Every conservative over the age of 35 should be worried about the next generation of Democrats, who want to transform the USA into a socialist fantasyland. According to a recent Reason-Rupe survey, a majority of US Millennials self-identify as socialists. At their urging, the Democrat Socialists of America endorsed 42 candidates across 20 states in the 2018 midterm elections – with 24 winning primaries and 18 winning in the general elections. What is truly disturbing is that college-educated Millennials supported all 42 candidates enjoyed.
If there is a silver lining within this bad news, then it is the Reason-Rupe finding that only 32 percent of Millennials can define socialism. Ever the optimist, I recall Churchill’s observation that the 20-year-old heart embraces liberalism until the 40-year-old brain insists on conservatism. Let’s hope Churchill is spot-on because America’s young socialists tend to reject Americanism (that is the belief in the bill of rights, free markets, and our constitutional republic).
Michael Knowles of The Daily Wire produced seminal research on Millennials that should enrage Republican parents: there has been a clear failure by American higher education to teach Millennials the history that explains why the USA is so dynamic and exceptional.
- 33% of Millennials believe American President George W. Bush killed more people than Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, who killed 20 million (source: New York Times)
- 40% have never heard of Chinese dictator Mao Zedong, whose Great Leap Forward killed 45 million people (source: Washington Post)
- 66% cannot identify Auschwitz, and 22% have never heard of the Holocaust, in which 12.5 million victims were killed (source: The Telegraph)
- 51% reject economic freedom (source: 2016 Harvard Survey)
Of course, the Millennial au currant darlings are Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Beto O’Rourke, who are taking the concept “dumb politician” to new lows. While she does not know what the unemployment rate measures, Ocasio-Cortez still wants to impose a 70% marginal tax rate on every “successful” American in order to pay every “unsuccessful” American at least $15-per-hour. While he could not (or would not) tell The Washington Post’s Jenna Johnson how he would handle immigrants who overstay their Visas, or what he thought about withdrawing troops from Syria (“there may be a good reason, but I don’t necessarily understand”), O’Rourke still blabs on about our 230-year-old constitution not suiting today’s America.
Blame America’s illiberal colleges and universities that have closed a generation’s minds to the free examination of the world. Partisan professors convert diverse student bodies into non-diverse herds of “politically correct” sheep. Partisan administrators work hard to attract diverse identity groups, and ensure they are “protected” from intellectual diversity. Today’s college graduate could be described simply by Dean Animal House Wormer: stoned, stupid and sponging on one’s parents is no way to determine the future of the USA.
According to Pew Research, 75% of millennials favor the national legalization of recreational marijuana – – so presidential hopeful Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) pressed William Barr (new attorney general) to make America safe for Cheech and Chong. Even if stoners have more fun, HHS studies still advise states against legalizing marijuana’s recreational use because of adverse health effects found in Colorado. This is true, and the Denver Post reported a 145% increase in fatal car crashes involving marijuana-impaired drivers between 2013 and 2016.
According to Harvard research, millennials don’t support free-market capitalism. Ocasio-Cortez told Anderson Cooper (CNN) her economic policies will “resemble what we see in the UK, in Norway, in Finland, in Sweden.” Mind you, she holds expensive degrees in International Relations and Economics from Boston University and is still a mental midget: neither Norway nor Sweden has a minimum-wage law, Finland and Britain have lower corporate tax rates than the USA, and none of her idealized European countries have anything close to her Medicare-For-All proposal. And get this: when Margaret Hoover (PBS) pressed her, Ocasio-Cortez explained Democratic socialism is the best way of giving Americans free college because we are the loudest in demanding free college. Say what?
The Millennial’s real beef with their mother country is clearly articulated by Ocasio-Cortez: “We never experienced, really, a time of true prosperity in the United States.” In other words, she was 18 when the Great Recession began and her generation struggled to find gainful employment. Lost in the Millennial pity party are the lessons of Economics 101: (1) free-market economies are cyclical in order to remain sustainable (trust me on that), and (2) booms are inevitably corrected by busts.
It should now be obvious to Millennials that (1) economic downturns are fleeting affairs, and (2) Obama’s socialist-leaning policies did not revive employment and wages. The Millennial socialists see current economic data (record low unemployment, rising wages, higher GDP growth, more manufacturing jobs, growing federal tax revenues, fewer Americans on food stamps, etc.) and remain un-convinced that free-market capitalism works.
And so – a new generation of voters is “just that right about the world” because social media allows like-minded millennials and pop-star icons to re-confirm their PC world – with everything upside down. Jews are now oppressive Zionists, and Palestinians are now victims. Working-class voters are now deplorable, and coastal elites are now virtuous. Christians are now close-minded agressors, and Muslims are now free-thinking peaceniks. I have a dark feeling the Millennial horror show is just beginning.