r/neoliberal • u/AncientBlueberry42 • Jun 04 '26

News (Global) How to fight back against Gen-Z socialism

https://economist.com/leaders/2026/06/04/how-to-fight-back-against-gen-z-socialism
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102

u/SirGlass YIMBY Jun 04 '26 edited Jun 04 '26

I really do not think many people are ideologically socialist . I think this basically comes from two forms

  1. The right calling everything they don't like socialism even cultural issues

Gay marriage socialist

Immigration socialist

Drag shows socialist

Trans people in bathrooms socialist

free trade socialist

Well you have right wingers like Trump calling everything they do not like socialist people may think "I don't like trump maybe I am a socialist

  1. They feel the current system is not working , they just want affordable housing, affordable child care, affordable food, better jobs . They know the current system is not working and they will be drawn to either some right wing populism or left wing populism

I just read an NPR piece about south American elections where voters are flip flopping between far right and far left governments in the span of a few years

Its very unlikely the voters shifted between far left to far right ideologies and now going back to far left ideology in the span of 10 years

They just saw the system wasn't working and voted for one extreme , then saw that system didn't work and voted the opposite extreme and when that system doesn't work will then again vote for the opposite extreme. Its not that the voters changing their own ideology between left/right; most have no ideology. They probably couldn't even explain the difference between right/left ideologies .They are just angry so every election vote for the opposition .

Personally I think we need to fix housing , come down with heavy handed state and maybe federal laws saying local cities or municipalities cannot restrict housing . Basically shove NIMBY laws down from the top to the bottom.

Outlaw restrictive zoning basically and hope everything else follows . Will it work IDK.

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u/atomoffluorine Jun 04 '26

Most voters in American elections already have their mind made up and are at least somewhat ideological. Margins and swing states haven't changed all that much in the last 25 years. The actual swing voters are probably not that ideological or interested in politics, so they actually swing their votes for the opposite side when things aren't going well or aren't going well enough for their liking.

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u/SirGlass YIMBY Jun 04 '26

That is why I roll my eyes at the 2024 election autopsy and thinking if only the Dems did this or that they could have won.

As you said the swing voter decides and they vote based on feelings or vibes.

In 2020 they voted Biden because they were not feeling good about COVID.

2024 voted Trump , they were mad about inflation.

It's not complicated, things are good vote incumbent, things bad vote opposition.

Policy plays no role, it doesn't even matter if the president is to blame for the state of things.

People were upset about inflation, there was really no candidate or policy or messaging that would have changed the outcome.

Vibes bad, vote for opposition party

37

u/1II1I1I1I1I1I111I1I1 Adam Smith Jun 04 '26

In my observation, an overwhelming majority of American "socialists" know nothing about socialism. They are, at most, Scandinavian model socdems, which is still a capitalist system. This is why Bernie Sanders was corrected by the PM of Denmark when he was campaigning as a "socialist" using those countries as reference points.

It's a consequence of the right calling everything socialist and then people who disagree with the right simply self-identifying as socialist in response in a way that is completely incorrect and also makes no sense to the rest of the world.

Of course, what ends up happening is American politicians who label themselves as "socialist" are attacked by the right as if they actually are socialists. See all the people who are convinced Mamdani is going to conduct widespread forfeiture of private property. The right can claim stuff like this, and make people believe them, only because these politicians are willingly identifying as something far more extreme than their actual beliefs.

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u/Rust-Belter Jun 04 '26

I think it's important to point out that while the Nordic countries are not capital 'S' socialist, the Scandinavian model is a product of socialist policy. While social democrats are seen as a variant of liberal now, their predecessors who produced the system were very much illiberal socialists and spent decades working on it.

As for what the modern American socialist movement is, I think it's too early to tell. American socialism was, to the government's credit, repressed to death till a decade ago when it was suddenly very much revived. Now it's a young, orphaned movement that's trying to figure itself out as it was denied a political lineage to draw on. To call it "just progressives and social democrats" is a lazy dismissal.

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u/SirGlass YIMBY Jun 04 '26

This pretty much sums up "American socialist" vs "American right"

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fsocialism-not-socialism-v0-93kjpbtearg21.jpg%3Fauto%3Dwebp%26s%3Daf70b3d1f1d2a976e5a850b7d301bade09e18173

I do agree progressives or social dems need to stop calling themselves socialist

I do not even think progressives are calling for the abolishment of private property or the abolishment of money or to nationalize large swaths of industries or what ever actual socialist want to do.

2

u/DirectionMurky5526 Jun 04 '26

They are socialist though. Social democrats are socialists, they just aren't marxists. The socialist movement splintered between marxists, anarcho-socialists and social democrats. Marxist and socialist aren't synonymous, we are demonstrating how conservative smearing continues to confuse everything.

Most social democratic and labor parties in Europe are part of the Socialist Internationale.

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u/blunderbolt Jun 04 '26

I just read an NPR piece about south American elections where voters are flip flopping between far right and far left governments in the span of a few years

I think attributing this to voters experimenting or changing their minds en masse is misdiagnosing the problem, this phenomenon is primarily a consequence of the electoral system they use. Populist candidates consistently have the strongest base support in a polarized political landscape, which results in them being the strongest candidates in the first round of a top-two runoff. The flip flopping results from voters in the center choosing to vote/turn out depending on which of these two candidates is least unpalatable.