Now that the socialist Senator Bernie Sanders is breaking through Hillary Clinton’s so-called “firewalls” and – part of me can’t believe this – may be headed toward a nomination, mainstream America ought to confront a grim reality: Socialism is back.
It’s been less than 20 years since President Clinton figured he was better off disavowing “liberalism.” So what happened?
The short answer is ignorance: hordes of “special snowflake,” participation trophy Millennials think socialism will fix everything, just like Sanders says, and they’re the reason he’s been surging.
Europe is a favorite exemplar: Shorter work weeks, more vacation, longer retirements, faster trains, etc. And, assuming Millennials ever learned about Che Guevera, Joseph Stalin, or the Soviet Union in the first place, they’ve never connected any of them conceptually to Puerto Rico, Cyprus, or Detroit, partly because their professors haven’t bothered to do so, either.
And modern, young US socialists aren’t just ignorant of the past; they’re also blind to current realities, like they’re in an endless, years-long Vicodin haze. For now, socialism is alluring and hip, and the question is when supporters are “mugged by reality.” That won’t happen before November, though.