PSL: Why do young people in the US favor socialism?

[The Genealogist]

56. Boy I sure grew up with it

At least til about age 13 or 14, anyway. My father's mother was, well, obsessed with the Soviet Union and what it was doing in the world. She was quite well educated, and read voraciously. She had files and notes on most countries in the world--whether they were under Soviet control, what kind of economies countries had, where their aid came from. I heard about how bad socialism and communism were, how they were evil and their adherents wanted to destroy America and the American way of life. She thought St Ronny was, well, a saint, and adored Thatcher and Thatcherism as much as any American could. And I bought it pretty well, as much as a child could buy it. Of course, after she died I didn't hear quite so much about it, as the rest of the family was not so interested in it as she was, though they were conservatives. They had more of a blanket "communisim and socialism are bad" mentality without any real reason to believe it, as she did. Too, as I grew older, I came into contact with alternate ideas, and it wasn't more than about 4 or 5 years after her death that the Soviet Union ceased to exist. Perhaps my upbringing was unique.