64 percent of registered voters say the Democratic Party supports socialism, reports The Hill:

Nearly two-thirds of registered voters in a Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll survey released exclusively to The Hill believe that the Democratic Party supports socialism.

Sixty-four percent of respondents said that they believe the Democratic Party backs such an economic system, while 36 percent believe the party is opposed to socialism, the poll found….

A growing number of progressives embrace democratic socialism as an ideological descriptor, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who announced a 2020 presidential run last week, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who has taken Washington by storm.

“Democrats have a favorable view of socialism,” by an 18 percentage point margin, according to a Zogby poll discussed in the Washington Examiner. Young people, some of whom have been indoctrinated in victimology and politically-correct scapegoating by left-wing college officials, are the strongest supporters of socialism. According to the Harvard/Harris poll, “Fifty-six percent of registered voters polled who are between the ages of 18 and 24 favored a ‘mostly socialist’ economic model.”

Much of socialism’s appeal is rooted in envy rather than fairness, as research on why people seek redistribution of wealth shows. As Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister who led England in its fight against Nazi Germany, observed, “Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”

The progressive webste Vox estimated in 2018 that the “Democratic Socialism” agenda would cost $42 trillion over ten years. That’s twice the size of America’s existing national debt, and paying for it would double the size of the federal budget.

Even so, that massive figure is almost certainly an underestimate. The $42 trillion calculation doesn’t include the cost of the Green New Deal, which has been endorsed by Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders, who leads the field of announced Democratic presidential candidates. Researchers say the Green New Deal would cost at least $50 trillion, and perhaps more than $90 trillion — four times the size of the entire U.S. economy, and four times the size of America’s national debt. Key elements of the Green New Deal could actually increase greenhouse gas emissions, according to energy experts like Michael Shellenberger and Thomas J. Pyle, by paying for unnecessary construction that results in pollution, and by shutting down power plants that don’t even emit carbon dioxide but are needed for the stability of the power grid.

The Zogby and Harvard/Harris polls showing rising support for socialism among Democrats are not outliers. According to a Gallup survey, 57 percent of Democrats have a positive view of socialism, while most don’t have view capitalism positively. Democratic primary voters are showing a preference for socialism. In 2018, they replaced several Democratic legislators with avowed socialists in safe Democratic seats. One was the self-described “Democratic Socialist” Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The Democratic Party has moved so far left that Democratic elder statesmen such as former President Jimmy Carter have warned against it. But Democratic officials are largely ignoring such warnings.

This article has been republished with permission from Liberty Unyielding.

[Image Credit: Flickr-Phil Roeder CC BY 2.0]