Why Socialism Is Becoming Popular on The Left

Steve Hayes is joined by Jonah Goldberg, Kevin Williamson, and Megan McArdle to discuss the growing popularity of socialism on the left and Anthony Fauci’s testimony on Capitol Hill. The Agenda: —What is socialism? —College dorm life as an ideology —Tea Party redux —When to start panicking —Anthony Fauci’s testimony Show notes: Steve Hayes is CEO and editor of The Dispatch, based in Annapolis, Maryland. Prior to co-founding the company in 2019, he worked at The Weekly Standard for 18 years, covering Washington, politics, and national security. Steve is the author of two New York Times bestsellers. He also worked as a contributor at CNN and Fox News, and currently serves as a political analyst at NBC News. When Steve is not focused on The Dispatch, he’s probably traveling with his family, grilling, or riding his mountain bike. Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief and co-founder of The Dispatch, based in Washington, D.C. Prior to that, enormous lizards roamed the Earth. More immediately prior to that, Jonah spent two decades at National Review, where he was a senior editor, among other things. He is also a bestselling author, longtime columnist for the Los Angeles Times, commentator for CNN, and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. When he is not writing the G-File or hosting The Remnant podcast, he finds real joy in family time, attending to his dogs and cat, and blaming Steve Hayes for various things. Kevin D. Williamson is national correspondent at The Dispatch and is based in Virginia. Prior to joining the company in 2022, he spent 15 years as a writer and editor at National Review, worked as the theater critic at the New Criterion, and had a long career in local newspapers. He is also a writer in residence at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. When Kevin is not reporting on the world outside Washington for his Wanderland newsletter, you can find him at the rifle range or reading a book about literally almost anything other than politics. Megan McArdle is a Washington Post columnist, host of the Reasonably Optimistic podcast, and the author of The Up Side of Down: Why Failing Well Is the Key to Success. The podcast transcription below was generated using artificial intelligence and may include occasional errors or misspellings. Steve Hayes 0:00 [instrumental music] Welcome to the Dispatch Podcast. I'm Steve Hayes. On today's roundtable, we'll cover the growing support for socialism on the left and within the Democratic Party. Why do so many Gen Zers support this ideology? Is this an undercover GOP operation to make Democrats look crazy? Does it have to be true socialism to represent a threat to the American experiment? Then, Dr. Anthony Fauci's testimony, or lack of testimony, on Capitol Hill. And finally, not worth your time, when should we want to die? I'm joined today by the Dispatch's Editor-in-chief, Jonah Goldberg, National Correspondent Kevin Williamson, and Washington Post columnist and Dispatch contributor, Megan McArdle. Let's dive right in. [instrumental music] Steve Hayes 1:01 Welcome, everyone. I wanna talk about socialism today, and we have Steve Hayes 1:06 with us a panel who has, between them, written many, many articles about socialism over the long term, but also several articles very recently about socialism, socialists, the rise of the Democratic Socialists of America, how worried we should be about it, the polling there is about it. So we've got a lot to discuss. Kevin, I wanna start with you. You wrote a Wonderland newsletter 2-ish weeks ago about socialism, about how we should understand what people mean when they say socialists today, where it's accurate and where it's inaccurate, and about the rise of Democratic Socialists of America. Can you get us started by walking us through what you wrote? Kevin Williamson 1:52 Yeah. By the way, I'm always very happy about the fact that my little book on socialism is by far the best-selling of any of my books, so I've made more money off of socialism than I have off of capitalism and other subjects. And 910ths of the people who ask me to sign that book are buying it for a kid who's just graduated from high school, and they want me to write, "Don't believe everything your professors tell you in college next year-" Steve Hayes 2:12 [laughs] Interactive transcripts are available to Premium members. Join to follow along with the audio. Join Now More We Think You’d Like