Young Americans' ignorance of communism's crimes requires restoring civic education and teaching the historical facts
Source: "Why young Americans know so little about communism's dark history | Fox News." October 22, 2026. www.foxnews.com
The Gist
The author says many young Americans like communism or socialism because they were never taught what communist regimes actually did, and they've been taught to see America mainly as an oppressor. To fix this, he argues we should bring schools, families and other institutions back to teaching American founding principles and the documented crimes of communism.
Conclusion
Americans must rebuild civic institutions, especially schools and families, to teach the basic facts and values of American liberal democracy and the documented crimes of communism, so the rising generation stops embracing communism and socialism out of ignorance.
Premises
- Many young Americans (62% of 18-29-year-olds, per the author) view socialism or communism favorably, and some openly advocate for communism, as in the farmers market encounter.
- Communism's crimes are extensively documented (survivor testimony, government records, photographs of camps) and include roughly 100 million deaths, gulags, forced starvation, and persecution of minorities, with abuses continuing today in places like Cuba, North Korea, Belarus and Eritrea.
- Today's schools and universities largely do not teach these crimes, so young people lack any point of reference, doubt the atrocities are real, or dismiss them as exaggerated or justified.
- Young people are educated through a neo-Marxist lens (oppressor versus oppressed, as in The 1619 Project and Democratic Socialists of America platforms) that frames America as shameful and capitalism as criminal, which undermines appreciation for the American Dream and America's service to humanity.
- Because of both this skewed perspective and this missing content, young advocates of communism live in a different reality from earlier generations and cannot engage with the evidence against it.
- Educating the rising generation in the facts and values of what America stands for and against, and transmitting the history of communism's crimes and America's efforts to defend freedom, is the way to correct this.
Assumptions
- Young people's support for socialism or communism stems mainly from ignorance of history and from ideological education, not from material concerns such as housing costs, debt, or inequality.
- One farmers market conversation is representative of young communist sympathizers generally.
- The 62% figure for support of 'socialism or communism' reflects support for communism as practiced in the Soviet Union, China, etc., rather than for social-democratic policies.
- Learning about communism's crimes would substantially reduce support for socialist or communist ideas.
- Socialism, communism, and critical or neo-Marxist theories are closely linked, and the 100 million death toll is accurately attributable to communism as such.
- Schools and institutions can be reformed to teach 'the basics' without introducing their own political bias.
- Teaching American history critically (slavery, imperialism) is incompatible with, or a threat to, teaching American exceptionalism.