I’m not quite sure how a person could support something they don’t know a whole lot about. Wouldn’t people want to know what they’re supporting before they support it? Apparently, socialism is one of the things that people don’t need a lot of persuading on.
According to a new Gallup poll — take any poll with a grain of salt — four out of 10 (43 percent) Americans “See Socialism as a Good Thing for the Country.” There are a few things to note about the poll, however.
For one, Gallup openly admits that “Americans’ definition of socialism has changed over the years.” If people can’t come to a consensus on what exactly socialism is, then how can one be confident enough to say that they see the ideology as a good thing?
According to Gallup:
Previous Gallup research shows that Americans' definition of socialism has changed over the years, with nearly one in four now associating the concept with social equality and 17% associating it with the more classical definition of having some degree of government control over the means of production.
Socialism uses the concept of “social equality” to masquerade its true purpose of power over a populace through controlling the “means of production.” If you do a simple Google search for the definition of socialism, you get many different takes on what the ideology entails. But, the one common thread is control over the means of production.
As an interesting side note, Google includes the term “social organization” in its definition of socialism. The powers-that-be in that scenario would be the arbiters of who gets socially organized where.
Regardless, you can’t take Gallup’s poll too seriously if a decent portion of respondents don’t have a decent grasp on the parameters of the socialist ideology.
Another interesting tidbit, is the Gallup’s comparison of people who had “no opinion” in 1942 (34 percent) to today (just six percent). It’s great that more people have an opinion, but if said opinion is of the misinformed variety, what good does that opinion serve anyone - including the person whose opinion it was? I’m not saying people should keep their opinions to themselves. It would just be nice that if a person espouses an opinion publicly, that their opinion might have some form of validity to it.
The number that Gallup leaves out of their headline, which is also the largest percentage of the poll, is that of respondents who think that socialism is a bad thing for the U.S. (51 percent). Again, it’s not clear how accurate that number is if you again factor in the amount of people that don’t really know the definition of socialism.
So why even write this article? Because people need to understand that in order to use a winning argument on any issue, from any perspective, it kind of helps to know what you’re talking about. Parroting what talking heads in the media tell you doesn’t necessarily help one’s cause.
Care to see how "informed" actual socialists are? Check out this MRCTV video from "May Day" 2017: