Good points and I think your comments apply broadly, but I believe there's a larger dynamic at work.
I just returned from a five-day visit with our daughter and her husband for her baby shower and to prepare the nursery for our first grandchild. It was a wonderful trip, made even better by time with our son and his girlfriend and other family members. Under one roof were five people ranging from 24 to 35, and three of us over 60, spanning a wide range of political and socioeconomic views.
Every one of the younger family members supported the economic policies advocated by Democratic Socialists. Inflation has eroded their earning power and the value of what little they've saved, they have no pensions, and have little hope things will improve anytime soon - for them or for their future children. They didn't see the social contract between employer and worker evaporate like I did, for them it simply doesn't exist.
This is coming from a group that is hardworking, employed, and in some cases working while attending college. They should be the ones climbing the socioeconomic ladder. Instead, in their eyes, neither Republicans nor traditional Democrats offer anything but more of the same. Trump's policies haven't made life more affordable for them, and they're wary of being drawn into another "forever war" in the Middle East. Government economic statistics carry no weight with them—the numbers don't match their lived experience.
What surprised me most: they don't seem particularly concerned about losing individual liberties under a socialist government, because they already feel they're living in a surveillance state. Flock cameras track their movements without a warrant; their phones and televisions monitor them constantly. Pointing out that they don't have to accept a given Terms of Service rings hollow when a smartphone is essentially required to function in today's banking, communication, and travel systems. They shrug off the idea that government might actually ban books, jail people for controversial art, or crack down on the "wrong" house of worship.
These aren't lazy, failure-to-launch young adults who resent the wealthy. They just want a functioning economy where they can build real careers. But like the airmen in Catch-22 - Joseph Heller's satire of a WWII bomber squadron whose commanding officer keeps raising the number of missions required before they can go home, making it impossible to ever complete their tour - these young adults feel the deck is stacked against them. Home prices, car prices, education, healthcare - all keep climbing further out of reach. And this is coming from people who are industrious and entrepreneurial. Their parents live in million-dollar tract homes they'll likely never be able to afford themselves. The operative emotion is frustration.
Their common plea: "We just need to try something different, anything." When I point out that socialism has never worked anywhere it's been tried, their frustration blinds them to that history. All they know is that it hasn't been tried here yet.
The average American today can't get ahead because inflation and taxes have sapped their earning power and increased asset prices beyond their reach. And that's exactly why fringe, antisemitic communist voices are gaining influence in America.
Great note, and I do think that massive frustration and anger with how the system just seems to work for the system is motivating many of them, and I can't really blame them for saying let's try ANYTHING else, but this can't be the thing.
I agree with Ross's comment about the young progressives who've lost faith in the current system. In their eyes, the poster children of free-market excellence — Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Sergey Brin, Mark Cuban, and others — have gutted Main Street, replaced workers with AI (including my daughter), and bent laws and regulations to serve their own interests.
Take healthcare. This generation has no memory of long waits and uneven care under government-run systems abroad, because for them, healthcare today is already inaccessible and unaffordable. "Medicare for All" doesn't have to be excellent, it just has to be something they can actually get.
And yes, they assume, perhaps naively, that the wealthy have no choice but to pay up or face consequences. That New York City lost $11 billion in tax revenue because their stupid mayor decided to smugly wage class warfare and drove high earners and businesses to Florida and Texas means little to them. That Hawaii, Massachusetts, and California have each had to shelve or delay universal healthcare plans because the cost proved unworkable is largely ignored and rarely reported.
Unfortunately, the GOP isn't offering them much of an answer right now. Take healthcare again: the party's answer to "make it better" is largely "repeal Obamacare." Part of me wishes they would — as a small-business owner, I buy my own policy on the exchange with no subsidy, and I'd welcome real competition at the national level. But without Obamacare, many people with preexisting conditions couldn't get coverage at any price. The law's ban on that kind of cherry-picking is exactly why it remains popular, despite its real shortcomings — chief among them that premiums never seem to go down.
Ross is right - we all want something better but we wish they would turn to more freedom rather than socialism. Logic alone isn't persuasive. Those on the pro-freedom side need to do a better job creating a larger vision preserving individual liberties and human rights that younger Americans can identify with and sign on to.
Otherwise, we're going to see more socialism, not less.
I'm the guy this argument is written for. Over 50, white, engineering degree, good job I've held for years, property taxes paid, did every single thing society and my parents told me to do. Built a nice life doing it. So I'm sympathetic to the sentiment, and I read the writers who make it regularly.
