US conservatives have always accused liberals of being ‘communist’ or sympathetic towards communism, but it seems to have reached a new level in the Trump era. For a long time, I thought that hyping the specter of communism was just cynicism and ignorance, but I’m now wondering if maybe they are seeing increased interest in communism, and that’s what spooking this. There are a few reasons this seems plausible to me:
- Younger Americans are more favorable towards 'socialism’ than previous generations, and less favorable towards ‘capitalism’.
- Trump’s support is strongest among well-off people who live in economically depressed areas. In other words, they are rich people who are increasingly surrounded by poor people over the past few decades.
This seems like a recipe for them to encounter adamant socialists/communists, but I’ve heard nothing about an uptick of socialist/communist advocacy, specifically in the regions where Trump supporters live. Most of the socialists/communists I hear of are in the big Democrat-dominated cities… but that may just be that those are the locations with high enough population density to organize large events that get into the news.
Do you have any thoughts on how to get a nationwide picture of where people support socialism? I figure that the Republicans would not necessarily be seeing large expressions of support for socialism, but may get riled up by any expression of support.
Conservative pundits performing outrage over communism don’t care (or often even know) what communism is or isn’t. It’s almost entirely dog whistling. Crushing socialism is bipartisan. They’re both bourgeois parties protecting private ownership of the means of production.