These days, it’s hard to imagine anything less favorably looked upon than political pollsters. Except maybe the Democrat Party. So just for fun, let’s consider a new political poll about Democrats.

The poll, conducted by CBS News and YouGov, finds that 58% of self-identified Democrats view socialism in a positive light, while just 18% view it negatively. In addition, only 32% of these same Democrats view capitalism favorably, while a full 50% view it negatively.

More shocking still are the results among Democrats with a college degree: 71% of this group view socialism favorably, while just 16% view it unfavorably.

During four years in the middle part of the previous century, some 38,000,000 Chinese learned about socialist central planning the hard way. And yet if you were to ask these same Democrats what Mao’s Great Leap Forward was, most of them would look at you like your dog does when you ask him about Bernoulli’s equation.

Remember: This is what your tax dollars are paying for in our gubmint skools, and this is the education you’re paying for when you send your kid off to college. Indeed, it seems that not even a rudimentary understanding of history is required for earning a degree. Sadly, ours is not the Santayana Generation. It’s the Spicoli Generation. And, yes, a lot of us are on dope.

Not surprisingly, CBS buries the lede. Rather than a headline telling us that, for example, less than a third of Democrats have a favorable view of the free market, here’s how they introduce these stunning numbers about Democrat voters: “Most Americans believe a free market system is a good thing. Americans are net-negative on socialism. Capitalism is better-liked. But those ideas aside, right now they say it’s harder now to do things like buy a house, raise a family, and to just feel financially secure than for the last generation. Younger people are especially apt to feel opportunities are fewer.”

If I’m being charitable — work with me here — I’d suggest that maybe these Democrats are approving of market socialism as opposed to, you know, socialism socialism. On the other hand, why should I be charitable, especially when it’s far more likely that 95% of the respondents to this survey wouldn’t know one from the other?

In fact, the pollsters at CBS/YouGov did ask respondents what they thought “socialism” means. “The most frequent responses,” they report, “were about either government control or government ownership — some form of government involvement. But behind that were responses more related to views of an outcome than a process: equality, fairness, and generally the idea of helping people.”

The pollsters add: “Government control is mentioned more often by Republicans and independents. Democrats, in turn, tended to say equality and fairness and public services.”

So, you see, socialism isn’t about the worst man-made disaster in human history. It isn’t even about central planning and bureaucratic control of the economy. Instead, it’s about “equality and fairness and public services.” At least according to Democrats.

If you missed yesterday’s column, here’s the gist of what the Woke 2 Democratic Socialists are calling for — straight from their own website:

Establish paid family leave for all workers, a 32-hour work week with full pay and benefits. … Guarantee universal healthcare at no cost to individuals, including … gender-affirming care. … Enact reparations … disempower police unions, and redirect funding to public services as steps towards fully abolishing the police and prison system which protects the rich and jails the poor. … Defund the Department of War. End all foreign wars and close overseas military bases. … End ICE detention and deportations and punish federal agents’ brutality. Legalize migration, grant amnesty for all immigrants regardless of status, provide a path to citizenship for all permanent residents, and end visa caps and quotas. … Abolish the Electoral College. Replace the President and Supreme Court with an executive and judiciary chosen by and subordinate to Congress. … Implement proportional representation and ranked choice voting in all elections, and abolish the Senate. … Establish public ownership of the largest corporations and essential industries.

Of course, different people like socialism for different reasons. As our friends at Not the Bee put it, “College-educated white libs are voting in the Mamdanis and El-Sayeds because they love socialism, and the Third Worlders are voting for the socialists along ethnic lines and for free stuff.”

Either way, socialism is a deal with the devil. And it’s precisely what’ll be on the ballot on November 3.