The Reason Foundation just released a survey proving the failure of the American public education system. But, according to Derek Thompson in The Atlantic, we might as well just laugh at it:
3. Far less important, but entertaining nonetheless: Millennials don’t know what socialism is, but they think it sounds nice.
I predict that any readers over the age of 30 will absolutely love this fact about voters under the age of 29. Forty-two percent of Millennials think socialism is preferable to capitalism, but only 16 percent of Millennials could accurately define socialism in the survey.
Say what you want about the tenets of national socialism, dude, at least it’s an ethos that young people can define in an Internet survey.
A number of my PJMedia colleagues jumped on the survey with the usual complaint that “kids these days” want everything handed to them on a silver platter. Conservatives in general fail to address the far more creepy comedic love affair with socialism because we fail to understand the media that informs the Millennial generation.
Case in point: The “Jon Stewart takes on Gaza” debacle. Times of Israel editor David Horovitz did an excellent job ripping the comedian to shreds for his stereotypical, biased account of the meanie Israelis versus the poor Palestinians. Conservative media proceeded to join in the dissection 15 years too late. From the day he took the anchor’s chair on the set of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart has attempted to be the court jester of the hipster elite. An admitted leftist, he was a psych major turned stand-up comedian who makes no bones about being a professional satirist – nothing more. Yet, the bulk of the millennial news audience share goes to Stewart and his former Daily Show co-star, Colbert Report comic actor Stephen Colbert. Knowing this, why should we be the least bit surprised that Millennials are laughing about the real issues facing the world and our country today, including socialism?
Today millennials are confronting higher unemployment rates than their predecessors. They are also staying at home longer. The Obama economy has created a generation of dependents who have a lot of time to kill in front of their television screens. Media producers may laugh at the idea of Stewart and Colbert having a serious impact on the political decision-making of today’s youth, but blink twice and their politically-tinged pleasure operation looks a lot like Putin’s attempts to distract his own young voters away from political activity.
What I’m suggesting is not a conspiracy theory, but the fact that the variables exist to create and foster a government-dependent generation. The proof is in the Reason survey statistic showing that Millennials who work are more inclined to believe in a free market economy. Conservatives recognize destructive potentials of economic and political actions, but fail to address the part being played on a daily basis by media gatekeepers.
I once attended a taping of The Daily Show. As a college student enthralled by Stewart, I was excited to hear that he’d be taking questions from the audience before the show. When my turn came, I posed my well thought out question about the Second Intifada to the one guy I was sure would have something interesting and insightful to say. His eyes grew large, he cowered in his seat and said in a comically sheepish tone, “I make the jokes?”
The audience laughed. I didn’t, because I knew then that Stewart was too busy laughing at the kids like me looking for real political guidance from an admired source. Years later, Roger Ailes would accuse Stewart of being a socialist, which is ridiculous. Far worse than being a socialist, Stewart is nothing more than a comedian who laughs at the dangerous ideology that is socialism, all the way to the bank.
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