By Eric Patterson

Copyright foxnews

The major election year 2026 kicks off with a new mayor taking over Gotham on Jan. 1. From Sacramento to Minneapolis to New York, some candidates are peddling Karl Marx. The most glaring example is Zohran Mamdani, who pledges innumerable freebies and has called for “seizing the means of production.” What are we to make of this “pop Marxism”? What is its appeal? It is “pop” in two senses of the word. It is popular in that it is shallow while presenting as novel and exciting. It is populist in a braying pretense of familiarity, its calls for costless gratification and its gratuitous attacks on the status quo. Underneath the ‘pop’ lies a dangerous ideology. Call it Marxism, socialism or communism – they aim for the same result. Marx and his disciples foresaw an “inevitable” future, prophesying that democratic capitalism would give way to statist socialism, followed by full-blown communism. I’M FROM GEN Z. WE ARE THE ONES WHO HAVE TO STOP SOCIALISM FROM TAKING OVER In the first step, the unaccountable, indomitable administrative state takes control of all aspects of economic life. All aspects: what type of work you will be allowed to do, where you shop and what you shop for, where you live, whether you receive an inheritance or it is ‘redistributed’ to the faithful, and a thousand other economic matters. And that is just phase one. Communism, the second step, means totalitarian control over not just where you go and what you do, but what you think and believe. Schools and universities, therefore, are the epicenters of indoctrination. Many seem to have done their job. In a survey earlier this year, 62% of young Americans have a positive view of “socialism,” the ideology that murdered 100 million people at the hands of Lenin, Stalin, Pol Pot, Castro, Mao and others. NYC’S SHOCKING SOCIALIST VICTORY IS A DIRE WARNING FOR THE RIGHT Again, what is the appeal? Young Americans are not poor, hungry, or oppressed, rather extremely well-off by historical and contemporary standards. Gens Y and Z are, to put it plainly, privileged, and yet seduced by Marxism. Two things conspire to delude them: revisionist education and inappropriate guilt. The first problem is flimsy, ideologically-driven history education. Each year, many high school classrooms barely make it to World War II. Then, exhausted teachers skip over the Cold War, the crimes of communism, the heroic tales of resistance, and the vigilance of the Western democracies to end the school term with their preferred version of “current events,” such as the purported bravery of eco-terrorists. NEW YORK’S SOCIALIST NIGHTMARE IS JUST BEGINNING BUT THERE’S STILL A WAY OUT At the same time, the curriculum young people receive from grade school on up has been ideologically reconstructed. They were taught to view all of history through the neo-Marxist lens of oppressor vs. oppressed. U.S. history and literature are framed around race, gender and wage slavery. America is guilty of exploitation and domination. Second, pop Marxism perpetuates a twisted sense of guilt. They have been lectured that their blessings were not earned by their grandparents and parents, but, rather, stolen from the underprivileged. The Greatest Generation? White men advancing America’s imperial agenda. The same for Cold Warriors from Berlin to South Korea. America’s wealth is ill-gotten, not the fruit of a free society that has encouraged innovation from Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Edison to Carver, Einstein, Copland, Salk, Gates, Jobs and Musk. CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION Here is the great irony: these young people simultaneously hold anti-institutional views and a gross sense of entitlement. They call for a revolution against corporations and slow-moving government institutions but demand a subsidized first-world lifestyle. They want benefits without work and security without responsibility. After all, doesn’t equality mean free health care, free college, free transportation and guaranteed incomes? Then again, what have we taught them? They learned from the COVID lockdowns that money rolls off the state’s printing press, citizens could be paid to lounge at home, and passing grades were “earned” just for showing up on Zoom. Losing a majority of young Americans to pop Marxism is not just unacceptable, it is dangerous. Pop Marxism’s leaders are rabidly political, and their young followers can get caught up in the destructive idealism of the moment. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP In contrast, today’s silent majority of young adults is far less political, being concerned with earning an education, starting a family, and responsibly paying his or her way. With 2026 being both an election year and the 250th anniversary of our nation’s birth, it is an appropriate time to be grateful for our blessings, tell the truth about American history, recommit to our founding principles of ordered liberty, and confront the lies of communism. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE BY ERIC PATTERSON