Sydney Newton
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It seems everyone has heard of presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, and many have heard he’s a democratic socialist. What exactly is a socialist? The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines socialism as “a way of organizing a society in which major industries are owned and controlled by the government rather than by individual people and companies.” But that doesn’t really give an idea of what it is. For example, China, Denmark, Canada, Norway, and Sweden all practice socialism, in varying forms.

I’d argue one of the main reasons why America stays away from socialism is because our country has never fully practiced it. By the sound of it, socialism seems like it would never work, and it goes against everything America stands for. John Molyneux of the website Social Review said, “Many of us get so ground down and demoralized by living under capitalism that we become convinced that nothing as evidently sane and good as socialism could possibly ever really happen – life just isn’t like that, so there must be a catch somewhere.” I think this accurately captures the feelings of a lot of people who oppose socialism.

The younger generation of America is fed up with all of the arguing and the inequality. We have a voice that’s bigger than ever. Like many of us, Sanders wants things to change. He stands for equality for everyone, and that’s what makes him likeable. 

Sanders has ideas that are appealing to my generation, and his ideas are being shared all over social media. According to The Guardian, out of all the presidential candidates, Sanders has the highest level of engagement on his Facebook posts. He is able to reach an audience that usually would not be paying attention. John Allen Hendricks’ book Communicator-in-chief: How Barack Obama Used New Media Technology to Win the White House discusses how social media helped President Obama win the election. Vanity Fair posted an article in July with the headline “Bernie Sanders is leading the Democratic primary race … on Tumblr.” This is what makes Bernie Sanders stick out from the rest of the candidates.

If Sanders is any indication, socialists seem to be more conscious of economic inequality. Here in America, the top 1 percent of the wealthy people make more money than roughly 90 percent of our population. Most of the people who support socialism see this as evidence that our capitalist system is not working. I think younger people are leaning toward Sanders because he is honest about our country’s problems and gives understandable solutions to fix them.

I don’t want to say socialism doesn’t have flaws or is a perfect solution to our problems, but I do think we need to do something else and leaning toward policies that some might call “socialist” seems like the right thing to do. When things aren’t working, the answer is to try something different. Many of the older generation in America think that socialism isn’t a good idea or that younger people don’t know what it is. But with the internet, this new generation is becoming more and more informed and stepping up for what they want. Usually, not many young people go out and vote. But if they are passionate about Sanders and his policies, he has a very good chance.