I found a question today in a Townhall column by Armstrong Williams, and it's worth exploring.

Why are so many young people drawn to communism?

It sounds crazy if you lived through the Cold War. We saw the bread lines in the Soviet Union. We knew the names — Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot. We understood exactly what communism cost in human lives.

The Black Book of Communism, published by Harvard University Press, put the toll under communist regimes at roughly 94 million people. Other historians put the number north of 100 million.

For a lot of young Americans today, none of that is real. The Berlin Wall is a photo in a textbook — or a file sitting on a server they've never opened. The Cold War is as distant to them as World War II was to me growing up in the '80s.

Williams puts it this way in his column: “History loses its urgency when it is no longer personal.” I think that's exactly right.

Years ago I took a class at Butler University called “Is Capitalism Really Better?” At the end of the semester, we voted. Eight students — four young women, four young men. It split right down gender lines: the four women voted for communism, the four men for capitalism.

That's a small sample size and I won't pretend otherwise. But it stuck with me.

Here's what I don't think is true: that young people drifting toward socialism and communism are secretly in love with authoritarianism. They're not. Most of them are drawn to the talking points the ideologues sell them — fairness, opportunity, the belief that this is what's best for everyone.

Here's what I do think is true: a lot of them did exactly what they were told by the “experts” to do. Teachers, guidance counselors, professors, even their own parents told them to follow the rules. So they did. Good grades. A degree. A job.

And then they found out the job didn't pay what they expected — or what they needed — and the student loans came due anyway.

Those loans are a product of a lousy system created by elected politicians and bureaucrats — not the free market. But free-market capitalism gets the blame anyway.

Government has its hands in nearly everything in this country, and yet a lot of people are convinced we're living under unfettered capitalism. That is simply not the case.

On top of that, these young utopians look at guys like Elon Musk and ask why the game feels rigged against them. Then a blue-haired professor with a septum ring tells them socialism would fix all of it and that capitalism is the evil behind everything that's hurt them.

I understand why that sounds better than the alternative to some people. But they're being sold a lie.

Communism didn't fail for lack of the right man in charge. It failed because it is a morally bankrupt ideology. The Soviet Union, Mao's China, Pol Pot's Cambodia, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela — not one of them delivered what was promised.

What they delivered instead was gulags, censorship, one-party control, political prisoners, starvation, and the absolute demoralization of their people. That's not a partisan talking point. That's the historical record, and Williams highlights the same point in his piece.

Capitalism has flaws too, and we should say so plainly. But its flaws aren't rooted in the ideology. They're rooted in the fact that capitalism is predicated on people being free to make their own decisions — and people sometimes use that freedom to make selfish, evil, sinful choices.

Greed is a real thing — and capitalists can be greedy.

But greed doesn't disappear under communism. It just gets a monopoly on power — no election, no free press, no courts, no checks and balances, no freedom to take your business elsewhere. Free societies can reform themselves. Centrally planned ones cannot.

So if your child or grandchild is drifting in that direction, don't just tell them to toughen up. And don't hold up your own struggles as the measuring stick. Every generation has its own difficulties — and yours were real and hard to navigate.

But they won't hear that. And there's no sense trying to convince them to listen.

Instead, listen to them. Answer the real questions behind their opposition. Acknowledge that there are problems in this country, because there are. And be willing to explain where those problems actually come from — not the system itself, but from people who use their freedom to choose evil.

And point out to them that these same people creating problems in our society today would be the same people ruining the lives of everyone in a communist state. Except in that scenario, there would be no other place to turn for hope.

Conservative, not bitter.
Todd

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Townhall — Armstrong Williams' column on why young Americans with no living memory of the Cold War are drawn to communism's promises, the piece behind today's whole conversation.

A generation that's open to communism didn't get there by accident. Somebody persuaded them.

While we were busy being right, somebody else was busy being convincing.

Persuasion is a skill. It isn't the same thing as being correct, and plenty of people who are correct are terrible at it.

I've watched conservatives win an argument and lose the person in the same breath. The facts were on their side. But their tone ran everybody off.

Here are four things I've learned about how people actually change their minds.

Ask before you tell. “What makes you say that?” is worth more than any statistic you can quote. People dig in when their beliefs are attacked. Our only chance is to encourage them to actually think about their opinions without the pressure of winning an argument.

Concede what's true. If somebody tells you healthcare is a mess or that college costs are out of control, agree with them — because they're right. You can't get to the real disagreement while you're arguing about something you already agree on.

Argue the outcome, not the label. The word “socialism” often kills a conversation. What actually happened to ordinary people in Venezuela or Cuba can keep it going.

Stay in the room. The person who keeps showing up gets a hearing. The person who wins one exchange and storms off doesn't.

This is actually how minds begin to change — and changing minds is the whole job. We are not going to vote our way out of a country where half the people believe freedom failed them. We have to persuade our way out.

Being bitter doesn't persuade anybody. It may feel good for about ten minutes, but it costs you the person sitting across from you.

Your neighbor, your kid, the quiet young guy at church — those conversations are the fight. Not the ones on television or social media echo chambers.

Start one this weekend.

This is the moment from today's show where I said the Berlin Wall is nothing but a photograph in a textbook to most young Americans now. And that's one reason why so many of them just casually shrug off communism's history.

Follow along on Facebook, and drop a comment if you've had this exact conversation with someone you love. I'd like to hear how it went.

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Quick heads up: I'm out next week on a Huff family vacation. I'll be back the week after, right as August turns to September.

Krish Dhanam and Gary Varvel will be filling in behind the mic while I'm gone, and The Inner Circle will still land in your inbox every day.

Have a good weekend and a great week. See you soon.

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