A recent poll by Gallup has revealed that many Americans view socialism in a favorable way. In the survey, respondents were asked, "Would some form of socialism be a good thing or a bad thing for the country as a whole?”





Around 43% of the respondents said that socialism would be a good thing, while 51% said that it would be a bad thing. Around 6% said that they had no opinion on the matter.





In 1942, Roper/Fortune conducted a survey on the exact same matter. In that survey, only 25% of respondents said that they had a favorable view on socialism, while 40% said that they had an unfavorable view of socialism. Meanwhile, people with no opinion on the matter made up 34% of the respondents.





When the two surveys are compared with each other, it isn’t hard to see that socialism has become more popular over the years. This increase in popularity is likely due to progressive politicians such as Bernie Sanders labeling themselves as “democratic socialists”.