The Democratic Party’s socialist turn is no longer a fringe story about one mayoral candidate in New York. It is now the majority position of the party’s own base.
A new CBS News/YouGov poll, reported by Breitbart, found that 58 percent of Democrats hold a positive view of socialism while only 32 percent hold a positive view of capitalism — a 26-point gap inside a single party. The survey polled 2,287 American adults between August 12 and August 14.
The negative numbers are, if anything, more striking. Half of Democrats — 50 percent — said they view capitalism negatively. Only 18 percent said the same about socialism. Another 24 percent of Democrats had “no opinion” on socialism at all, against 18 percent who had no opinion on capitalism.
That is not a party quietly drifting. That is a party whose voters now rate the economic system that built the country below the one that has never worked anywhere it has been tried.
The country as a whole still disagrees. Among all respondents, 46 percent view capitalism positively and 35 percent view socialism positively, with 42 percent holding a negative view of socialism against 33 percent negative on capitalism. The gap between the electorate and one party’s base is the entire story.
It is also not a one-poll fluke. An Economist/YouGov survey conducted in June of 1,606 respondents found that 62 percent of Democrats said they would vote for a “Democratic Socialist” candidate. Just 11 percent said they would not. A second Economist/YouGov poll taken August 7 through August 10 found 26 percent of respondents believe most Democrats are socialists, while 42 percent said they do not — meaning the public has not yet caught up to what Democratic voters are telling pollsters about themselves.
For anyone with money in the market or a payroll to meet, the numbers are a forecast, not a curiosity. Tax rates, spending levels and the regulatory posture of the federal government are set by whoever holds Congress, and a base that rates capitalism negatively by 50 percent does not send members to Washington to cut marginal rates or trim agencies. It sends them to do the opposite, and it rewards the ones who go furthest.
The practical version of that is already on display in New York City, where a self-described democratic socialist ran on city-owned grocery stores and free buses and won a Democratic primary in the largest city in the country. National Democrats treated it as a local curiosity. The CBS numbers suggest it was a preview.
Democratic officeholders have spent the past several years insisting that the socialist wing is a loud minority — a handful of safe-seat members and one primary upset in New York City. The party’s own voters have now answered that question in a national survey, and the answer is 58 to 32.
The candidates will keep saying otherwise. The polling says the base already decided.
Source: breitbart.com
