course material that the majority of student respondents in a recent poll said they felt intimidated into silence. Higher education is becoming little more than an indoctrination camp.
This is the norm on today’s campuses: tens of thousands of young adults without anchors, drifting toward a radical ideology that’s become normalized in the classroom. Hundreds of Young Democratic Socialists of America clubs have popped up on college campuses over the past few years, and 36% of college students admitted they even view communism favorably.
These students are attempting to find meaning in an education that’s meaningless, and they’re eager to see change happen. And because they lack historical roots and a well-rounded foundation, they’re attracted to radical proposals and candidates that are just as idealistic as they are.
It’s easy to conclude these young adults should know better. But thanks to higher education, they don’t.
