American kids aren’t alright.
According to a recent Cato Institute/YouGov survey, a majority (64%) of America’s Generation Z members say they have a favorable view of socialism, while 34% of them view communism positively.
Imagine this: GenZers who’ve grown up in the freest, most prosperous time imaginable, with first-world luxuries, SmartPhones, and relatively few hardships, want central planning in their lives. Do they know what they’re asking for? Do they think socialism will work this go-around, despite its bloody track record?
This trend, sadly, tracks with other polls showing troubling, growing support for these deadly ideologies. That’s why an increasing number of GenZers are fawning over radical New York City Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.
Mamdani is the new shiny object for the cause of “democratic” socialism–socialism you foolishly vote in, but still end up miserable under. I wasn’t surprised when an unearthed clip of him endorsing the abolition of private property– a communist tenet, mind you– recently circulated on social media. The 1917 Bolshevik Decree on Land that first argued for the same “reform,” stating, “Landed proprietorship is abolished forthwith without any compensation.” Ironically, per ethics documents he filed as a New York State Assemblyman, Mamdani owns a four-acre land parcel in Uganda. Private property for me, not for thee? That’s so Bolshie!
He’s not alone in his hypocrisy. Mamdani’s buddy and fellow “democratic” socialist U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) frequently rails against millionaires and free enterprise. Yet, he owns three homes and maintains a personal net worth of at least $2 million.
Contrary to popular belief, socialism isn’t the act of socializing in a bar or club. Nor do one experience equal opportunities. Socialism - and, by extension, communism - is an economic and political system that is totalitarian–even the reimagined “democratic” variety. (See the once-prosperous nation of Venezuela.) Every socialist regime starts with the government seizing the means of production through a decree to nationalize all industries. Communist regimes, like the now-defunct Soviet Union, also suppressed free speech, instituted a 90% tax rate, employed food rationing, gulag imprisonment, and ultimately killed millions. Lest we forget: over 100 million people globally died under the banner of socialism and communism last century.
In the last decade, younger Americans - including my fellow Millennials - have gravitated to socialism while older Americans tend to reject it. Our older peers remember the Cold War and meeting escapees from behind the Iron Curtain. Younger Americans, with even less proximity to survivors than Millennials, are, sadly, far more removed from these 20th-century horrors.
I had no choice but to reject socialism and communism as my parents and grandparents suffered firsthand in the former Soviet Union. Unlike many Americans, my family members - particularly my Lithuanian maternal grandfather - were victims but survivors of Joseph Stalin’s reign of terror. As Townhall readers might recall, my grandpa survived 18 months at the Belomor Canal gulag on the Russian-Finnish border in the 1940s. My dad discussed my grandpa’s story and even recounted his own personal experience dealing with Soviet anti-Semitism for an episode of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation’s highly acclaimed Witness Project series. I highly recommend watching his episode and sending it to Gen Zers around you.
Contrast what’s happening here in the U.S. with formerly oppressed countries in Central and Eastern Europe: Younger people are rejecting socialism and communism since the horrors are still raw there.
In Lithuania, 15 to 17-year-olds are taught about free enterprise and economic literacy through a textbook called Economics in 31 Hours. The curriculum, designed by the Lithuanian Free Market Institute, is not exclusive to Lithuania. It has also been adopted in Ukraine, Slovakia, Georgia, and even in Mamdani’s home country, Uganda. Home to the happiest young people 30 and under, younger Lithuanians also recall their family members surviving Soviet brutalities and equally oppose totalitarianism.
The Czech Republic recently passed a law banning communist propaganda. The new law amended Section 403 of the country’s Criminal Code prohibiting the “establishment, support and promotion of a movement aimed at suppressing human rights and freedoms”, including those that promoted “racial, ethnic, national, religious or class resentment.”
“At the roots of communist teachings and at the roots of Marxism, there is one word – violence. Karl Marx and his followers already spoke about the fact that change cannot occur without the use of violence,” Kamil Nedvědický, deputy director of the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, said at a press conference per the Brussels Signal. Since the First Amendment doesn’t permit banning speech, even repugnant speech like socialist and communist teachings, we in the U.S. can still applaud Czechia and 11 other nations, however, for taking steps to ensure these horrors aren’t forgotten.
To any young disillusioned person out there reading this: socialism and communism aren’t the answer to your woes. The Mamdani’s of the world are deceiving you. Promises of “free” things come with steep costs—higher taxes, less autonomy, and fewer grocery store options. Kiss your bougie Starbucks orders and Labubu dolls goodbye if he wins.
More freedom, not government dependence, is the solution. Trust the American way.