Young people are taking over the Democratic Party, one advocacy group on social media says. And the ideology of socialism is taking hold among young people, polls say. 

Lawmakers like Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) say that young people do not understand the perils and consequences of socialism. 

“[The] majority of young people are thinking, ‘Hey, socialism sounds good, why don’t we try it,’” Paul said on Breitbart. “They don’t understand … the disaster that is Venezuela, the disaster that is Cuba, the disaster that was China, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, all these places. What they understand it to be is fairness, and they’re like, ‘Well, it’s just not fair that you make twice as much money as me, and we’re just going to make it fair.’”

With this recent trend, it seems the collective progressive platform is experiencing an outgrowth: a shift to ideals centered around socialism, straying from its long-held values of liberalism. 

Paul isn’t the only lawmaker to notice this. Former Republican representative and Michigan Senate candidate Mike Rodgers told Fox News that with the way the Democratic Party is heading, many of its members are going to “wake up” and exit. 

“Welcome to the modern Democratic Party. This is not your dad’s Democratic Party. It’s not your grandmother’s Democratic Party. This thing has veered so far to the left, and Michigan is at the epicenter of that,” Rogers remarked. 

The Democratic Party has already suffered a mass exodus over the last year. According to the New York Post, Democrats lost about 2.1 million registered voters across 30 states between the 2020 and 2024 presidential elections. During the same time, the GOP acquired 2.4 million new registered voters. 

“Left-wing ideas have wrecked Democrats’ brand, new report warns,” read an October 2025 headline by the publication Semafor.

Throughout the country, there has been infighting in the Democratic Party. Democrats in Michigan don’t even know what their identity is, Rogers told Fox. “You see the candidates in our race who are flirting with all that Democrat socialism. That’s why our message is resonating, and that’s why we’re doing as well as we are on the ground.”

“[These Democrats say] ‘We’re gonna share our misery with everybody in the state.’ [That’s] not selling well, so we look forward to November and let them hash it out between now and then about who the Democrats are.”

In New York City, socialism has been spreading since the election of self-proclaimed socialist Zohran Mamdani as the mayor of New York City last fall. On Tuesday, the three winners of the Democratic primaries in New York City were all socialist candidates supported by Mamdani.

“When Zohran won, it was a sign of what could happen and what was possible,” the Sunrise Movement, a progressive activist group, stated. “Young people have taken over New York City and we are going to Congress. Young people, who are unapologetically Democratic-Socialist. Tonight marks the end of the bought out, boomer establishment Democrats.”

On Wednesday, New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) said she was disappointed with Mamdani for endorsing the socialists. “Some of the candidates that he has supported are individuals who do not understand the politics of New York City, the cultural differences from district to district, who have not been part of the history and the struggle of some of these districts, and are relatively new to the body politic,” she said to CNN.