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September 10, 2025 16 mins
Justin Haskins, Heartland Institute and StoppingSocialism.com, joined Preston to discuss recent Rasmussen polling which is, simply put, horrible. 
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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:04):
I've as much as I look forward to my monthly
visits with this smart, intuitive, analytical, insightful young man. I
don't know if I'm ready for what we're going to
talk about today. Justin Haskins joins us here in the
third hour of the Morning Show with Preston Scott. Justin,

(00:26):
how are you?

Speaker 2 (00:28):
I'm doing well. I would be doing better if you
had thrown in handsome in there too. Well.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
We're radio, brother, dude, We're radio.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
That's the only way I can get away with it.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
That's why I quit television years ago. I quit television
when high def cameras came into the studio. Justin, let's
start here. And for those of you that do not know,
Senior fellow, the Heartland Institute heads up the Stopping Socialism
website and the project, and that's the goal to stop socialism. Justin,

(01:06):
is there any good news before we unpack the bad
news in this polling that was done that Rasmussen did.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Yeah, there's one piece of good news I think in
the poll. It's hard to find, but there is some
good news in the poll. I wrote this poll with
Rasmussen as part of our Stopping Socialism project. Heartlin Institute,
and the reason I did it was because I wanted
to know what young people eighteen to thirty nine in America,

(01:38):
what they're thinking about socialism, authoritarianism, not just politicians, but
the policies themselves, And so that was the idea behind
this poll. We asked all kinds of interesting questions and
we're going to get into those, I'm sure soon here.
But the one piece of good news, let's start there,

(01:59):
and then we can we can focus on the bad stuff.
The one piece of good news is that among eighteen
to thirty nine year olds, Donald Trump's approval rating was
forty eight percent, which is very, very high for eighteen
to thirty nine year olds. That is not common. And
there's a reason for that, because you're the rest of
what we're going to talk about is very bad news.

(02:21):
But so a lot of people are going to be thinking, well,
how could that possibly be? There is a reason why
I think the approval rating is high. Yet, as you'll
see the results for the rest of the poll show,
young Americans are quickly turning to socialism and authoritarian policies,
and a lot of conservatives I don't think are paying
attention to it.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
In your mind, how did it happen? I mean, before
we start analyzing the evidence, how did we get to
where we are? Do you think? I?

Speaker 2 (02:54):
Well, boy, I mean, there's so many ways that, so
many contributing factors. There's obviously the school system is a
huge part of it. The media is a gigantic part
of it. But I think the biggest reason why younger
people are turning to socialism and the poll reflects this
because one of the things we're trying to do is
not just find out if people are socialists and what

(03:14):
their policies their policy views is, but also why what's
going on in their lives, and so the poll results
show this. I think younger people feel like the system,
the political system, the economic system especially, is completely rigged
against them in a way that is not in their favor.

(03:37):
And I think a lot of older people don't necessarily
understand that that's how a lot of young people so,
or they don't sympathize with it. But I think there
is some truth to that, and I think conservatives need
to understand just how bad it is in some ways
for young people. It's very very good in a lot

(03:58):
of ways for young people, but there are certain if
you want to build wealth. To the young person today
and you want to be really successful in life, and
you want to start your own business and buy a
house and do those kinds of things, it is extremely hard,
much harder than it was for people, say thirty or
forty years ago. And I think the poll results reflect that.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
I think you're right, and I think your analysis of
it is spot on. But I also think some of
this goes back to my long standing complaint with Conservatives
and Republicans in general as a party in not messaging properly.
They want to win campaigns, they want to win elections,
they don't want to win hearts and minds. And I

(04:40):
think we're seeing the fruit of it. I've been yelling
this for the twenty three years I've been doing this
show with me Justin Haskins. He authored set of poll
questions and Rasmussen work together with them at the Heartland

(05:01):
Institute to determine what the thinking was of voters under
forty Justin go ahead.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
Yeah, So there's so many questions that we could go through,
so I'll just try to highlight the most important ones.
Anyone who's interested, you can go to Heartland dot org.
You can see all the questions there. So one of
the first big questions we ask is would you like
to see a democratic socialist candidate in the twenty twenty
eight presidential election? Okay, And of the voters eighteen to

(05:31):
thirty nine, twelve hundred likely voters by the way, so
these are people who are registered say that they are
going to vote in the next election, fifty three percent
said yes, they do want to see a democratic socialist
president in twenty twenty eight. And that includes thirty five
percent of the people who said that they wanted to

(05:51):
vote for who so said that they had voted for
Trump in twenty twenty four. So among Trump voters, thirty
five percent said yes, I do want socialism. Forty three
percent of people identified as conservatives said that they wanted
a democratic socialist president, forty seven percent of moderates, and

(06:12):
like eighty percent or so of Democrats said that. So
lots and lots and lots of support for a socialist
presidential candidate in twenty twenty eight. Even among the people
who say that they're conservative.

