American workers and youth are turning towards socialism

Several new opinion polls published in the last few days have provided indications of the remarkable shift to the left taking place among American workers and young people. In a country where anti-communism is virtually a state religion, and socialist views have been largely excluded from official politics for nearly a century, nearly 40 percent of registered voters said they would consider voting for a socialist candidate for president. According to the Washington Post-Ipsos poll published Thursday, this figure rose to 46 percent among voters under 30, and to 64 percent among Democratic Party voters. Despite this rapid growth of support for socialism - or rather because of it - the poll result was initially published under the headline, 'Most Americans say they would not back a democratic socialist for president.' Post editors, working for a newspaper owned by centi-billionaire Jeff Bezos, know which side their bread is buttered on. Even more significantly, according to a CNN poll conducted by SSRS, also published Thursday, about a third of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents identify as 'democratic socialists.' Of these, 59 percent are younger than 45, compared to 46 percent of those Democrats who do not identify as democratic socialists. Two-thirds described themselves as very likely to vote in the 2026 midterm elections, 99 percent of them for Democrats. The CNN poll found that those identifying themselves as democratic socialists 'are less likely to have a college degree (66% to 54%) and more likely to earn less than $100,000 a year (76% to 65%),' compared to Democrats who do not identify as democratic socialists. Black voters were more open to supporting a democratic socialist than white voters. This debunks the claim, made incessantly in the media, that support for socialism is a white upper-middle class sentiment, related to lifestyle, not economics. Support for socialism is driven by the experience of the new generation of the working class, who clearly have begun to understand that capitalism offers them only a grim future of war, poverty and attacks on democratic rights. Both polls show a strong correlation between support for socialism and opposition to Trump's war on Iran and the US-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza. Nearly half of democratic socialists, 48 percent, said they would be enthusiastic about a candidate who supports cutting US support to Israel. The polls confirm that the results of Democratic primaries in New York and Colorado last month, in which candidates linked to or supported by the Democratic Socialists of America won nominations in four congressional districts, defeating three long-serving Democratic incumbents in the process, are not an aberration. Key primaries in the industrial Midwest could give further expression to this shift to the left over the next two weeks. In Michigan, former public health official Abdul El-Sayed is tied in the polls with Representative Haley Stevens in the August 4 contest for the Democratic nomination for Senate. El-Sayed has the support of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, while Stevens has the backing of the Democratic Party establishment, Governor Gretchen Whitmer and the pro-Israel lobby. In the Wisconsin primary contest for the Democratic nomination for governor, DSA member Francesca Hong, a state representative, has a substantial lead in polls against two better-known candidates with much greater support in the party establishment, Milwaukee Mayor David Crowley and former lieutenant governor Mandela Barnes. That vote will take place on August 11.