At this rate zoomers are gonna give us anime fascism or anime socialism. There is no middle ground.
The polling is pretty consistent about this. Gen Z leans strongly left in basically every dimension.
Of course, I’ve grown up in the worst of the racist South so I probably got the bulk of the right-wing Gen Z.
I think that would be it.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/11/gen-z-politics-2020-poll-takeaways-426767
https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/01/17/generation-z-looks-a-lot-like-millennials-on-key-social-and-political-issues/
https://news.gallup.com/poll/268766/socialism-popular-capitalism-among-young-adults.aspx
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/10/23/soci-o23.html
Best part:
In fact, according to the report, 60 percent of Millennials (age 24-39) support a “complete change of our economic system away from capitalism,” and 57 percent of Gen Z does as well: increases of 8 and 14 percentage points, respectively, from just last year.
The statistics from the report are also remarkable in demonstrating not only a growing interest in socialism, which contains a mixture of conceptions, but a growing interest in Marxism, specifically.
Thirty percent of Gen Z has a favorable view of Marxism, and 27 percent of Millennials.
And even the right wingers are less right wing.
because it's non-white. the white portion tracks with boomers on "conservativeness" (except more fascist and less neoconservative)
I'm not convinced that the people in these surveys always know what they're talking about. We've all had the experience of talking to a right-winger who deflects to some bullshit like "We don't live in capitalism, this is corporatism." I don't know if I'd necessarily categorize response to certain words as growing anticapitalist sentiment, my gut instinct is to say there's a general breakdown of reality and less of a tight grip over what words mean. I have a younger relative who describes himself as anticapitalist, but he's a huge chud who announces his views like "I hate capitalism. What we need instead is a truly free market." So just utter gibberish. He describes Trump as anticapitalist.
If I can make more guesses, it could be that younger people do not resonate whatsoever with the political concerns of older Americans, so the terminology doesn't stick. The youngest adults are 20 years too young to have any memories of the Soviet Union existing.
Then again it's not all cynical. Young adults do seem more activated in general. Guess we gotta see where this leads.
At the same time, not knowing what you're talking about is an important part of getting swept up in a quasi-fascist movement.
It's also an opening for education and radicalizing leftwards, though. A big part of pro-capitalist/anti-communist propaganda is getting even people who are ignorant of those concepts to viscerally respond to them. Think of how many people couldn't tell you hardly anything accurate about communism but who will loudly proclaim how anti-communist they are at the drop of a hat. The point is to rewire people's brains so they don't even consider it -- no argument, no debate, just communism == bad. This is why you get stuff like leftist policies polling well until you attach the word "socialist" or "communist" to them, or why you can individually get people on board with all sorts of leftist policies but they still hesitate when you bring up the s- or c-word.
It works the same way with capitalism, too. People have been successfully propagandized to hear "capitalism" and think capitalism == good; no deeper examination required. What this poll might reflect is that level of propaganda breaking down. This doesn't necessarily mean people are rejecting capitalism (as @axont pointed out), but it might mean that capitalism == good barrier is down and people will be more receptive to criticisms of it.
No doubt. It's both an opportunity and a danger. Along your lines of thinking on a propagandized populace, I pretty much never use the s or c words when talking to new people and in doing so find that they're pretty open to a lot of actually socialist/anti-capitalist ideas. Lots of folks like the idea of worker-owned enterprises, for example, which is a little cartoon version of a socialist society. Or they understand the problem of power imbalances and the inherent conflict between between owners and workers when, e.g., discussing Medicare for All (and they sympathize with the worker camp pretty much every time).
The challenge will be to translate this into coherent, disciplined, organized action. That propaganda also teaches them that political activism begins and ends at the confines of bourgeois democracy. Hell, even worse than that: the confines of the propaganda they've absorbed from bourgeois democratic politicians and PR consultants. Outside of when they join a party or otherwise socialist organizing group, I haven't had much luck in getting libs to actually do anything outside of those confines. Consequently, they end up being little better than a neolib.
We've really gotta get these people into parties.
We’ve all had the experience of talking to a right-winger who deflects to some bullshit like “We don’t live in capitalism, this is corporatism.”
And this is why theory is important. Even just reading the first chapter of Lenin's Imperialism gives you a "in a nutshell" education of how free-market capitalism inevitably becomes monopolistic cartels that dominate western economic systems.
Having that knowledge under your belt helps you explain to others that the no matter what reform is done to capitalism, it inevitably returns to it's end-stage: imperialism.
But thats like the worst book to read on that issue. Where Marx comes from an abstract view of capitalism and is therefore able to describe it's laws of motions as they develop from it's inner logic, Lenins views are clearly byproducts of the first world war and the German war economy as he is heavily inspired by Hilferding. They are basically an affront towards Marx since in their view it's not economic laws that determine the capitalist reality but the personal rule of the capitalist class.
"Domination, and the violence that is associated with it, such are the relationships that are typical of the “latest phase of capitalist development”; this is what inevitably had to result, and has resulted, from the formation of all-powerful economic monopolies." (Lenin)
I would give anything for Marx himself to respond to this.
