The Brian Lehrer show of New York Public Radio's WNYC tweets, "For WNYC listeners under 40. How do you feel about socialism? On a scale of 1 to 10, are you a capitalist or socialist? Call us...," explaining, "Our question about young people & socialism is also inspired by @Ocasio2018 who won and ran her Democratic primary campaign as a Democratic-Socialist."
Somehow whenever we think it might be time to move on from the "FutureOfCapitalism" discussion, the question having been decisively resolved in favor of capitalism, the socialists manage to come along and find a way to restart the debate. Hillary Clinton has said being a capitalist probably hurt her in the Iowa Caucuses in 2016, estimating that 41% of Democrats were socialists or self-described socialists.
At some point, to be useful, the conversation needs to move from labels to actual policies, where sometimes the differences are less stark. But the labels also signify something. Part of the problem may be that so many voters are too young to remember the actual Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and their schools fail to teach them the reality of its failures.
