A Lost Generation of Socialism Youth? October 5, 2019 by Dan Mitchell

I’ve opined that statist policies harm young people.

I also shared this video explaining why big government is bad for millennials and the Gen-Z crowd.

This should be a slam-dunk issue. After all, don’t they know how the communist world collapsed?

Aren’t they aware of the problems in places such as Greece and Venezuela?

Or, to make it personal, don’t they have any inkling of the fact that they are going to get screwed by entitlement programs?

And what about the fact that they lose out because of Obamacare?

Sadly, it appears many of them haven’t learned the right lesson.

Support for socialism is disturbingly high among the young.

I’ve wondered, only half-jokingly, whether they’re too clueless to vote.

David Grasso opines on this topic for the New York Post.

It’s important to look at the typical millennial trajectory, and why unprecedented government intervention into our daily lives is now widely seen as the only solution to the problems that bedevil us as a generation. …the only choice was to go to a college or university. We took this journey on the faith that a college education would give us the necessary skills to kick-start our careers. After graduation, we quickly found out that our alma maters did little to prepare us to be job-ready. …Just as we get our first student-loan bill, we find ourselves navigating unpaid and low-paid internships… The next predictable step is working a service-industry job that doesn’t require a degree while trying to get set up in a city with job openings in our fields. Yet a booming job market often also means a housing horror show. Misguided housing policies in places like New York, Los Angeles, Washington and San Francisco have created such a tight market that it is often financially impossible for a young person to move there. …We pay through the nose for health insurance, have zero job security and pray we advance as soon as possible. …Many of us are eternally disappointed with the unjust system that blocked us from doing things past generations did, like get married, have kids and have a lovely oak-shaded, picket-fence life.

Grasso notes that government is the underlying problem.

Then we turn on our streaming services and find politicians who seem to understand us, who are tapping into the spirit of a generation that’s reacting to the post-Great Recession era. …Given such a journey, it is easy to see why socialism seduces young Americans. We desperately need change if we are ever going to progress as a generation. The problem is, what the socialists are proposing — more government — is exactly the opposite of what we need. In fact, many of the most prominent obstacles we have faced are the result, at least in part, of heavy-handed government interference. …Truth is, young people need exactly the opposite of socialism — pro-growth policies and restrained, common-sense regulation. This will create more economic opportunities and more avenues into the middle class. Socialist policies will only choke economic opportunity and make our tough existence far worse.

More young people need to reach this conclusion.

At least if this horrifying poll is even close to accurate.

In other words, it seems like Americans are morphing into Europeans.

This is such a depressing thought that I’ll end today’s column with a bit of humor.

Here’s some gallows humor from Remy.

P.S. You can enjoy more of his videos by clicking here, here, here, and here.

P.S.S. For what it’s worth, there is some polling data indicating young people aren’t totally hopeless.