The latter. Unfortunately, Socialism is viewed as a dirty word by many Americans, and especially conservative boomers, with whom it will garner a nearly identical reaction to the term Nazi, on account of the Cold War propaganda they were raised on.

Imagine that you saw the same numbers but about the word fascism. Now think of the mindset that would put you in, and who it would stand to benefit.

I don't doubt that there has been a resurgence of socialist thought in America, however given the biased source and their motivations I find it very reasonable to doubt the exact numbers given.

I would say that a more accurate number is likely the number of people who currently support Yang or Bernie in the primary, since both are running on the most socialist platforms at the moment. So that would be around 33% of democrats between 18-29. - Assuming that younger people are more socialist, and giving a generous increase of 50% over the older numbers, that would put 46% of the 74.2 million minors as socialist, which is still nowhere near the percentage given in this article, and that's only democrats, no conservative or independent voters included at all.

I do believe that we will a continued movement in this direction as the inevitable collapse of capitalism becomes more apparent to people as wealth inequality only increases in the coming decade, hopefully reaching a majority at some point, but believing that we are an actual majority right now would is foolish. America still has an incredibly strong anti-socialist culture as a remnant of the cold war, and while we are becoming distant enough from it for people to reconsider their position, that is not a fast process.

I think that the fastest results will occur if either Bernie wins, injecting more collectivist thought into our cultural zeitgeist. Or else the Republicans win, which would be terrible, but would solidify the need for change in the minds of the people as they see what the corrupt capitalism can lead to, resulting in either electing an even more socialist candidate in the next election, or if they end up overthrowing democracy as some of their actions have implied they intend to, a direct revolution which would move us even further, but possibly end horribly with a filed revolution leading to a dictatorship (as is always a danger whenever you replace a government).

I think the worst possible outcome for us is a moderate democrat win. Since the will repair some of the damage that is done, make the need for change less urgent, and put a band-aid on the problem that will allow people to pretend there are no fundamental issues in need of addressing, draining us of voters and pushing us back towards center, enabling another republican victory next election cycle.