Don't Worry, America's Youth Aren't Going Socialist

Though he didn't secure the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, the rise of Bernie Sanders is said to signal something bigger than Sanders coming in second to Hillary Clinton. In particular, it is said to say something about the political leanings of America's entitled twenty and thirtysomethings who lean Democrat, and who will eventually run the Party.

A recent column by a popular conservative writer understandably lamented this presumed evolution. Back in the '90s Democrat Bill Clinton talked of big government in the past tense, but now Sanders is one of the Party's primary faces?  The writer commented that Sanders' ardent supporters "are part of a tide of the passionate, the ideological and the underinformed. They have no idea what socialism is or what it has done in the past to great nations."

To watch last week's Democratic convention, one might think the columnist has a scary point. Sanders supporters were all over the screen in Philadelphia, and in many cases sobbing when presented with the reality that their unhinged hero wouldn't get the nomination. Never, ever, let it be said again that Republicans and conservatives have a monopoly on the oddballs. Democrats crying over the loss of an unkempt socialist? Some Americans are very spoiled, and very uninformed.

Stating the obvious, socialism was a disaster for the parts of the world that suffered it, and it would be a disaster if implemented in the U.S. What requires stressing here is that socialism would be most unfortunate for the poor that it is naively said to help. How we know this concerns how many American immigrants escaped socialist countries, and how few impoverished Americans seek shelter where redistribution is the rule. Life is bleakest for the poor in places where wealth is forcibly shared at gunpoint.

The conservative columnist says that young Sanders supporters are the Democratic party's future, but if so, Republicans can look forward to easy majorities in the coming decades.  Of course, that's why the columnist's downcast analysis is incorrect.  Young voters aren't going socialist, nor are young Democratic voters heading in that direction. There's no story there. 

It's perhaps hard to imagine the above is true considering the makeup of the crowd at last week's convention, but what did readers expect? It's only natural that the wild-eyed activists would show up to each Party's convention, only to create false impressions. But the convention-going, attention grabbing fringe logically doesn't define an entire group. They're just the most visible.

Arguably one of the best historical examples of this concerns UC Berkeley in the 1960s. Back then it was seen as the flowerbed of American-style liberalism. That's the school's reputation to this day. But was it real? Not according to historian Steven F. Hayward. In his 2001 book The Age of Reagan (book one of an excellent two-book series) Hayward addressed Berkeley's reputation only to point out that "genuinely radical students were but a tiny minority of the total student body - 5 percent at the very most - but they enjoyed the advantage of the publicity that accrues to the most extreme position and the loudest bullhorn."

Readers might consider Berkeley in the late ‘60s when trying to divine today's electorate. Just as the fringe made a lot of false noise in the 60s and 70s that didn't reflect the actual country (two straight presidential victories for Republican Richard Nixon), logic dictates that Sanders' supporters are a highly visible minority too. Market signals confirm this truth. If the U.S.'s twenty and thirtysomethings were truly knuckle-dragging redistributionists eager to vote slow growth through wealth confiscation, for-profit companies wouldn't be so eager to win their business.

But as USA Today reported last week, "Every major hotel company has designed a new brand to appeal to these consumers in their 20s and early 30s whose purchasing power and desire to travel is suspected to increase exponentially in the coming years." Every major hotel brand is trying to win the business of socialists? Such a scenario defies commercial sense. Socialists wouldn't want to transact with brands known to pursue profits, not to mention that investors wouldn't back these brand expansions if America's youth were moving the country in a direction that ensures poverty.

Yet the good news is that the U.S. is plainly not moving in a socialist direction. If it were, businesses wouldn't be currying favor with a demographic plainly uninterested in material things. It's also probably worth pointing out that stocks never price in the present; rather they're a reflection of future expectations. If it were a known quantity that the U.S.'s future was socialist, a declining stock market would have been reflecting this for quite some time.

Is this demographic frustrated? Odds are yes. Americans used to muscular economic expansion are experiencing a lighter version of it thanks to growth barriers erected by politicians. But don't a lot of these younger types live with their parents? Supposedly they do, but this just signals yet again how much they like the finer things as opposed to socialist drudgery. You see, it's not that Millennials or twenty and thirtysomethings can't find jobs and places to live on their own, rather they per Charles Murray "can't find a job that will support [them] in the style to which [they] have been accustomed." Twenty and thirtysomethings like high living, and as evidenced by the lengths major brands are going to in order to win their business, the Millennial crowd is poised to make a lot of money in the future necessary to support high living.

Arguably the major irony in all of this is that while passion about Bernie Sanders seems real, it's plainly the creation of a rich, acquisitive society that Sanders outwardly disdains. Socialism only "makes sense" insofar as lots of wealth has been created to redistribute, so it's only logical that Sanders would find a fringe to appeal to in the hyperrich U.S.

As for his electoral success, chalk it up to whom he was running against. If polls are to be believed, Hillary Clinton apparently can't seem to shake an underfunded opponent who seemingly thrills at saying whatever is on his mind, no matter how offensive. The U.S. hasn't gone socialist as much as Clinton is a truly lousy candidate. That's something to rejoice.