by John Mac Ghlionn, opinion contributor – 01/16/26 1:00 PM ET

Exhaustion helps explain why ideas once treated as radioactive — socialism, in particular — are now discussed less as utopian fantasies and more as possible exits from a stalled national project.

For younger Americans, the appeal is less ideological romance than hunger… They face unaffordable rents, unstable work, medical debt and student loans that metastasize faster than they can be paid down…

When people can’t eat, can’t save and can’t think clearly, the abstractions of “free markets” lose their magic. Systems are judged not by theory but by outcomes. Right now, the outcomes for average Americans are brutal.

This is where figures like Zohran Mamdani come in…

To many on the right, he sounds like a revolutionary… But to many voters in New York City and beyond, he sounds less like a radical than someone asking why, in the richest country on earth, basic material security is still treated as a provocation.

Mamdani’s upset victory in New York has already begun to reverberate far beyond America’s cultural capital…His win has boosted membership in the Democratic Socialists of America and emboldened activists who see confirmation that openly socialist policies — especially on housing and affordability — can win elections…

Younger Americans are less committed to capitalism, not because they have read Marx, but because capitalism, as currently practiced, has written them out of the story…

“Drain the swamp” became a punchline, then a lie, then background noise. What was drained was not corruption but trust. Power did not disappear; it simply reorganized itself around loyalty tests and personal whim. Contracts flowed to friends. Grievance replaced governance. The market was supposed to be free. Instead, it has become selectively generous.

President Trump didn’t invent these problems, but he marked the point at which patience finally ran out. Three years remain in his term, yet many Americans barely tolerate another news cycle.

Burnout is bipartisan. Republicans are visibly trapped — beholden to his moods, his grudges, his erratic behavior. The party’s future is held hostage by one man’s appetite for attention. This bears little resemblance to the conservatism Americans have historically known. It mirrors the logic of strongman politics, privileging loyalty over institutions and performance over principle. On its current trajectory, the Trump stain will not wash out easily.

Against this backdrop, democratic socialism benefits from contrast. It does not promise perfection. Rather, it promises provision. Health care as a right. Housing as infrastructure. Food as a baseline, not a luxury. To critics, it reads as a free-for-all. To those living on the edge, it sounds like survival. When the choice is between vague warnings about inefficiency and concrete relief from daily stress, people choose the latter.

President Trump didn’t invent these problems, but he marked the point at which patience finally ran out. Three years remain in his term, yet many Americans barely tolerate another news cycle.

Dark humor creeps in here. Capitalism’s defenders warn that socialism leads to breadlines, while millions already queue at food banks under capitalism’s watch. The joke writes itself, and it’s not funny. A system that preaches incentives but can’t deliver basic security loses the right to be taken seriously, however elegant its spreadsheets.

This does not mean Americans have forgotten history. Early communal experiments in Jamestown and Plymouth collapsed under the weight of shared ownership and diluted responsibility. Private property, incentive, and reward changed the trajectory of those settlements. That lesson still matters. Democratic socialism, at least in its American form, is not proposing the abolition of markets or ownership. It is proposing guardrails — floors beneath which people should not fall, ceilings on how much public misery can be tolerated in the name of private gain.

The distinction is often lost on those who hear “socialism” and immediately reach for a familiar cautionary tale. But the word has shifted. For many young Americans, it no longer signals total state control, but the state doing something — anything — to make hard work feel like progress rather than stasis.

Whether socialism ultimately prevails is uncertain. What is clear is why it now commands attention. It feeds off frustration, yes, but also off disappointment — in a capitalism that feels captured, in a right that promised renewal and delivered repetition, with leaders who talk up a “strong economy” while wallets stay empty.

If capitalism wants to keep the franchise, it needs fewer speeches and better outcomes. Until then, socialism will look less like an ideology and more like a reaction to failure.

John Mac Ghlionn is a writer and researcher who explores culture, society and the impact of technology on daily life.