Supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in Seattle on Sunday.
(Stephen Brashear/Associated Press)

Each week, In Theory takes on a big idea in the news and explores it from a range of perspectives. This week, we’re talking about the rise of socialism.

The latest and greatest aphrodisiac on college campuses across the nation is . . . socialism. According to Fox News pollster Frank Luntz, who was asked to opine on the movement’s rise: “If you are a young person and you tell someone of the opposite sex that you are a socialist, you are much more likely to get some action at the end of the evening.” Though pundits may disapprove, it seems that socialism is now “cool.” Even a whiff of Marxism will guarantee you hookups and beyond.

Though I’m no longer in college, I feel fairly confident in saying that this assumption is a bit overblown. Yet socialism does seem to have become the political orientation du jour among voters of a certain (read: young) age and could influence our politics significantly. As its popularity has grown, the response from older, purportedly wiser politicos has been fascinating to watch — first dismissive, then confused and now, as the Bernie Sanders campaign improbably persists, genuinely alarmed.

[The new Democratic Party proposal to rival Bernie Sanders’s socialism]

So far, 1.5 million voters under the age of 30 have voted for Sanders in primary elections — more than double the number who have cast a ballot for either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. A YouGov poll conducted in January asked respondents whether they had a “favorable or unfavorable” view of socialism and capitalism. While respondents overall rated capitalism significantly higher, respondents younger than 30 rated socialism more favorably by a significant margin. (Forty-three percent viewed it very or somewhat favorably, compared with only 32 percent for capitalism.)

Experts love to turn a skeptical eye to millennials, and their seeming rejection of America’s golden key provides the perfect opportunity. The youth are so naive! They’ve forgotten what communism really means. They’ve never witnessed the spirit-crushing tactics of autocratic regimes or the grinding failure of centrally planned economies. They don’t even know what socialism is! They’ll grow out of it.

There is some truth to this — most young voters did not live through the Cold War; for many millennials, the Soviet Union conjures up a grim backdrop for bad action films and not much more. But it’s incredibly patronizing to say that newly passionate young socialists are simply t0o childish to understand their own statements. Pundits attempting to change minds in this manner will find their efforts wildly ineffective.

In reality, many of these dismissive critics themselves played a role in decoupling socialism from its negative connotations, especially through their attempts to bring down Barack Obama. In 2012 and 2008, the right in particular attempted to wage war with what it thought were obviously negative terms. “He’s a raging leftist!” “A communist organizer!” “He’ll redistribute our income!” “Obamacare is socialism of the worst type!”

But most millennials’ associations with President Obama were (and continue to be) positive, especially when contrasted with what seemed to be a willfully obstructionist and ineffective governing class. A young president with a multicultural background touting hope, change and unity? If that was socialism, it didn’t sound so bad. Maybe, in fact, it was better than the alternative.

Yet more than anything, it’s economics that have pushed a younger generation of voters to embrace what used to be a dirty word.

The last 10 years — for many millennials, the formative years of adulthood — have eroded the credibility of economic liberalism. The financial crisis and following recession weakened youths’ faith in markets, exposed deep levels of inequality and alerted many young people to the fact that their futures were likely to be far less bright than those of their parents.  Yet politicians and experts continued to claim that even more liberal capitalism remained the solution to the deep-seated problems that had led to shattered expectations.

The problem is that these solutions haven’t delivered. And their failure to do so is perhaps the most fundamental political influencer of our time. Underemployment, excessive debt, out-of-reach health care and delayed life goals are young peoples’ defining concerns, and the traditional assumption — that free markets and limited state intervention lead to good outcomes — no longer rings true.

Is it any wonder that young people are looking for answers elsewhere? And with the term sundered from its negative antecedents and newly associated with potentially positive policy measures, why not be a socialist?

Indeed for many millennials, “socialism” is simply shorthand for “vaguely Scandinavian in the best way” — free health care, free education and subsidized child care; a state that supports its citizens rather than leaving them exposed to conscience-less corporations bent on profit. And if this vision is championed by a candidate whose establishment-rebel status renders him more trustworthy than his peers in the race, so much the better!

When Sanders’s critics raise the alarm about socialism’s return, they paint a picture of collectivization, supply shortages and totalitarian regimes. But in fact, the socialism that most millennials want is simply a return to a more muscular form of traditional liberalism, one that would have been at home in the administration of FDR.

Pundits will continue to pontificate about how youths don’t remember the bad old days, but what the pundits have failed to produce are new and successful solutions for the problems of our time. With no other options forthcoming, it shouldn’t be surprising that millennials are looking with fresh eyes at the remedies of the past. And while socialism is trending today, it’s quite possible that it won’t be the permanent solution. The question is whether the next idea will be better or worse.