August 13, 2018

Capitalism? Socialism? For Democrats, It’s Really Bernie vs Donald.

Gallup has a new poll out showing that Democrats now feel more favorably toward socialism than capitalism. But a few folks have pointed out that this isn’t due to increased warmth toward socialism; rather, it’s due to a sudden distaste for Trump-era capitalism. This is true as far as it goes, but the full story is a little more complicated. Here it is:

Approval of socialism took a sudden smallish jump in 2016. This was presumably the Bernie effect, which persisted but didn’t increase this year. But Bernie had zero effect on support for capitalism. The warmer attitude toward socialism was purely a personal thing.

Likewise, this year’s drop in support for capitalism didn’t improve the outlook for socialism, Alexandria Ocasio-Sanchez notwithstanding. Once again, it appears to be more a gut reaction to what Republicans and Trump are doing with tax cuts and the economy generally.

That’s my take, anyway. For Democrats, this isn’t the sharp ideological choice that it is for Republicans—who almost unanimously approve of capitalism and hate socialism. Basically, a fair number of Democrats like Bernie, whatever he calls himself, and hate the Republican version of the economy, whatever they call it. That’s really all these numbers mean.¹

¹So far.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

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