There once was a time, many years ago, when Americans mistakenly believed that climate change posed a threat to humanity and the only solution was a green revolution. At the peak of climate alarmism madness, the Green New Deal was billed as a viable plan to achieve the so-called green transition. In 2019, Sen.
Page A3From§Eachthe matinee edition — 26 September 2026
SIX OP-EDS, ONE DAY
Gallup finds record support for socialism; five op-eds call it fake the same day, four from one paper.
As it ran on the front
On September 23rd, Gallup put a number on the board: forty-three percent of Americans now hold a positive view of socialism, the first time the figure has cleared thirty-nine percent in a Gallup trend that runs back to 2010. Capitalism and free enterprise still lead, fifty-five to forty-three, but the number moved, and it moved where everyone could see it.
Twenty-three days earlier, on August 31st, the Washington Examiner had already looked at a different poll and didn't like what it saw. CBS News/YouGov found nearly six in ten Democrats holding a positive view of socialism and less than a third saying the same of capitalism, and the paper called that an ominous sign for the midterms. The same newsroom that would spend this week insisting the support isn't real had already, twenty-three days earlier, insisted the support was a problem. Only the verb changed.…
…(cont) Then came the 26th. Gallup's number was three days old. Jacobin ran it straight — socialism's appeal is broad, ripe for a candidate willing to campaign on it — and by the end of that same day, five op-eds had shown up to argue with a poll, not a person. Stephen Moore, writing for Fox, said the socialists selling these policies got rich under the system they call immoral. The other four ran in the Washington Examiner: one said the DSA is importing Brazil's politics wholesale, one said Democrats think they voted for Sweden and got Venezuela, one said the Green New Deal was never about the climate at all, one told the GOP to quit arguing about socialism and start running on its record.
None of the five disputes the number. Not one of them says forty-three percent is wrong. The argument is entirely about what the number is allowed to mean once it exists — an import, a hypocrisy, a hoax, anything except what the poll actually measured, which is what people said when someone asked them.
A poll doesn't campaign for anything. It just counts. When counting draws five rebuttals in a single day, four of them from one paper, the count wasn't the problem — the number holding still while everyone rushed to explain it away was.
“Forty-three percent of the country looks at socialism and says sure, sounds fine, and by lunchtime five op-eds show up to tell them they're lying about their own opinion. Four of the five ran in one paper — the same paper that called this exact trend "ominous" back in August — so which is it, a threat or a fantasy, because right now it's whichever one keeps the copy desk scared. Nobody in five op-eds argues with the number; they just try to talk you out of trusting your own answer.”
“Look, five writers reaching similar conclusions on the same day isn't coordination, it's — okay, four of them work for the same paper, but that's a robust opinion section, that's called having a beat. And it's not hypocrisy to call a poll "ominous" in August and fake in September, circumstances changed — did I say September? I meant the methodology's obviously the issue, it's always the methodology — forget I said "always."”
The receipts
Stephen Moore says Bernie Sanders, Hasan Piker, and Elizabeth Warren grew wealthy under capitalism while pushing socialist policies they call immoral.
A crop of recent polls shows that socialism’s appeal is surprisingly broad. They also reflect a transformed US political landscape that is ripe for a socialist politician to capitalize on — if they’re willing to step up.
Democrats are running an average of 11.5 points ahead of their 2024 baseline across 2026 special elections MultiState Elections, 2026 special-election tracking
Trump’s GOP has a problem. Now stop arguing about socialism and start showing the scoreboardTwo months before the midterm elections, the Republican Party has a problem. No, it’s not its record, which is strong. And no, it’s not the Democrats, who are weaker than the coverage claims, drowning under the dead weight of a deepening socialist wing that is taking over.
Just three years ago, the Brazilian president headlined the 2023 São Paulo Forum, the premier gathering of Marxist leaders throughout the Americas. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva markedly exclaimed, “To call us communist or socialist will never offend us. Never.
Socialism has reached its highest level of public favorability in Gallup polling, with 43% of Americans now saying they have a positive view of the economic system. The figure, released Wednesday, is the first time socialism has surpassed 39% in Gallup’s trend dating back to 2010. Socialism still trails capitalism and free enterprise…
Fifty-nine percent of Democrats now call themselves supporters of the Democratic Socialists of America. That’s scary because the stated goals of the DSA are not some bloated European welfare state but a radical overhaul of American society. It’s an overhaul that would eventually cost us both our economic and democratic freedoms.
· Socialism polls better than it performs from the morgue, 31 Aug 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.