__________
** www.latimes.com - Democratic socialists pose no real threat to America's free markets - LAT / Dispatch, 2026-07-28
|------- I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it's almost like the GOP is secretly promoting the Democratic Socialists of America, which is now producing a lot of the energy and excitement within the Democratic and Republican parties. ...
Polls do show, particularly among young Democrats, increased support for socialism and a rising distaste for capitalism. But this isn't a new story. For the last couple of decades, dissatisfaction with the economic status quo has increased support for socialism. That's because people equate the status quo with "capitalism." As slaves to binary thinking, poll respondents think, "What's the opposite of capitalism?" Answer: socialism.
A 2014 survey by the Reason Foundation found that millennials favored capitalism to socialism by a meager 10 points (52%-42%). But when asked if they favored a "free-market economy" to a "government managed economy," the free market won 2-1 (64%-32%).
Fast forward to 2026. A recent Echelon Insights survey found that among Democrats under 50, the favorability of "capitalism" is minus 31 points (it's popular with every other group). When asked their view of a "free market economy," support jumps 41 points to +22 (it jumps up with every other cohort as well).
In other words, "capitalism" means something very different than "free markets," even to many socialists. And that's fair enough. I wish our economy was more free market than it is. But the point is that a ton of people think "capitalism" is an adjective describing things they don't like about the economy, not a synonym for "free markets" or "free enterprise."
Oh, yeah: Net favorability for Communism is -40.
The same applies for socialism, which means many different things to different people.
Once you get beyond the labels and the quirks of polling, reality suggests that socialism is a much heavier lift. For example, according to Echelon, 74% of Medicare for All fans think it can be paid for solely by raising taxes on billionaires. This is a lie. Medicare for All would cost an estimated $32 trillion over 10 years. The total combined net worth of America's billionaires is around $9 trillion. Forget taxes; you could confiscate everything the "billionaire class" owns and it wouldn't cover a third of the cost. ...
-------|
echeloninsights.substack.com - How popular is Socialism in America? - Echelon Insights - 2026-07-17
news.gallup.com - The Meaning of "Socialism" to Americans Today | Pew Research
__________
