In the mid-1980s, Soviet defector Yuri Bezmenov warned that the process of neo-Marxist indoctrination in America was “more than complete.” And now, four decades later, we’re apparently seeing this reality reflected in a distressing new poll. More than half of under-40 likely voters want a “democratic socialist” to win the presidency in 2028, the survey found. More than three-quarters want certain major industries nationalized. Then there’s this:
Fifty percent of respondents believe the United States is a “morally mixed” country.
And almost a fifth say America is “fundamentally evil.”
There’s a seeming incongruence, too. Thirty-five percent of respondents who voted for Donald Trump in 2024 also say they want a 2028 socialist president.
Welcome to the fruits of 60-plus years of media-, academia-, and entertainment-indoctrination and its attendant moral decay.
The New Amerikans?
The Heartland Institute reported on the poll earlier this month, writing:
A new poll by StoppingSocialism.com, a project of The Heartland Institute, and Rasmussen Reports found that support for radical socialist policies and candidates appears high among likely voters under the age of 40.
…76% of respondents said they “strongly agree” or “somewhat agree” that “Major Industries like health care, energy, and big tech should be nationalized to give more control and equity to the people”….
The survey included 1,201 likely voters aged 18-39. It was completed on August 27, 2025.
Half of the respondents to the survey also said that America is a “morally mixed country,” while 28% said the United States is “fundamentally good” and 17% said “fundamentally evil.”
Although more than half of respondents (53%) said they would like to see a socialist candidate win the 2028 presidential election, support among respondents for the most socialistic Democratic Party candidates remained lower than more establishment candidates. When asked who respondents would most likely vote for in a Democratic Party primary, Kamala Harris (36%) received the most support, followed by Bernie Sanders (16%), Gavin Newsom (9%), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (9%), and Zohran Mamdani (4%).
Motivations
The respondents supporting a socialist candidate for 2028 were asked to identify their main reason for doing so. There were eight provided options, and the results were, from most to least selected:
- “Housing costs are too high” (31 percent).
- “The economy unfairly benefits older, wealthier Americans” (17 percent).
- “The economy unfairly benefits large corporations” (15 percent).
- “Taxes are too low for corporations” (12 percent).
- “Taxes are too low for wealthy individuals (11 percent).
- “Want single-payer health care system (eight percent).
Five percent chose “Some other reason” and two percent “Not sure.”
Inevitable?
So is any of this surprising? Senior Heartland Institute fellow S. T. Karnick doesn’t think so. As he writes today:
This is dismaying but inevitable. Government interference in the nation’s economy over the past century, especially the establishment of a federal welfare state in the mid-1960s and the full severing of the U.S. dollar from gold in 1971, has distorted Americans’ production and trading of goods and services for decades. The disturbance of the relationship between work and rewards has become more pronounced for each generation.
Blaming free markets and looking to socialism as the solution gets the situation entirely wrong. The United States does not have anything like true free markets today, and the nation has not had a true market economy for decades.
New York University economics professor Thomas Philippon argues in his book The Great Reversal: How America Gave Up on Free Markets (2019), “US markets have become less competitive: concentration is high in many industries, leaders are entrenched, and their profit rates are excessive. Second, this lack of competition has hurt US consumers and workers: it has led to higher prices, lower investment and lower productivity growth. Third, and contrary to common wisdom, the main explanation is political, not technological: I have traced the decrease in competition to increasing barriers to entry and weak antitrust enforcement, sustained by heavy lobbying and campaign contributions.”
The pandemic years and Biden administration spending spree and regulatory strangulation undermined market freedom even further.
…Though they do not know it, the cause of their [younger people’s] woes and complaints is the inevitable destruction inflicted by crony capitalism, corporatism, and government manipulation of the dollar.
Conditioned Response
Karnick adds that, oblivious to the fact that big government has caused their problems, these young (and middle-aged, let’s be honest) Americans are looking to their oppressor — the same big government — to solve their problems. They’re thus poised to jump from the frying pan into the fire.
And, says Heartland Institute editorial director Chris Talgo, as “a former high school teacher, this is not all that surprising.” He elaborates:
During my teaching career, I routinely witnessed my teaching colleagues presenting socialism as morally superior to free-market capitalism. Moreover, most of my fellow social studies teachers portrayed socialism as the most-fair form of government. I hate to say it, but America’s public schools have become socialist indoctrination factories. No wonder so many young Americans think socialism will improve their circumstances.
Yet more perspective is in order. First, 40 percent of the respondents were Democrats, 30 percent Republicans. This exceeds the nationwide Democrat/Republican ratio (though there are more registered Democrats). Second, it would be interesting seeing rural/suburban/urban and regional breakdowns of the poll answers. I suspect an inordinate number of socialism’s supporters are in big cities and suburbs and, of course, in left-wing states. In other words, this may be yet another example of the intensifying “red-blue” bifurcation of America.
The Virtue Factor
Then there are unrealistic expectations. Years ago I met an African immigrant who remarked to me how too many Americans are inveterate complainers. His implication was that instead of being thankful, they ever and always see the glass as half empty. The truth is, too, as I mentioned yesterday, we currently live a lifestyle of which our ancestors couldn’t even dream. And it’s still not enough for many. Why, to illustrate the unrealistic expectations, consider a 2022 poll. It found that college students expected to make $103,880 in their first post-graduation job — more than twice the national average.
Ultimately, though, all this boils down to Americans’ sense of virtue. As I wrote in 2021, “There’s Only ONE Thing That Can Stave Off Socialism: Morality.” Consider here that a tendency to look toward socialist big government is common the world over. Our Founding Fathers, in contrast, were historical anomalies. They understood that to enjoy freedom and maximum prosperity, virtue in the people was a prerequisite. Thus did our second president, John Adams, observe in 1798, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Our problems began when we became “any other.” Socialism is a philosophy of vice; that’s what it was born of and flourishes in. This is why, if we really want to MAGA, we must MAMA: Make America Moral Again. There is no viable Plan B.
