(CNN) — President Donald Trump has indicated that his main strategy for the 2026 midterm elections is to call Democrats “socialists” and even “communists” at every turn. And there is evidence that democratic socialism is gaining somewhat more of a foothold in recent Democratic primaries.
But the larger story in American politics right now might be less the rise of socialism than the decline of faith in capitalism and economic fairness.
And new polling reinforces that even the right is growing more disillusioned.
A recent Fox News poll echoes Gallup data from last year in a key way: It shows views of socialism improving modestly, at best, but views of capitalism dropping more significantly.
Views of capitalism have gone from 30 points positive in 2019 (57% favorable to 27% unfavorable among registered voters) to just four points positive today (50%-46%).
The poll also shows 65% of voters agree that “the system is rigged to favor the wealthy.” That’s up from 56% in Trump’s first term.
What’s most striking about both data points is that some of the biggest shifts occurred among Republicans.
While 72% of Republicans viewed capitalism favorably back in 2019, that’s down to 61% today. And the percentage of Republican who have a “strongly” positive view of capitalism has gone from 54% to 41%.
Similarly, the percentage of Republicans who say the system is rigged to favor the wealthy has gone from 30% in 2018 to 42% today.
Just to underscore, fewer than half of Republicans — the party that claims to embrace free markets! — now have a strongly favorable view of capitalism. And 42% of them endorse a pretty Bernie Sanders-sounding sentiment about our “rigged” economy.
You’d be hard-pressed to find data that better speaks to Americans’ apparent growing disillusionment with our economic system.
And that’s hardly the only data pointing in this direction:
- Fewer than half of Americans say capitalism is working even “somewhat” well — down from 60% about a decade ago, according to a June Wall Street Journal-NORC poll.
- 61% of Americans said they were bothered “a lot” by the feeling that the wealthy don’t pay their fair share in taxes, per a Pew Research Center poll in January. That included 41% of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents.
- The same poll showed another 60% overall — and 42% of Republican-inclined voters — said the same about some corporations paying their fair share.
- And views of big business went from 19 points positive in 2012 (58%-39%) to 25 points negative last year (37%-62%), according to the Gallup data.
Given all of that, it’s easy to see why candidates promising to overhaul the economic system — whether that’s labeled socialism or something else — might have increasing appeal to American voters.
And it goes a long way toward explaining how, despite socialism and democratic socialism remaining pretty unpopular, some of the politicians who have polled best nationally happen to be democratic socialists.
Sanders, Vermont’s independent senator, might have the best image numbers for a well-known politician over the past decade. And some data even shows Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York doing reasonably well, despite years of Republicans making her out to be a boogeywoman. (The Fox poll shows her about on par with Vice President JD Vance, though neither is popular.)
Conservative commentator Meghan McCain argued this week that Republicans would have a “huge f***ing problem” if Democrats nominate someone who can speak to economic issues like democratic socialist New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani does.
“The tone of what he is saying is brilliant,” McCain said on X, adding: “Despite my abject fear and repulsion of socialism, it is really impactful. If democrats are smart they will nominate someone with his tenor and tone on economics and national policy.”
There’s certainly some truth in that. And it speaks to how criticizing candidates as socialists and communists might not be the silver bullet that Trump seems to think it is.
The-CNN-Wire
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