Vice President JD Vance was pretty blunt when asked about the recent successes of the DSA and the attraction that Socialism has for many young people — We are partly to blame.

Vance quite specifically issued a warning, too, to Republicans. This is not going to be solved with slogans nor tributes to Free Markets.

“My warning to my fellow Republicans would be: If we don’t get this right, don’t blame young people for being sympathetic to socialism. We’ve got to blame ourselves.” (snip)

Vance, who described socialism as “dangerous and destructive,” argued that Republicans cannot ignore the economic concerns he believes are “feeding” young Americans’ growing interest in the ideology.

The median price for a single-family home in the United States sits at over $430,000, according to data from Redfin analyzed by Forbes.

With surging housing prices, much of the younger generation feels shut out of a market that helped previous generations build wealth, some critics have argued.

And while Vance went on to touch on how policies to grow the economy to make life more affordable, there are several things on the do this /don’t do that list the any of us Free Market Americans can do/say when speaking with someone flirting with going full socialist.

As JD said, don’t go all bumper-sticker slogans. Realize that young people have spent the last 20 years or so growing up in a country where most of the authority figures in their lives (and maybe even their own parents) have outright lied to them about capitalism and socialism. Spend any time on social media and you’ll see a lot of Gen Z sneers that anyone who doesn’t like socialism should not drive on roads or go to school or enjoy streetlights. They point to police and fire departments as proof of the sterling goodness of SoCIalISm!!! How are they to know much better when for the past 40 or more years, this is what their teachers and professors have taught them? And politicians like Bernie Sanders and Nancy Pelosi have promoted time and time again? Ask them to name a successful socialist country … and while you may be thinking of USSR or Cuba, they’ll toss Denmark at you.

The new young socialists never seem to know that TANSTAAFL and things like government-monopoly healthcare inevitably embraces death to cut costs.

Last week there was a viral moment over something as simple as a burrito.

One of our TPUSA college students gave me his take on affordability:

“A burrito shouldn’t cost $20.”

Yeah, a lot of this is a hangover from Covid and Biden-era inflation, but the lived experience is the same: It just feels like basic things cost too much. https://t.co/GEvmbea57o

— Andrew Kolvet (@AndrewKolvet) August 4, 2026

From Republican Boomers (yes, not all of us were pot-smoking hippies occupying the Dean’s office) to Millennials like JD Vance, the worst response is to be all “WELL, in MY day we walked barefoot through the snow …” dismissive (looking at you, Crenshaw). Many Zoomers have real concerns and Republicans pretty much bailed on making sure their “free” education was “free” from indoctrination.

So while there is a need to say “Hey, do you have any what inflation was in 1980? 13.55%” it shouldn’t be in an effort to shut down the conversation but to engage it.

Listen underneath. There are people who just want to troll and there are those who really are lost in a sea of decades of leftist ideology. Ideology has dominated their lives through media, academia and entertainment. Those we can reach.

And if we don’t? We’ll lose the Republic as Ben Franklin and Ronald Reagan feared.

featured image original graphic by Darleen Click