evidence: Gen Z’s approval of socialism also crept up nine points since last year (49% favorable in 2020, compared to 40% in 2019). The results come from the newest edition of the "Report on U.S. Attitudes Toward Socialism, Communism, and Collectivism" – which is commissioned annually by the Victims of Communism Memorial (VOC) and conducted by YouGov. [...] How can young Americans distrust the government to look after their interests yet endorse socialism, which entrusts the government with the power to redistribute wealth, direct all economic activity, and control their access to such necessities as healthcare? [...] Americans suffer a two-pronged ignorance of socialism: what it is and what is has done. As Simon van Zuylen-Wood explained in New York magazine last March, "the word [socialism] had lost its meaning by the time it got hot again." Thus, 31% of VOC respondents say they believe that socialism "[m]eans a free market economy with private property" in which "the government provides ample social welfare benefits, as in many Scandinavian and Western European countries." In reality, Scandinavian countries have tried for years to inform Americans in general (and Bernie Sanders, in particular) that they are not socialist, and that democratic socialists like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez fundamentally misunderstand the Scandinavian model. The Nordic countries jettisoned policies like the ones AOC proposes after their economies crashed during the 1980s.