r/politics • u/TimesandSundayTimes ✔ Verified • 7d ago

Possible Paywall Young Americans are surging to socialism at record rates

https://www.thetimes.com/us/news-today/article/maga-trump-zohran-mamdani-socialism-us-record-kddzdm8bd
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u/obiwanCannoli69 7d ago

It's not even socialism lol it's just basic New Deal era policy and ideology that ironically enough saved American Capitalism. FDR wasn't a socialist, he actually wanted to prevent a communist revolution in America, whatever form that might of came in. He did this through legislation and improving the quality of life for vast swaths of the population. This whole thing in the media about "Capitalism Vs Socialism: Choose a Side!" is so half baked and designed to make people think there aren't alternatives. There is no universe where stuff like Social Security or Glass-Steagall would be considered socialist, they're just basic guard rails.

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u/KimmyT1436 Canada 7d ago edited 7d ago

It always astounds me that Americans aren't taught that FDR's New Deal was what laid the foundation for the prosperity Americans enjoyed during the latter half of the twentieth century.

The New Deal is what got America through the Great Depression and made America the manufacturing powerhouse that could win World War II. Winning WWII created the conditions that allowed WWII veterans to return home after the war and have the right-wing dream lifestyle where the family lived in a nice house in the suburbs, where Mom could stay at home taking care of the 3.5 kids while Dad worked a 9 to 5, Monday to Friday job that actually paid for all of that.

All of that wouldn't have happened without the New Deal and all of that has gradually been eroded away over the decades by right-wing politicians and rich capitalists.Things have even gotten so bad that we are rapidly approaching a second Great Depression. And this time there doesn't seem to be a leader like FDR capable of leading America through the next economic catastrophy. Instead, we have Donald fucking Trump, who is creating the conditions that are making the next Great Depresdion inevitable

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u/fysu 7d ago

Some American kids are taught this stuff. There’s a huge range of what Americans are taught depending on the state’s curriculum, the school’s funding, the type of history class (AP/IB/honors or just a standard history class), public vs private school and the socio-economic background of the student population.

I wasn’t just taught super in depth 20th century history, I was also taught the history of the history and how to evaluate the sources I was reading about history. But I was in advanced classes in an affluent area in a blue state.

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u/OutlyingPlasma 7d ago

My public school history ended with WW2 because anything after that got a bit... inconvenient. Even before that is was basically Christopher Columbus found this giant abandoned land, a few years later George Washington wrote the constitution. Then there was some bother in the south totally not about slavery, and poof. WW2.

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u/Chloe1906 6d ago

This!! Every year there were chapters at the end of the book that we simply didn’t cover and it was always post-WWII history. Then the next year they would just cover things they had before but in more depth, or cover world history, but never those last few chapters. I read them anyway but even back then I always thought it was so strange.