I don’t know how useful these kinds of surveys are. If you look at the survey methodology they only include voters which I believe would skew the results pro-capitalist. They also use some propensity scoring with logistic regression to get around the population cohort skew. Only about 47% of Americans voted in 2024 and 34% in 2022 (also counting ineligible citizens). Finally, first time voters, in general world-wide, tend to be more radical than last time voters. I believe class consciousness is on the rise across the US as the living conditions for ordinary citizens deteriorate, and they join the precariat part of the proletariat, but I wouldn’t put faith in a policy survey from the Cato institute for that.
from my experience, they’re the type to be ‘communism works in theory’ types rather than actual MLs or even Trotskyists
Not that this is bad, I guess. It is easier to convince these people to do more activities like protesting war or joining unions Vs in the past since they crossed the bare minimum of seeing communism as an ideology for the people
Half of gen z are still in highschool and probably have no direct experience of exploitation by landlords and employers.
So, there’s room for growing? Because, it’s a curious trend that can also be interpreted as “the more people ages, the more averted to communism”, which is something that rings a bell here.
No older people are more anti-communist because the quality of propaganda has been degrading not because they are older.
Are you saying that once the threat of communism increases, the propaganda will get better and better, and less people will like communism?
No, the point is that as conditions worsen and we are further removed from the peak of the Red Scare, new generations are less exposed to that level of propagandizing and more sympathetic to communism.
I agree. Older generations were fooled by the propaganda because they had it “good” (in some ways, not all). When it comes to labor rights and wages, those benefits were handed down from communists and socialists who fought for them after the great depression.
After they benefited from the high quality of life these concessions gave, they received enough propaganda to pick away at the benefits they received, since they didn’t need them anymore!
And no, I’m not saying America was ever “good”, either. Settlers has a good example early on in the book about this. Early in US history, they massacred native populations and plundered their homes for animal furs. Colonizers don’t care about harming others as long as they feel they receive proper compensation from the exploitation at home or abroad. I believe these same colonialist views still have a chokehold around the US population, but the same criticisms also apply to most of Europe as well.
Yep, organizers in the US Empire need to tackle settler-colonialism as its primary contradiction.
