[Vision2020] To Young Voters , Socialism Isn’t a Bad Word

[Tom Hansen]

Tea Baggers are upset their rhetoric does not work on young people.

Courtesy of The Boston Globe at:

http://tinyurl.com/Young-Voters-Socialism

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To young voters, socialism isn’t a bad word
By Jesse Singal  |  April 20, 2010

TIM ROESCH, a 46-year-old tea party supporter at last Wednesday’s rally on
the Common, was not happy with a group of nearby college students.

“You should get a group picture and send it to your parents,’’ he grumbled
at them. He was displeased with the signs they held, which he found
offensive; one referred to folks like him with a derogatory sexual term.
He blamed the youthful flippancy on a lack of critical thinking and
genuine knowledge as to how the world works. “They don’t understand what
socialism means. They don’t understand what democracy means.’’

But it’s not that the youngest voters don’t know what socialism means.
It’s that most aren’t scared of it — and find it bizarre that, decades
after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a political movement would center
itself around opposition to it. The fact that both the tea party and the
Republican Party have made vociferous opposition to “socialist’’ policies
a key part of their rhetoric helps explain the tepid response among young
adults.

Republican strategists see short-term advantages in the tea party
movement’s passion. But if conservatives can’t wean themselves off of
Cold-War-era rhetoric, they risk alienating an entire generation of young
people. The tea party is well on its way to doing just that. A recent New
York Times/CBS News survey found that three-quarters of the movement’s
supporters were older than 45.

Behind the main crowd at the Boston Common rally, counter-protesters and
protesters mixed and argued amidst a carnival-like atmosphere that
included costumed provocateurs and what felt like every fringe group in
the state handing out pamphlets. But younger attendees expressed
skepticism about the tea party message.

Naveed Easton, a 19-year-old Emerson student, said he thought the group
was out of touch. “You can notice the shift in society over the past 30
years,’’ he said. “It’s just getting more and more open-minded, and some
people are just very resistant to a progressive society. Especially when
it comes to, like, ‘Oh, that’s a socialist program!’ ’’

And if the health care reform bill actually were socialist? He shrugged
off that concern. “Socialism itself isn’t terrible,’’ he said, unless it
involves the abrogation of individual rights.

Easton is just one college student, of course — a liberal one in a liberal
town. But his views are far from radical among his peers. A year ago a
Rasmussen Reports poll found that Americans under 30 are essentially
equally divided on whether socialism or capitalism is a superior economic
system.

This may shock those who lived through the Cold War, but there’s nothing
irrational about it. Young people grew up in a post-Soviet world. When
they hear “socialism,’’ they think Scandinavia, not Russia. They’re much
more likely to be struggling with student-loan or credit-card bills than
to have been affected one iota by the sort of government overreach that
can be credibly tied to socialism.

Conservatives can continue beating the dead horse of socialism. But if
they want to finally build a youthful infrastructure they should heed the
lesson of Wednesday’s rally.

The graying tea party throng cheered wildly when Sarah Palin took the
stage; the younger spectators stood around the edges of the crowd —
looking unimpressed.

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"We're a town of about 23,000 with 10,000 college students. The college
students are not very active in local elections (thank goodness!)."

- Dale Courtney (March 28, 2007)