"Monopoly is the transition from capitalism to a higher system."(Lenin) This is the key to understand the Hilferding/Lenin misconception . They view the protocapitalist atributes of the Kaiserreich (really an infancy of capitalism in what is still a Junkers Germany) as the highest and latest stage. All that is left to do is to make the monopoly universal in the hands of the state and replace the personal violent rule of the capitalists with the personal violent rule of the communist party. I guess until your country explodes into oligarchies. Theory is important, but theory should mean Marx first, second and third. Lenin was a fairly good politician, but his theory sucks.
capitalism is when things are good, if things are bad it can't be capitalism
Both Fascism and Nazism began with a facade of anticapitalist radicalism.
A big part of my hatred for the Nazis, outside of them being genocidal fascists, was inspiring a generation of boomers to howl about "SOCIALISM IS IN DA NAME, NATIONAL SOCIALISM!!1"
I mean we keep saying if the right goes to the left of dems they will win, and I think it's the truth.
I wonder if anyone -- no matter how politically savvy -- could have gotten McConnell on board with additional checks from the right. It might be that McConnell and other Republican power players have drank too much of their own pro-business, anti-labor Kool Aid to sell them on that. There's just too big of a conflict between that and the capital interests Republicans represent.
Remember back in like early/mid Trump admin when we were seeing Jeff Bezos described as the child/descendant of Syrian immigrants? Yeah it's gonna be...not funny, but ironic if the right comes around to use that as a justification to expropriate his wealth (and select others for similar reasons).
A lot of it has to do with the merger of the Washington DC factions of D and R into a single party with few differences. They maintain kayfabe for the masses but they're on the same side, mostly.
The people in flyover country have profound differences with the DC D and R unity party. That's what this is about. The R's in DC will try to bullshit them to get them to shut up...but not if Trump continues his rampage. If he continues his takeover of the GOP all bets are off. Our only hope is that they're so stupid and incompetent the DC D&R unity party will easily outmaneuver them. This mostly happened while Trump was in office.
Observation. They agree on all the important issues, but when it comes time to represent the interests of their constituents, suddenly nothing can be done. What's the re-election rate, over 90%? “Power is not a means; it is an end. The object of power is power.”
I mean, look at fricken' Biden. How much different is he from Trump, really? And Obama was supposed to be this transformative president and all he did was transform mud huts into bloody bomb craters. Bush II the warmonger, Clinton the rapist, Bush I the CIA director, Reagan the "nuke the Soviets", Carter the hick accent peanut farmer, Nixon the criminal, LBJ the warmonger, JFK was the last one who tried to change anything and he got assassinated for it.
To me that seems like what both the 'bipartisanship' talk and the overall intransigence of the R's/fecklessness of the D's is about - make enough noise so people think you're on their side, but nothing really happens except fundraiser emails going out.
The correct take isn't that both parties are the same -- the correct take is that both parties are shitty capitalist parties, but Republicans are obviously worse. You only get to "both parties are the same" if you ignore a bunch of stuff and oversimplify a bunch more. For instance:
LBJ the warmonger, JFK was the last one who tried to change anything and he got assassinated for it.
LBJ passed the Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, and Medicare. There's plenty to criticize him over (and plenty to criticize about those bills), but it's nonsensical to dismiss all that as not even trying to change things.
He escalated the war in Vietnam to unprecedented levels. Congress passes bills, not the President. We have recordings of LBJ's racist rants where he laughs that he'll have those ******* voting Democrat for the next 100 years.
the correct take is that both parties are shitty capitalist parties
The correct take is that there is just one party, and kayfabe. Hulk Hogan and Roddy Piper aren't foes. They both work for Vince McMahon.
I think this was always gonna happen as the contradictions of capitalism become clear and society frays further and further. anybody here knows how bleak and dismal it is to be in your early 20s, look at the imminent collapse of it all, the fact you can't afford shit, will never have your own home and can barely make rent at all, mass unemployment, fleased at every turn for tens of thousands to get an education. what do you expect?
it's a false consciousness on the right, as always, and one that will lead to racialised radicalism. be it 'national socialism' or reactionary social democracy, the contradictions of capitalism will force them into a position against wealth inequality for whites. I don't think that's outright 'good' or 'bad', you can make points for either, but I think it's clear that the fascist movements of the 20s have absolutely planted their roots once more in both the material and social conditions
As society purposely continues to fail the youth more and more each year, the youth will naturally fall further into radicalization, the important thing is that we guide them to the correct answers for why society is failing and ensure they aren't falling into fascism.
As shit gets worse it's harder for the younger ones to resonate with all the talking points
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Young Republicans are just fascists and that's why they don't like capitalism anymore. Capitalists simply aren't sufficiently Blood & Soil in their nationalism.
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Capitalism is increasingly seen as a predatory system that corrupts and consumes local communities. Even Republican party loyalists under a certain age can't stomach it anymore.
:-/ Which is it?
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I've learned not to trust the younger polling at all. People will claim every radical belief in the world because that's the youth subculture of the left and the right, but it isn't like when you survey churchladies or something and can actually be sure they go out and make a minimum effort to support their beliefs. We've commodified identity to a point that wasn't possible before and it shows.
I think more than anything you need something like WW1 for the conditions of a depression and lack of faith in capital to make disenfranchised whites willing to do anything. They might get more reactionary