But the case against young liberals today is word for word what my parents' generation made about us. Young people are idealistic, broke, and prone to the excesses of the left. That was true of me at 25 and probably true of half the people saying it now. It's not new and it's not the story.
Here's the harder part. The conditions these kids are rejecting are not the conditions we grew up in. My tuition at a top ranked state school was $1,500 a semester and I walked out with an engineering degree. Homes didn't start at half a million. I went to the World Series for under a hundred bucks a ticket, more than once. The exact economics that priced this generation out of school, a house, and even a ballgame are the same economics that set my generation up to sit on the pile we accrued and cluck about how liberal the young have gotten.
That's what feels disingenuous. If I were 25 with six figures of debt for a degree that won't land me a job, no shot at a house, and priced out of the cheap seats too, I'd look hard at my parents' generation before taking a lecture from it.
One honest concession that cuts against the kids. These policies do work in a handful of northern EU countries, and the happiness and security data broadly backs that up. But those aren't us. Different culture, different work ethic, different track record, and they're fine with that tradeoff where we wouldn't be. So the answer isn't importing their model. It's being honest that the anger is earned before anyone lectures a 25 year old about socialism.
I get all that and it's also important to note that there is much more to this generation of socialists than to prior generations of American socialists. First, they are deeply anti-American, not just anti-capitalist. Second, they are raging anti-Semites. Third, they're more overtly communist and not just socialist, though I'm sure there was some of that in the past. Fourth, they have suffered much more brain damage in college than prior generations. Fifth, they are NOT representatives of the "working class" as prior generations of socialists were. They're mostly middle-class or upper-middle-class college graduates.
I do agree that their anger is justified. Unfortunately because of the damage to their brains in college they have all the wrong ideas about potential solutions, and their plans will make literally everything worse.
I’m not comfortable that your blanket statement about 25 year-old socialists is accurate. My son is 24, a graduate of CU who borrowed money to get a masters in finance. He is living at home because the banking job that he has is not paying him enough to afford rent in Denver. He gets up every morning and goes to work with a smile on his face to do a job he is overqualified for He is definitely not a socialist and neither are any of his friends. He’s also definitely not an antisemite having been invited to Seder dinner’s by his Jewish friends. The only thing he is bitter about is having his salary not be enough to afford rent and live on his own. He was top 10% in his class, both as an undergrad and as a graduate student. Whether intentional or unintentional you often generalize about his generation.
Obviously the characterization does not apply to EVERY 25-year old, Chip. That's a rather silly assumption, to think that's what I was saying. But the data are clear who members of the DSA are.
I remember some pretty damaging ideas in college, I could think my way out of them. I’m not sure about the anti-American or the anti-Semite assertion. Anti-Zionist? Yes. I’m going to do my next research study on this. There is enough there to see what the sources say and the claims score using my methodology so I know what to believe and why. If your interested, give me a few days to pull and read the materials.
I assert that most "anti-Zionists" especially young ones are either explicitly or implicitly antisemites. After all, it's one thing to say "I don't like the Netanyahu government" (which is fine) and it's another thing to say "Israel shouldn't exist", which is what anti-Zionism means.
Given the propaganda our young people have been subjected to, teaching them that white people are bad and that Jews (and they think of all Israelis as Jews even though it's not true) are white, therefore Jews are bad, they truly are antisemitic and they see it as a form of virtue.
It's dangerous and evil and it's different in degree, and probably in kind, to the socialists of my college years. Today's socialists also really despise America. They are not idealistic. They are angry destroyers.
That said, while they are doing well in a handful of elections, they are not really that numerous and tend to be fairly concentrated so the question is whether the rest of the Democratic Party will grow a pair and stand up against them. So far they're not, but they have much less excuse than Republicans do in their spinelessness against Donald Trump because Trump really does have an iron grip on the party which the DSA does not have on the Dems.
I agree that I have not seen any evidence that the DSA has a grip on the Democratic Party but I also thought Diana DeGette would win her primary handily.
The young people feel deceived by the "establishment". They did what they were supposed to do, got an education, followed the rules, but now there's seemingly nothing for them. Recently, events haven't treated them well: COVID disrupted education, working environments changed, Biden inflation robbed them of purchasing power.
I empathize, I truly do. But, did anyone guaranty them success? Did they not perceive risk when election to borrow money to study an unemployable degree? Or, did they simply expect a participation ribbon?
Good points and I think your comments apply broadly, but I believe there's a larger dynamic at work.
