By AMELIA THOMSON-DEVEAUX
Updated 11:08 AM EDT, September 8, 2025
Capitalism’s image has slipped with U.S. adults overall since 2021, the survey finds, and the results show a gradual but persistent shift in Democrats’ support for the two ideologies over the past 15 years, with socialism rising as capitalism falls. The shifts underscore deep divisions within the party about whether open support for socialism will hurt Democrats’ ability to reach moderates or galvanize greater support from people who are concerned about issues like the cost of living.
…But Democrats under 50 are much less likely to view capitalism favorably, while the opinions of Democrats ages 50 and older haven’t shifted meaningfully, according to Gallup.
Well if you’re only polling Democrats, the poll isn’t giving you any real understanding. The actual socialists have been methodically and intentionally pushed out of the party. And young folks have clearly heard the message, as they have broadly rejected the Democrats in return.
There’s a reason the Democrats are polling even lower than Trump, and that’s precisely because of how many people have embraced socialism. Trying to understand that only within the context of those still with the party is pointless.
You wouldn’t know it by the data.
But this is an age-old story. Millennials were far more Dem-leaning 15 years ago, during the Obama Era. Boomers were more Dem-leaning during the Clinton Era. Great Depression voters drifted from FDR to Nixon in the intervening 30 years.
Sure. They’ve lost the mandate of Corporate Mass Media as media has been consolidated in the Tech Sector and the Techies have nakedly embraced Randian Objectivism.
When your only options “a lot dem”, “a little dem”, “a little pub”, and “a lot pub”, you don’t get any information on who is neither and why.
So I guess the point went completely over your head. Again, you’re only acknowledging the existence of data that lies within the duopoly.
Yes, young people are rejecting the GOP, but that has not translated into gains for the Dems because young people today are much farther left than the Democratic Party.
I’m acknowledging turnout in the last election cycle. Third parties did not notably over perform.
Young people haven’t been rejecting the GOP either. Republicans are getting about the same percentage of the youth vote as they have over the last twenty years.
Dems lost votes across the board in '24. It wasn’t unique to young voters. Republicans gained slightly relative to 2020. It was not an otherwise noteworthy election with regard to turnout.
So you’re just doubling down. Dissatisfaction with the Dems & GOP did not translate into support for third parties (Democrats suing third parties off the ballots of course impacted that), but it did translate into a significant increase in non-voters.
https://www.environmentalvoter.org/updates/2024-was-landslidefor-did-not-vote#%3A~%3Atext=Although+Donald+Trump+only+beat%2Cvisit+www.environmentalvoter.org.
The people like you pushing this erasure of the rising preference for socialism in this country are exactly the fascists demanding the Dems move right to attract traditionally GOP voters. You are creating the problem, and then trying to sell the Dems as the solution, but people aren’t falling for it.
I’m reading off the numbers. You don’t seem to like them.
You’re assuming “Did Not Vote” is some kind of homogeneous political mass. There’s a yawning absence of evidence for this claim. “Did Not Vote” is as consistently a sign of political apathy as partisan disgust.
These people are not socialists and you’re deluding yourself if you believe “not voting” is some kind of alignment with your preferred voting preference.
We can come at this the other way. Look at the elections in '92 and '96 when we did have a popular third party - The Reform Party. Are you going to come at me and announce Ross Perot was a socialist?
No, you’re cherry picking numbers, and unintentionally proving my point that the people supporting either party are pretending the rest of the country doesn’t exist.
I would post a link with polling showing that socialism has become widely popular among the majority of the electorate, but I already did that in this thread. The majority of people in this country now view socialism favorably, and we have the data to prove it. You’re attempting to claim that Dem loyalists largely rejecting socialism is more relevant, so again, you’re laser focused on just pulling more conservatives into the Democratic Party and taking it farther right.
Yep. I liked techies better when they were libertarians. Now they are just straight up Nazis drinking their own tech elite ubermenschen kool aid. They are anti-libertarian now because freedom would mean allow free market competition to their aspiring monopolies. They’d rather just control the government.
Americans aren’t socialist. They just hate pathetic losers.
And Democrats have become the party of pathetic losing. They don’t even try to fight back.
Hating liberals for never delivering the promises of liberalism is how a lot of actual socialists start out.
Profits percentages are at record levels, and more public funds are transferred to private companies than ever before. That’s all neoliberalism promised, and they definitely delivered.
Liberalism promised freedom, democracy, human rights, job security, the “American dream”, etc etc. It was all lies, of course, but they did promise it. People realizing they were lied to are ripe for radicalization.
No. Maybe some politicians made empty promises to constituents, but liberalism itself never promised socialism. Quite the opposite- it swore to tear down socialist institutions, and convert public services into for-profit businesses. And it’s been wildly successful in delivering on those promises.
Those empty promises are the essential basis for liberal ideology, a lot of disappointed people actually did believe. Liberalism didn’t promise socialism, obviously, but socialism is the only thing that deliver the promises that liberalism lied about.
Nope. Liberalism has nothing to do with those empty campaign promises of socialist policies. It has always been loudly and proudly a capitalist, imperialist ideology focused on increased resource extraction, and transferring public funds to private wealth.
The ideological promise was that, through capitalism and imperialism and resource extraction and privatization, this would create freedom and democracy and prosperity and abundance and all that bullshit.
I’m not fucking stupid. I know that the actual material goals of liberalism have always been to exploit and oppress the working class while enriching a small elite. What I’m saying is that liberal ideology promises to deliver social progress through economic growth. “A rising tide lifts all boats.” It doesn’t, obviously, but that promise is the siren song that creates false consciousness for millions of working class people who fall into liberalism.
People who do not benefit from liberalism nonetheless have liberal ideology and I don’t think you’re grappling with this contradiction.
You are wrong.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/curiosity/axios-capitalism-update/
https://www.axios.com/2019/10/28/millennials-vote-socialism-capitalism-decline