Speaker 1 (06:24):
How is that possible? I mean no, I mean how
how is it possible that someone can think their conservative
and then walk away supporting socialist ideals. I mean, I
point to what Trump has done in suggesting that the
Defense Department start buying up contractors and investing ten percent
in Intel. I can't believe we're doing this stuff, But

(06:46):
I mean, is it that.

Speaker 2 (06:49):
Well? I think that for a long time there's been
a problem with younger people not really understanding what these
words mean. And I think their idea of socialis is
not necessarily I don't think they necessarily understand totally what
socialism is, although we're going to find out later on
they do supports a lot of socialist policies. But I

(07:10):
think that there were a lot of younger people who
identify as conservatives because maybe they're more conservative on social
issues or on like personal liberty issues or something, but
economically they're not. But they wouldn't call themselves a liberal
because to be a liberal means to support all kinds
of things today that being a liberal in nineteen ninety five,
you know, you didn't necessarily had to sign up for

(07:32):
right right, And so the tent, the big tent thing
has it's totally changed. Conservatives are the big tent group now,
and I think there are a lot of young people.
That's one of the things so we asked those same
people who said yes to the question, just the people
who said yes, I do want the Democratic Socialist president
twenty twenty eight. We gave a bunch of options and
we said, among these options, what is the biggest reason

(07:56):
why you want to vote for a socialist? And the
number one response we got thirty one percent of them.
This was by far. The number one response was how'sing
costs are too high? That's thirty one percent. The next one,
the next most popular answer was the economy unfairly benefits older,
wealthier Americans unfairly. The next one was that was seventeen percent.

(08:18):
The next one was the economy unfairly benefits large corporations.
That was fifteen percent. Those were by far the three
biggest answers. So when you add them all up, that's
over sixty percent of the respondents said housing costs are
too high? Where the economy unfairly benefits older, wealthier people
or big corporations. So this is a theme that you're

(08:39):
going to see throughout all of the poll questions. You're
going to find all kinds. We asked later on, do
you think the economy is unfair to young people and
over sixty percent of them said yes, it is unfair
to young people. And so what's happening is there is
this perception among young Americans that the economy is rigged,
it's not fair, and then it's holding them back personally.

(09:03):
And because it's holding them back, they want to vote
for someone who's going to blow the system up. They
just want to blow the system up. And I think
that's why there were a lot of people who said
yes to Trump, because Trump is the anti elite candidate,
the ultimate anti elite candidate. The elites are literally trying
to throw him in jail, and I think they looked

(09:24):
at that and they said, this guy is not part
of them. I know that because they're trying to put
him in jail, and he just got shot in the
head and they still want to put him in jail.
So this is this is this is my guy. And
I think there's a lot of young people who hated him,
But there's a lot of young people who saw that
and said, yeah, this is this guy is not part
of that other group. But I don't think that they

(09:46):
were supporting him for the policies.

Speaker 1 (09:55):
Twenty won I was twenty two minutes past the hour.
I know we're kind of bumming you out. If you
really want to get depressed, head to heartland dot org
and read all of it, because it is it's not
just it's a downer. It is unnerving that we have
so many young people thinking this way. What stood out

(10:19):
next to you as you started to go through the
results and kind of quantify what you've long believed.