I just returned from a five-day visit with our daughter and her husband for her baby shower and to prepare the nursery for our first grandchild. It was a wonderful trip, made even better by time with our son and his girlfriend and other family members. Under one roof were five people ranging from 24 to 35, and three of us over 60, spanning a wide range of political and socioeconomic views.
Every one of the younger family members supported the economic policies advocated by Democratic Socialists. Inflation has eroded their earning power and the value of what little they've saved, they have no pensions, and have little hope things will improve anytime soon - for them or for their future children. They didn't see the social contract between employer and worker evaporate like I did, for them it simply doesn't exist.
This is coming from a group that is hardworking, employed, and in some cases working while attending college. They should be the ones climbing the socioeconomic ladder. Instead, in their eyes, neither Republicans nor traditional Democrats offer anything but more of the same. Trump's policies haven't made life more affordable for them, and they're wary of being drawn into another "forever war" in the Middle East. Government economic statistics carry no weight with them—the numbers don't match their lived experience.
What surprised me most: they don't seem particularly concerned about losing individual liberties under a socialist government, because they already feel they're living in a surveillance state. Flock cameras track their movements without a warrant; their phones and televisions monitor them constantly. Pointing out that they don't have to accept a given Terms of Service rings hollow when a smartphone is essentially required to function in today's banking, communication, and travel systems. They shrug off the idea that government might actually ban books, jail people for controversial art, or crack down on the "wrong" house of worship.
These aren't lazy, failure-to-launch young adults who resent the wealthy. They just want a functioning economy where they can build real careers. But like the airmen in Catch-22 - Joseph Heller's satire of a WWII bomber squadron whose commanding officer keeps raising the number of missions required before they can go home, making it impossible to ever complete their tour - these young adults feel the deck is stacked against them. Home prices, car prices, education, healthcare - all keep climbing further out of reach. And this is coming from people who are industrious and entrepreneurial. Their parents live in million-dollar tract homes they'll likely never be able to afford themselves. The operative emotion is frustration.
Their common plea: "We just need to try something different, anything." When I point out that socialism has never worked anywhere it's been tried, their frustration blinds them to that history. All they know is that it hasn't been tried here yet.
The average American today can't get ahead because inflation and taxes have sapped their earning power and increased asset prices beyond their reach. And that's exactly why fringe, antisemitic communist voices are gaining influence in America.
Great note, and I do think that massive frustration and anger with how the system just seems to work for the system is motivating many of them, and I can't really blame them for saying let's try ANYTHING else, but this can't be the thing.
Do they think it will be just the wealthy that pay for all the socialists want to do? Does the death of excellence mean anything to them?
no, it's not something they're thinking about, not least because they don't think the current system is excellent.
I agree with Ross's comment about the young progressives who've lost faith in the current system. In their eyes, the poster children of free-market excellence — Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Sergey Brin, Mark Cuban, and others — have gutted Main Street, replaced workers with AI (including my daughter), and bent laws and regulations to serve their own interests.
Take healthcare. This generation has no memory of long waits and uneven care under government-run systems abroad, because for them, healthcare today is already inaccessible and unaffordable. "Medicare for All" doesn't have to be excellent, it just has to be something they can actually get.
And yes, they assume, perhaps naively, that the wealthy have no choice but to pay up or face consequences. That New York City lost $11 billion in tax revenue because their stupid mayor decided to smugly wage class warfare and drove high earners and businesses to Florida and Texas means little to them. That Hawaii, Massachusetts, and California have each had to shelve or delay universal healthcare plans because the cost proved unworkable is largely ignored and rarely reported.
Unfortunately, the GOP isn't offering them much of an answer right now. Take healthcare again: the party's answer to "make it better" is largely "repeal Obamacare." Part of me wishes they would — as a small-business owner, I buy my own policy on the exchange with no subsidy, and I'd welcome real competition at the national level. But without Obamacare, many people with preexisting conditions couldn't get coverage at any price. The law's ban on that kind of cherry-picking is exactly why it remains popular, despite its real shortcomings — chief among them that premiums never seem to go down.
Ross is right - we all want something better but we wish they would turn to more freedom rather than socialism. Logic alone isn't persuasive. Those on the pro-freedom side need to do a better job creating a larger vision preserving individual liberties and human rights that younger Americans can identify with and sign on to.
Otherwise, we're going to see more socialism, not less.
I'm the guy this argument is written for. Over 50, white, engineering degree, good job I've held for years, property taxes paid, did every single thing society and my parents told me to do. Built a nice life doing it. So I'm sympathetic to the sentiment, and I read the writers who make it regularly.
