Pollsters at Rasmussen recently released a survey showing nearly one in four likely voters in the U.S. are unconcerned about socialist candidates getting elected to Congress.
Democratic socialists have recently won primary elections in states like Colorado and New York. Most Americans still support capitalism and free markets, but a growing share of likely voters now say socialism is better. New polling data from Rasmussen underscores the division over socialism in America.
Rasmussen reports half of likely voters in the U.S. are concerned about socialist candidates becoming members of Congress next year. Nearly one in three (32%) told Rasmussen that they are actually “very concerned.” However, 23% of likely voters told Rasmussen they are “not at all concerned.”
From the survey question’s wording, it could be that some voters don’t think socialists will actually get elected to Congress, but it could also be that they have no concerns about what socialist members of Congress might do once they are in office.
Many young people have been taught that socialism and communism failed in the past because they weren’t properly implemented, but that’s not the case.
Socialism and communism failed every time they were tried, because they are fatally flawed. They have a wrong view of who people are and where people fit in society. When we get that wrong, not much else will go right.
Our friend Joseph Backholm, Senior Fellow for Biblical Worldview and Strategic Engagement at Family Research Council, recently published a list of some of socialism’s and communism’s basic flaws:
1. Socialism misunderstands human nature and implies that people will be virtuous as long as they have enough money. Then, ironically, it assumes everyone with money is sinister.
2. Socialism takes from the capable and gives to the less capable, ensuring that resources won’t ever be used productively.
3. Socialism destroys competition and consequently destroys innovation.
4. Socialism destroys people’s incentive to be productive by denying them the benefit of their labor. It always produces fewer, lower-quality products.
5. Socialism assumes I have the right to other people’s property just because they have more than I do. It depends upon and incentivizes greed.
6. Socialism denies people the dignity of having what they earn and earning what they have.
7. Socialism assumes people engaged in commerce always operate with corrupt motives, but people in government never do.
8. While claiming to decentralize power, it always centralizes power with a handful of bureaucrats.
9. Socialism assumes it’s always unjust for one person to have more than another, when real justice means the dishonest and unskilled shouldn’t have as much as the honest and skilled.
10. Socialism assumes humanity’s natural state is prosperity and rages over the fact that we aren’t all rich, when in reality the natural state is poverty, and capitalism is the only reason we aren’t all poor.
Joseph concluded by rightly pointing out, “Of course, none of this means a capitalist system doesn’t have weaknesses, but it can produce good outcomes and has. Communism never has because it assumes a world that does not exist and never will.”
Over the decades, other pundits have pointed out that socialism and communism are oppressive and cannot work without using force against everyday citizens.
Americans — and especially Christians — need to understand socialism’s basic problems and its track record. This is a fatally flawed belief system that has produced disastrous results every time.
Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.
