The Young MAGA Socialists Are Here

“Fifty-three percent of self-identified conservatives under 40 support government-run grocery stores. Not Democrats, conservatives.

 

Take that in.

 

I run a company that tracks layoffs caused by artificial intelligence, and every month I look at spreadsheets that show my generation losing entry-level jobs faster than anyone anticipated. So when the polling says young Americans have soured on capitalism, I'm not surprised by the anger.

 

I am surprised by who is angry, because the rise of socialism among young Americans is no longer only a Democratic story. Young conservatives who grew up hearing that government was the problem are increasingly asking why the government isn't doing more to make their lives easier, which in 2026 simply means more affordable. They are increasingly comfortable with taxing billionaires, expanding government programs and blaming some outside group for the sense that the American Dream is further away than it was for their parents.

 

The left is embracing socialism openly, but we should worry about how the right is arriving at many of the same conclusions by a different route.

 

In a 2025 survey of young likely voters, 42% of conservatives said they would like to see a democratic socialist win the presidency in 2028. Among 2024 Trump voters, the figure was 35% in another poll. A March 2026 poll found 77% of all voters support raising taxes on billionaires, including 65% of Republicans, 75% of independents, and 91% of Democrats. It also found 62% of voters are more likely to back a candidate who supports an increased billionaire tax, versus 12% more likely to support a candidate who opposes it.

 

These aren't disciples of Karl Marx, but they believe the economy is rigged against them, and they increasingly believe the government should step in and fix it.

 

A July 2026 Fox News poll found that 61% of Republicans view capitalism favorably, down from 72% in 2019, while the share who feel strongly favorable has fallen from 54% to 41%. The share who say the system is rigged toward the wealthy has climbed from 30% in 2018 to 42%.

 

I'm 23, and I understand why my generation is frustrated. Unaffordable housing is one of the clearest reasons. The striking part of Zohran Mamdani's win in New York is that the language he used -- affordability, rent regulation, hostility to concentrated wealth -- now sounds completely normal to millions of young Americans who would never call themselves socialists.

 

I am not going to tell my generation that everything is fine, but I believe we are making a fundamental mistake when we take a real economic problem and turn it into an argument against capitalism.

 

Capitalism is failing young Americans, but it isn't the reason young Americans are failing.

 

On the left, the villain is usually the billionaire or the corporation. On the right, it might be China, immigrants, Israel or whichever group is being blamed that month for why we can't afford what our parents could at our age. The targets of blame change, but the logic stays the same: somebody else took what should have been mine, and whoever it is should pay to give it back.

 

This is where the argument gets uncomfortable.

 

Ask young Americans whether they want universal healthcare, free college, cheaper housing or more government assistance and you will find plenty of support, but when you ask who should pay for it, suddenly the revolutionaries get quieter.

 

We want the Nordic welfare state without the Nordic tax bill.

 

 We want the government to spend more money while somehow charging none of us for it, which sounds more like a wish list than an economic model.

 

I think my generation is getting capitalism completely wrong, because those of us who are actually building companies are showing that opportunity hasn't disappeared nearly as completely as some young people believe.

 

For the first time on record, 2025 saw Gen Z entrepreneurs starting more new businesses than baby boomers, accounting for 9% of new business starts in 2025 against 5% for boomers.

 

Most of those founders used AI to get started; it has never been cheaper to try to be an entrepreneur.

 

So which is it? Are we a generation that believes the government needs to rescue us from the economy, or are we a generation capable of building our own way out?

 

My mother brought me to America from Russia when I was 3 because she believed that her son would have more opportunity here, and she was right.

 

I was able to scale successful businesses as a teenager, negotiate my way through free college, and build a personal net worth of over $20 million all before turning 23. I didn't do that because the government handed me a check, but because America gave me room to try.

 

There are real barriers making opportunity harder to reach, and the government built most of them. Housing supply is restricted by zoning. Licensing keeps capable people out of professions they could otherwise enter. Permitting turns projects that should take months into yearslong exercises.

 

If those barriers are making life harder for young people, the answer is to remove them. It isn't to convince an entire generation that capitalism itself is the barrier.

 

Capitalism tells young Americans that the answer is to build something, learn a skill, start a business, take responsibility and create value. The alternative is to become convinced that every economic problem has an external villain and every solution has to come from Washington. That's a dangerous idea, regardless of which party adopts it.

 

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Mr. Barr is the co-founder of Flashpass and founder of Step Up Social.” [1]

 

If AI makes it easy to start a new business for you, AI makes also easy to start  a new business for others. Jewish used to joke, that Israel has so many dentists that there are not enough teeth in Israel. The same thing with all those businesses. There are not enough customers for all those businesses to survive. Go figure out another solution for your generation.

 

1. The Young MAGA Socialists Are Here. Barr, Emil.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 19 Aug 2026: A15.