Capitalism is a formidable social system. Despite the best efforts of hundreds of millions of socialists over the last century and a half, it remains the hegemonic system governing production and politics around the world. That dominance at least partially explains the sense of shock palpable in the writings of media figures who have slowly awoken to the growing socialist revival in the United States. There’s a very real sense in reading these pieces that the authors just can’t believe anyone is still questioning capitalism.

Connor Friedersdorf’s recent piece in the Atlantic is emblematic of this genre. In his article, Friedersdorf attempts to pile as many bodies at the foot of socialism as possible, through a familiar tour of the death tolls attributed to regimes in countries like the USSR, China, and Cambodia.

These deaths, he argues, are ignored by contemporary advocates of socialism, like Mathieu Desan and Mike McCarthy, the authors of the Jacobin article he is criticizing. In fact, the present resurgence of socialism in the United States is “mostly grounded in [an] . . . ignorance of 20th-century history every bit as myopic as far-right Holocaust deniers.”