Australian political blogger Keira Savage resurfaced the short clip on Thursday.
It showed Sky News Australia host Andrew Bolt, a conservative political commentator, grilling Jacob Andrewartha, a climate activist and member of the Socialist Alliance political party.
During a discussion about tumultuous climate change protests in Melbourne in October, Bolt asked Andrewartha to name a country where his favored “economic model ever worked.”
An excruciatingly long silence followed as a visibly stunned Andrewartha contorted his face, struggling to get out a reply.
Andrewartha avoided naming a specific nation after Bolt re-asked the question and provided him with a list of socialist countries.
“A lot of those past revolutions were undone by bureaucratic regimes,” Andrewartha explained.
Savage’s clip has been viewed more than 200,000 times and was shared widely on Twitter.
Critics on social media blasted Andrewartha’s reaction.
(snip)
“Worked in the Soviet Union, known for its prosperity and forward thinking. Worked in Yugoslavia, known for its excellent automobiles. Worked in China, known for its abundance of food. And it worked in Cuba, which definitely isn’t known as a backwards country to escape from,” quipped one commenter.
Even Sen. Ted Cruz, a frequent critic of socialism in the United States, weighed in.
Socialism in America
In recent years, a groundswell of support for socialism has emerged among young leftists in America.
A poll released in March by Axios found that young Americans are increasingly more sympathetic to socialist ideology.
According to a YouGov–Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation poll released in October, 70 percent of millennials would vote for a socialist candidate.
The success of democratic socialist politicians such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders reflects such findings.
With strong finishes in the two most recent Democratic primaries, Sanders has emerged as a frontrunner to challenge President Donald Trump in 2020.
However, according to a Gallup poll released Tuesday, the majority of Americans still say they would not elect a socialist to the White House.
*see full story by Pluralist