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…
Page A2From§Eachthe early evening edition — 26 September 2026
Six op-eds declared socialism's rise fake; it got bigger anyway.
As it ran on the front
On September 23rd, Gallup put a number down: 43% of Americans now hold a positive view of socialism, the highest that figure has run in a Gallup trend dating back to 2010. Capitalism and free enterprise still lead, 55 to 43, and a twelve-point lead is a real lead. Before that, on August 31st, the Washington Examiner had already looked at a CBS News/YouGov poll finding nearly six in ten Democrats viewing socialism positively against less than a third feeling that way about capitalism, and called it an ominous sign for the fall midterms. Ominous is one word for it.
The next day, September 24th, an NBC News poll broke out voters between 18 and 29 specifically: 47% of that bracket now view capitalism negatively, 42% view socialism positively. That's not the headline number moving, that's — well, it's the headline number moving in the group that gets to vote for the next forty years.…
…(cont) That's the run of days five op-eds landed in, four of them from the same newsroom that ran the August poll. One argued the socialist elite got rich bashing capitalism. One went after Lula and the Brazilian left. One went after the Nordic model. One went after the Green New Deal. One was a straight strategy memo on beating socialism at the polls in November. Five writers, one publication mostly, converging on the same conclusion in the same stretch of days the numbers were moving.
Today Jacobin filed the piece the op-eds were pre-arguing against: that the polling shows a landscape ready for a socialist candidate willing to run on it. Four pieces from one paper in one week, aimed at a poll instead of an argument, isn't skepticism, it's — no, it's exactly what it looks like: a rearguard action, fought after the line has already moved.
The numbers didn't wait for the op-eds to finish. They arrived, then the polling arrived again, bigger, from a different pollster, in a different age bracket, days later. You can write six pieces calling a thermometer a liar. The room stays the temperature it is.
“They spent a week insisting nobody actually likes socialism, and while the ink's still wet, Gallup and NBC both come back and say more people like it than last time, especially the ones under thirty who've had the longest look at what capitalism's actually selling them. That's not a messaging problem for the op-ed pages, that's a rent bill. When four columns from one newspaper show up the same week the number moves, that's not analysis, that's a fire alarm somebody keeps pulling after the building's already burned.”
“Six people looking at the same numbers and reaching the same conclusion independently isn't a coordinated response, it's called agreement — okay, four of the six work at the same paper, so it's coordinated, but it's coordinated agreement, which is a different thing, I want to say, from — actually never mind. The point is this is a Democratic Party polling problem, not a country problem, and it stays that way right up until it doesn't.”
Earlier in this story
- Gallup finds record support for socialism; five op-eds call it fake the same day, four from one paper. By Sal · the matinee edition, 26 September 2026
The receipts
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.
The median first-time homebuyer is now 40 - a record - and first-time buyers are a record-low 21% of the market National Association of Realtors, 2025 Profile
Almost half of younger voters view capitalism negatively: PollNearly half of younger voters have a negative view toward capitalism, according to a new poll. In the NBC News poll, 47 percent of voter respondents in the age range of 18 to 29 had a negative outlook on capitalism, while 42 percent viewed socialism in a positive light, according to a report from the...
· 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.