THE GROWING POPULARITY AND FOLLY OF BERNIE SANDERS’ CONCEPT OF SOCIALISM, as charted by Ron Radosh:

Bernie Sanders will not win the Democratic Party nomination. Nevertheless, he has already scored a victory by making socialism popular with Americans, especially young ones. This despite the fact that it is a social system that has failed wherever it has been tried.  There are many reasons for this, and writing in CommentaryBen Domenech provides a comprehensive guide to them. As he writes, “the opposition to socialism in America has drifted downward.” A Gallup poll taken in 2015 showed that 35 percent of the American populace view socialism favorably.

People are responding favorably to all the freebies Sanders offers—free college, low taxes for most, very high taxes for the wealthy, universal free medical care for all.  No wonder Gallup found that 69 percent of Americans age 18-29 would have no trouble voting for an avowedly socialist candidate.

John Sexton, who recently joined Hot Air, adds that “a newly released poll finds that Democratic primary voters in every age and demographic group are fans of socialism:”

As worrisome as the responses to economic questions were the response to questions about freedom of the press suggest Democrats are also ready to undermine the 1st Amendment to the Constitution:

Please tell me if you agree or disagree with the following statement. Most of the media in our country is controlled by corporations who are more interested in profits than telling the truth. Before a corporate owned media entity covers a campus rally for racial equality, they should first prove that they are not biased against the content of the rally.

An overwhelming 67% of Democrats agreed with that statement while just 19% disagreed. I would love to know how respondents think this would work in real time. To whom would the media outlet have to prove their even-handedness? Will some sort of administrative law judge be assigned the task of reviewing media requests to cover campus events?

Notice that the premise of the question is a kind of class struggle analysis of the media and its financial motivations. In other words, once you believe capitalism is a corrupting influence that reasoning naturally extends itself to encompass every area of private industry, media included. If it makes sense to nationalize the airline industry why stop at regulating live shots for CNN and Fox News? Shouldn’t those greedy corporations be nationalized outright?

Salon’s way ahead of you John — they were calling for nationalizing and socializing both the news media and Hollywood two years ago.

Me, I’d settle for simply repealing the Hollywood tax cuts and see how things go from there — it’s only fair, isn’t it, all you celebrity Sanders supporters?