Millennials Got Sucked Into a Really Healthy Cult
Mass hysteria never worked out so well
The DSA is mostly a young person’s movement. The Youngs have favorable views of socialism and make up much of the support behind candidates like Zohran Mamdani and Abdul El-Sayed. They’re also a big source of political energy, which is hard to quantify, but I doubt anyone disagrees; anyone over 40 (I’m 46) knows that at a certain age, all goals get subordinated to the Alpha Goal of finding a soft horizontal surface where you can lie down.
I don’t like the DSA insurgency — I think their agenda is vapid horseshit that will make people’s lives worse. But their popularity doesn’t surprise me; of course young people are gravitating to the trendy thing, and of course they’re attracted to politics that denounces what came before as evil and — worse still — lame. Young people don’t get involved in politics because they care passionately about occupational licensing reform; they get involved because they want to be part of a movement. And I know that because I was part of that sort of movement; it just so happened that the movement was about as edgy as a loaf of Wonderbread and merely had revolutionary vibes.
