I hadn’t seen this survey by the Cato Institute until today but it’s really striking. It seems that a shockingly high percentage of Gen Z would be okay with in-home government surveillance. If that sounds like something out of George Orwell’s 1984, that’s exactly how CATO saw it.

In the book 1984, citizens of the fictional nation Oceania are under constant government surveillance, including in their own homes. Devices called telescreens display propaganda and record peoples’ actions, allowing the government to monitor people even in what should be the most private place they know—their homes. This type of behavior is meant to be an extreme example of what can happen when a government gains too much power, and opposition to such surveillance has been assumed to be overwhelming and obvious. But is it?

In a newly released Cato Institute 2023 Central Bank Digital Currency National Survey of 2,000 Americans, we asked respondents whether they “favor or oppose the government installing surveillance cameras in every household to reduce domestic violence, abuse, and other illegal activity.” Not surprisingly, few Americans—only 14 percent—support this idea. Three‐​fourths (75 percent) would oppose government surveillance cameras in homes, including 68 percent who “strongly oppose,” while 10% don’t have an opinion either way.

However, Americans under the age of 30 stand out when it comes to 1984‐​style in‐​home government surveillance cameras. 3 in 10 (29 percent) Americans under 30 favor “the government installing surveillance cameras in every household” in order to “reduce domestic violence, abuse, and other illegal activity.”

Here’s a Cato produced chart showing the results.

Given that many American high school students read Orwell’s 1984 for English classes, Gen Z should be the group who read it most recently. Did they somehow miss the message of the novel?

One of the people who responded to these results on Twitter highlighted another poll taken back in 2020. This one was a poll of favorable views of Marxism taken in 2020.

The number of young Americans who have a favorable view of Marxism has increased five-fold in just one year. According to the new survey, nearly one-third of the members of Gen Z – Americans between the ages of 16 and 23 – deem “Marxism” worthy of support. The term’s favorability has skyrocketed to 30% among Gen Z respondents, up from 6% in 2019.

Gen Z’s approval of socialism also crept up nine points since last year (49% favorable in 2020, compared to 40% in 2019). The results come from the newest edition of the “Report on U.S. Attitudes Toward Socialism, Communism, and Collectivism” – which is commissioned annually by the Victims of Communism Memorial (VOC) and conducted by YouGov.

So maybe the 1/3 of Gen Z that are fans of Marxism don’t really see the problem with in-home government surveillance. As some on the left like to say, government is just the name for things we do together.

It’s definitely worrisome that so much of Gen Z is clueless when it comes to some pretty basic ideas built into the foundation of America. Then again it’s a safe bet most of these people hate America and are squarely in the burn it to the ground camp.

In any case, I suspect there would be a strong overlap between respondents to this Cato poll who support home surveillance and the DSA/Working Families Party twenty-somethings who elect candidates like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and the rest of the squad. Maybe I give her too much credit but I suspect AOC herself would at least be aware that home surveillance is the kind of thing that gives leftists a bad name even if she privately didn’t see a problem with it.

Maybe that’s the most surprising part of this poll. It’s not that they believe something so egregiously awful, after all DSA policy positions are a litany of awful things. The really shocking part is that they were dumb enough to tell a pollster they supported this.