But the case against young liberals today is word for word what my parents' generation made about us. Young people are idealistic, broke, and prone to the excesses of the left. That was true of me at 25 and probably true of half the people saying it now. It's not new and it's not the story.
Here's the harder part. The conditions these kids are rejecting are not the conditions we grew up in. My tuition at a top ranked state school was $1,500 a semester and I walked out with an engineering degree. Homes didn't start at half a million. I went to the World Series for under a hundred bucks a ticket, more than once. The exact economics that priced this generation out of school, a house, and even a ballgame are the same economics that set my generation up to sit on the pile we accrued and cluck about how liberal the young have gotten.
That's what feels disingenuous. If I were 25 with six figures of debt for a degree that won't land me a job, no shot at a house, and priced out of the cheap seats too, I'd look hard at my parents' generation before taking a lecture from it.
One honest concession that cuts against the kids. These policies do work in a handful of northern EU countries, and the happiness and security data broadly backs that up. But those aren't us. Different culture, different work ethic, different track record, and they're fine with that tradeoff where we wouldn't be. So the answer isn't importing their model. It's being honest that the anger is earned before anyone lectures a 25 year old about socialism.
I get all that and it's also important to note that there is much more to this generation of socialists than to prior generations of American socialists. First, they are deeply anti-American, not just anti-capitalist. Second, they are raging anti-Semites. Third, they're more overtly communist and not just socialist, though I'm sure there was some of that in the past. Fourth, they have suffered much more brain damage in college than prior generations. Fifth, they are NOT representatives of the "working class" as prior generations of socialists were. They're mostly middle-class or upper-middle-class college graduates.
I do agree that their anger is justified. Unfortunately because of the damage to their brains in college they have all the wrong ideas about potential solutions, and their plans will make literally everything worse.
I’m not comfortable that your blanket statement about 25 year-old socialists is accurate. My son is 24, a graduate of CU who borrowed money to get a masters in finance. He is living at home because the banking job that he has is not paying him enough to afford rent in Denver. He gets up every morning and goes to work with a smile on his face to do a job he is overqualified for He is definitely not a socialist and neither are any of his friends. He’s also definitely not an antisemite having been invited to Seder dinner’s by his Jewish friends. The only thing he is bitter about is having his salary not be enough to afford rent and live on his own. He was top 10% in his class, both as an undergrad and as a graduate student. Whether intentional or unintentional you often generalize about his generation.
Obviously the characterization does not apply to EVERY 25-year old, Chip. That's a rather silly assumption, to think that's what I was saying. But the data are clear who members of the DSA are.
I remember some pretty damaging ideas in college, I could think my way out of them. I’m not sure about the anti-American or the anti-Semite assertion. Anti-Zionist? Yes. I’m going to do my next research study on this. There is enough there to see what the sources say and the claims score using my methodology so I know what to believe and why. If your interested, give me a few days to pull and read the materials.
I assert that most "anti-Zionists" especially young ones are either explicitly or implicitly antisemites. After all, it's one thing to say "I don't like the Netanyahu government" (which is fine) and it's another thing to say "Israel shouldn't exist", which is what anti-Zionism means.
Given the propaganda our young people have been subjected to, teaching them that white people are bad and that Jews (and they think of all Israelis as Jews even though it's not true) are white, therefore Jews are bad, they truly are antisemitic and they see it as a form of virtue.
It's dangerous and evil and it's different in degree, and probably in kind, to the socialists of my college years. Today's socialists also really despise America. They are not idealistic. They are angry destroyers.
That said, while they are doing well in a handful of elections, they are not really that numerous and tend to be fairly concentrated so the question is whether the rest of the Democratic Party will grow a pair and stand up against them. So far they're not, but they have much less excuse than Republicans do in their spinelessness against Donald Trump because Trump really does have an iron grip on the party which the DSA does not have on the Dems.
I agree that I have not seen any evidence that the DSA has a grip on the Democratic Party but I also thought Diana DeGette would win her primary handily.
The young people feel deceived by the "establishment". They did what they were supposed to do, got an education, followed the rules, but now there's seemingly nothing for them. Recently, events haven't treated them well: COVID disrupted education, working environments changed, Biden inflation robbed them of purchasing power.
I empathize, I truly do. But, did anyone guaranty them success? Did they not perceive risk when election to borrow money to study an unemployable degree? Or, did they simply expect a participation ribbon?
We have unlimited information available at our finger tips, in yet we are in the dark and far from the truth.