Speaker 2 (10:26):
Yeah, let's hit some of the really crazy stuff so
that people can understand why we're so disturbed. It's not
just support for socialism. Three quarters of the people we asked,
seventy six percent said that they agreed somewhat or strongly
with the following statement, Major industries like healthcare, energy, and
big tech should be nationalized. That means to be taken

(10:47):
over by the federal government to give more control and
equity to the people. That was, including the vast majority
of conservatives, also said that they supported that. Over seventy
percent have said that they supported that. We're talking about
young people, young voters. Okay, Then, another really crazy question

(11:07):
we asked about income caps. Would you support a law
that imposes a maximum annual income cap for individuals? And
then we gave a bunch of income ranges and some
of them were pretty high, like ten million dollars, but
if you add them all up, about sixty percent of
young people said they do support an income cap for
individual people. We asked if you should punish people legal,

(11:31):
you know, with fines or other legal penalties, who refused
to use other people's preferred gender pronouns, and we add
a bunch of penalties in here. Seventeen percent said yes,
a monetary fine, sixteen percent said yes, mandatory community service
six percent said yes, jail time. Only forty eight percent

(11:52):
said that they should not be penalized, so forty percent
said some kind of criminal penalty for saying something. And
then the worst one of them all, I think, And
there are plenty of other interesting results in the poll
that we don't have time to go over, but the
worst one of them all was would you support a
proposal for a new constitutional amendment that would give the
United Nations the authority to oversee the Supreme Court and

(12:16):
presidency to ensure that Americans' rights are being protected? Fifty
nine percent of young people said yes. They want to
give the United Nations control over the president and the
Supreme Court. I mean, these people are going to be
the primary voting block in ten to twenty years. And

(12:40):
so think about what that means for the future of
the country. When over half want a socialist president of
young people, over half want the United Nations in control
of the United States. Forty percent of them are talking
about throwing people in jail for saying things not using
the right gender pronoun. You know, something like sixty percent

(13:01):
want in personal income caps, seventy five percent want to
nationalize whole industries. This is what's coming, people, this is
what's coming if we don't turn this around soon.

Speaker 1 (13:12):
I will tell you my first immediate reaction to what
you just shared and what I had read in the
information you sent me justin and I'm not trying to
be funny in any way, shape or form. People know,
I see the Book of Revelation.

Speaker 2 (13:27):
It's hard not to see absolute catastrophe the coming. That's
what it's hard not to see. And the truth is this,
if America collapses, what was the next largest, important, powerful,
wealthy country that's going to step up to the play

(13:49):
and be a defender of freedom and personal liberty around
the world.

Speaker 1 (13:54):
There is one.

Speaker 2 (13:55):
I mean, I don't know of any large ones.

Speaker 1 (13:58):
Well, because I mean, as you were reading some of
the stuff on you know, sending people to jail, finding
them and so forth for using the wrong gender pronouns.
I'm like, oh cool, let me buy you a ticket
to England. Head on over.

Speaker 2 (14:11):
That's right. They already do this in Germany. They already
do this in England. They already do this in places
where I mean, the United Kingdom historically is the next
closest thing to the United States when it comes to
personal rights, and they don't have those anymore. That's dying
now and paying attention to what's going over there, knows
that no one else.

Speaker 1 (14:29):
And the country is being taken over by Islamis. They've
got Sharia courts popping up throughout the country. I mean,
you know, they've they've sealed their fate over there, without.

Speaker 2 (14:39):
A without a doubt. I mean, and much of Europe
is in the same and this is in the same boat.
And so in Europe you're faced with either radical Islamicism
on the one hand, or you know, this radical progressivensm
on the other hand, where you want to control everything,
and then you got these socialists who are also in
the mix. It's a horrible place to be if you
support individual freedom. So there's nobody else. To go back

(15:01):
to your book of revelation point, there's nobody else. There's
no one else. Everyone is that the world is descending
into you know, we saw I think as a I
think over the last fifty sixty years, Americans felt like,
you know what, things are turning. The world is getting freer,
individual liberty is becoming, you know, more popular than ever.

(15:21):
And I just think that we are now reverting back
to an earlier time when that isn't the case, except
now you don't even have America. Now you have America
descending into this kind of madness as well. And I
don't think that conservatives Republicans, I don't think are spending
the time they need to to win over younger people,
and the left has been they see, they have been

(15:43):
doing it and it's paying off now and it's been
a disaster for them in recent elections because a lot
of regular people don't like it, but older regular people.
But that's changing.

Speaker 1 (15:54):
They're playing the long game as they always have.

Speaker 2 (15:56):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (15:57):
Justin thank you as always, appreciate your time, Thanks pressing,
Take care
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