2020 Democrats Are Pushing Socialism Hard. There’s Just One (Big) Problem.
by Joseph Curl
TheGatewayPundit.com
May 7, 2019
Seems like the whole of the Democratic Party is moving hard left, promising free everything — health care, college, even cash — as it tries to figure out how to give President Trump a challenge in 2020.
News flash for Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and all the others: Just 10% of Americans view socialism positively.
“A majority of Americans (57%) say that socialism is not compatible with American values,” a new poll from Monmouth University finds.
“Just 29% say it is compatible. About 4-in-10 (42%) have a negative opinion of socialism in general, with another 45% having a neutral opinion and just 10% holding a positive view of socialism. Public opinion about capitalism – while largely positive – is not overwhelmingly favorable, however. Nearly 4-in-10 Americans (39%) have a positive opinion of capitalism in general and a similar 40% have a neutral opinion. Another 17% hold a negative view of capitalism,” Monmouth writes.
Meanwhile, the survey of 801 adults conducted April 11-15 finds that 58% of Americans approve of “universal” health care, and 53% of those surveyed don’t think a government-run program is “socialist.”
“We’ve seen younger voters trending more Democratic in recent elections which has played a role in the party shifting leftward. This means socialism is poised to become a defining feature of the 2020 presidential contest. Will progressive Democrats be able to redefine the term or will the GOP be successful at vilifying this agenda as anti-American?” Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute, said in a statement.
Sanders, the Vermont socialist near the top of the polls in the race for the Democratic nomination, is calling for free health care, a $15-per-hour minimum wage and free college tuition for everyone. And the latest media darling, Ocasio-Cortez — the 28-year-old former bartender — has picked up the battle cry. She’s a self-described socialist who is pushing the Democratic Party even further left.
In 2018, the Democratic Socialists of America told the Associated Press that they had 42 candidates at the federal, state and local levels. Some ran at the upper echelon, like Maine Democratic Senate candidate Zak Ringelstein, who announced last week he’ll run as a Democratic Socialist.
But other polls have delivered news as equally bad for socialists as Monmouth.
“An overwhelming majority of respondents, 76 percent, said they would not vote for a ‘socialist’ political candidate, while only 24 percent of those polled said they would,” found a July 2018 poll conducted by The Hill and HarrisX. Nearly two out of three (64%) of Democratic respondents in the poll said they wouldn’t vote for a socialist. “Among respondents who said they voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 general election, 59% said they would not support a self-described socialist,” the survey found.
2020 could well be an election pitting capitalism against socialism. And President Trump has made clear where he stands on the issue.
“Here, in the United States, we are alarmed by new calls to adopt socialism in our country. America was founded on liberty and independence — not government coercion, domination and control,” Trump said in a speech in Miami on President’s Day in February
“And to those who would try to impose socialism on the United States, we again deliver a very simple message: America will never be a socialist country,” Trump said to cheers.
