Editor's note: Radhika Desai, a special commentator for CGTN, is a professor of political studies at the University of Manitoba in Canada. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

A recent poll of US registered voters conducted by Fox News shows support for capitalism declining and that for socialism rising. This echoes other recent polls showing rising support for socialism among Democrats and the young. Then there were the recent electoral victories of Zohran Mamdani as New York Mayor and left candidates as governors in Virginia and New Jersey last November. All these are signs of an electorate ground down by nearly 50 years of neoliberalism that produced an unbridled financialized, unproductive, deindustrialized capitalism of soaring inequality, debt and inflation and plummeting real wages, standards of living, employment, confidence and public services.

In his Mount Rushmore speech on the 250th anniversary of the US Declaration of Independence, President Donald Trump compounded this impression of a socialist upsurge. With polls indicating that the Republicans were set to lose control of Congress, both House and Senate, in the mid-term elections, Trump seemed to give a preview of his electoral strategy when he mounted an attack on "communists."

He began, as might be expected from this gushing gutter of hyperbole, by congratulating the US for being the "crowning achievement of human history" and "the most extraordinary, most exceptional, most incredible nation ever to exist on the face of the earth." Never one to miss any opportunity for self-promotion, he added, "And we're doing better now than we've ever done before." This done, he launched into communism, and the theme ran through the whole speech. Trump insisted that communism "never worked" and "never will work" in the United States. He added that "Our warriors did not fight communism on battlefields across the world, only to have that menace rear its ugly head right back here in America. We're not going to let it happen."

However, any easy conclusion that some socialism is about the sweep over the US would be overoptimistic. While support for socialism has increased a notch, from 25% in 2019 to 30% now, the real news is that support for capitalism has declined more, from 57% in 2019 to 50% now. Essentially, the US electorate has finally woken up to the problem, though they are not sure about the solution.

When support for capitalism among a people more subject to pro-capitalist propaganda as those in the US is down to 50%, that's saying something. However, that does not translate into support for socialism any 1-1 fashion. If there is anything stronger than propaganda in favor of capitalism in the US, it is propaganda against socialism and communism.

Secondly, even with the stronger rise in support for some sort of socialism among Democrats, the socialist cause is up against the Democratic Party establishment and a "civil war" within the party over the issue of how far leftward to move is more likely than any easy victory of the socialists in the primaries to sweep Congress in the November mid-terms thereafter.

Further, the conception of socialism in the United States remains what it was in the form of the light social democracy of the postwar decades: reliant on the ability of the capitalist economy to deliver on production and focused exclusively on redistribution. While the more robust capitalism of those decades did deliver for a while, eventually it failed. The current unproductive, deindustrialized and financialized capitalism cannot even begin to deliver. Its foremost representatives, the heads of its big monopolies who patently wield overwhelming political power in Washington, will fight tooth and nail against any leftward move, however slight. To really fight back, socialist forces will have to be much stronger. They will also have to understand that socialism is as much about production as it is about redistribution. And that socialist production requires planning and at least some centralized control by a party capable of taking power.

Despite numerous obstacles hindering the prospects of socialism, there is no doubt that the general decline in support for capitalism and big business – even among Republicans, support for them fell from 60% in 2021 to 54% last year – is indirectly improving public perception of socialism. The current capitalism – closer to a kleptocracy than any sort of "economy" – cannot last. The uptick in support for socialism, effectively for a more rational and humane society, is only the beginning.

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