Millennials don't know the deadly history of socialism -- and they're warming up to it

On Tuesday’s “The Morning Blaze with Doc Thompson,” author and professor Paul Kengor shared the previously untold story of the close friendship between President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II.

Kengor, who wrote "A Pope and a President: John Paul II, Ronald Reagan, and the Extraordinary Untold Story of the 20th Century," used the history the two men shared to warn the next generation not to underestimate the dangers of socialism on Tuesday's show.

Doc Thompson noted that the time of Reagan and Pope John Paul II was far less about party politics and more about a common mission.

“This was a different time; it wasn’t about left vs. right as much as it was about the idea of communism and socialism having a long track record of oppressing and murdering people,” Doc said. In contrast, today, “so many people, especially young people, [don’t understand] how dangerous it is to throw around the idea of socialism,” he added.

Reagan and Pope John Paul II fought Soviet communism, but young voters today don’t seem to realize that socialist principles turn into policies that have been responsible for the deaths of tens of millions. Communism has killed at least 100 million people, likely closer to 140 million, Kengor said, comparing it to adding the deaths in WWI and in WWII together and then doubling that figure. Pope John Paul II experienced the dangers of communist government firsthand.

“He had friends and fellow priests who were killed by communists,” Kengor detailed.

A survey last year found that 45 percent of young millennials aged 16 to 20 say they would vote for a socialist. The same study also showed that a shocking 32 percent of them believed that more people died under President George W. Bush’s policies than Joseph Stalin’s dictatorship.

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