Socialism is making a comeback, according to friend and foe alike. A new poll suggests that a majority of registered voters don’t like capitalism.

A Gallup poll in September also found that support for capitalism was slipping. A Data for Progress poll around the same time showed that — after asking some decidedly leading questions about democratic socialism — people liked democratic socialism. Still, Politico combined the results to declare: “Capitalism is out … and socialism is in.” And just this week, a podcast dedicated a segment to explaining “How socialism got sexy.”

This has happened before. In 2018, Gallup found for the first time that a majority of Democrats had a more favorable view of “socialism” than of “capitalism.” And we got similar headlines as a result. No doubt such polls partly explain why Democratic presidential primary candidates overwhelmingly ran in the Bernie Sanders lane in 2020. Joe Biden, the candidate who mostly avoided that lane, however, won the nomination.

Like Sanders, New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani describes himself as a democratic socialist. His popularity has driven many to claim that democratic socialism is popular too. It may well be, especially in New York City. But what plays in NYC may not have legs far outside the Big Apple. Indeed, Mikie Sherrill, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate in neighboring New Jersey, which shares much of the same media market, didn’t run as a democratic socialist and beat primary candidates who more or less did.

But punditry is not my aim here. My problem is with these periodic, poll-driven, “socialism is coming” fads.

For starters, issue polling — even when done well — is not very reliable. Change one word and you’ll get very different results. For decades, if you call a program “welfare,” Americans won’t like it. Call it “assistance to the poor” and Americans like it whole a lot more.

It’s also difficult to keep other issues from influencing issue polling. Capitalism’s popularity dropped — particularly among Democrats — during President Trump’s first term. It has dropped again during his second term. Is it really so hard to imagine people associating capitalism with the avowed party of capitalism? When that party is in power and is unpopular, it shouldn’t be surprising that the thing it claims to stand for is (slightly) less popular too?

It’s not like the new “socialists” have cracked the books in their free time and suddenly have a newfound respect for Karl Marx, Sidney Webb, Michael Harrington or some other socialist thinker.

Socialist intellectuals have a hard enough time agreeing on what socialism is. The best definition the very well-read editors of the socialist journal Dissent could come up with in 1954 was “socialism is the name of our desire.” The idea that millions of Americans have a fully formed and coherent understanding of the concept, never mind know how to implement socialism, is preposterous.

Asking people if they like socialism or capitalism is a “vibes” question and little more.

Of course, socialists are entitled to be happy about improving vibes. But the best way to make Americans sour on socialism is to put socialists in charge – which is why I’m not too worried about America becoming a socialist country.