by WILLIAM BIGELOW 1 Dec 2012
According to a Gallup poll conducted November 18-19, more than half of Democrats (53%) approve of socialism, which isn’t surprising, but almost one-quarter of Republicans (23%) also do.
What the poll reveals is that there is a significant difference between the reality of what voters approve and their reactions to terms that represent those realities. For example, Democrats favor the “federal government” over “capitalism” by 20 percentage points, yet they approve of “small business” almost unanimously, at a 94% level. When asked about big business, Democrats approval rate drops all the way to 44%.
But when the term “free enterprise” is used instead of capitalism, 88% Democrats approve of it. This indicates that capitalism is a loaded term for Democrats and that the left has demonized the very word.
Even among Republicans, there is a significant drop when big business is compared to small business; small business gets an approval rate of 95% while big business gets 75%.
