Have you heard about the “Subaru Socialists?” This is an invented term that’s supposed to refer to “college-educated millennials in their 30s and 40s who earn a somewhat steady income but not what they expected.” New Yorker writer Jay Caspian Kang coined the phrase for a story he wrote in early August. That story must have generated a lot of feedback because he wrote a follow-up on August 18.
The art illustrating the follow-up story depicts a lumpy Subaru hatchback with a Bernie Sanders bumper sticker plowing through the mud. I guess that means the urban elite view Subaru owners as politically clueless hicks struggling to make it in the real world.
I’m a Subaru Capitalist. And I’m here to say the “Subaru Socialist” construct is silly. Aside from the fact that Subaru and socialist both start with S—providing that crucial literary device, alliteration—the pairing is discordant. Kang would have done better if he wrote about Starbucks Socialists or Snapchat Socialists.
Let’s talk about cars for a moment—because Kang doesn’t. Not once in two articles does he bother to say what it is about Subaru that connotes socialism.
[The Democratic Socialists’ awful branding problem]
I own a 2018 Subaru Impreza Sport with a manual transmission. I had to wait a couple of months to get a manual back in 2018 because there were so few of them. I love my Subaru and know others who own and love Subarus, too. You’ll notice that many Subarus have racks attached to them, because their owners are always hanging recreational gear off their cars to go out and do stuff.
Most Subarus come standard with all-wheel drive, which makes them very popular with people who have to drive in snow. They’re all over the northern states. Subarus are also relentlessly pragmatic. They can do mild off-roading, but they’re not built to navigate boulders the way some SUVs are. That’s because Subaru knows that almost nobody who buys an off-road-capable vehicle ever leaves the pavement. Subaru provides what you need and not a lot more. The company’s cars are popular because they’re a great value.
Kang describes Subaru Socialists as disaffected 30- and 40-somethings who have been battered by a series of unfortunate events: The Great Recession in 2008, the Covid pandemic in 2020, overpriced college tuition, a tough job market, unaffordable housing. There’s the familiar youthful assumption that every prior generation had it easier.
[The myth of the prosperous worker]
There’s a sense of victimology in the Kang perspective. Note that he laments this beleaguered cohort earning “less than they expected.” He also bemoans “the contrast between what they were promised … and their current circumstances.”
What they expected. What somebody promised them. It sounds as if the real problem is unrealistic expectations—and a lack of initiative to take control of your own life when things aren’t working out the way you want.
I’m not going to wage generational warfare with a naive young writer. I’ll just explain how a capitalist mindset led me to be a proud Subaru owner at the age of 60.
I graduated from college in 1988 with student debt on a 15-year payment plan. I paid it off on schedule in 2003.
[Most Americans are missing out on an epic stock-market boom]
I got married in 1990, worked three jobs while trying to get started as a journalist, and began building a decent career. I got divorced in 2001 and, suddenly responsible for child support, had to take on extra work once again to pay my bills.
The marital house went away and I had to rent for 13 years. I thought I’d never be able to own a home again, until the housing bust brought prices down and I was finally able to muster a down payment.
My field, journalism, became a turbulent business once the internet disrupted everything, starting around 1995. Over the years, hundreds of my colleagues got laid off or left the business, unable to adapt. I finally got laid off in 2025, in a corporate reorg that swept out many of the older, more experienced, and more expensive staffers. I was ready for it, because I always figured my turn would come.
Despite many bumps, I’m happy with my career, so far, and I realize that just about every challenge has been a crucial learning experience. I probably expected everything to be easy when I finished college in 1988, because it seemed like success had come naturally to my parents. But it wasn’t easy. Nobody told me to expect a miserable divorce that sent me backward financially. Circumstances forced me to move when I really didn’t want to. I was renting sad-divorced-guy pads when better-off friends were buying second homes.
[How baby boomers locked up the housing market]
What you learn from overcoming setbacks is that youthful expectations are irrelevant. There’s always something that will go wrong, and if it hasn’t happened to you yet, just wait. Success requires determination, innovation, and tirelessness—the very virtues of capitalism.
Kang’s essays, at heart, are a way of justifying his and his generation’s support for Bernie Sanders-style redistributionism. Tax the rich, socialize industry, give everybody a job.
But the fatal flaw of the Starbucks Socialists is they assume the wealth is just there to be redistributed. The reality is that somebody has to create that wealth. This is what capitalism excels at. Without the profit motive, there is precious little wealth to spread around and nearly everybody ends up worse off.
I am a Subaru Capitalist because Subarus are for doers. We are people who go out in the world and hike, camp, bike, and surf. Nobody told us to do this. Our inner spirits told us to do this. It’s the same sort of spirit that animates capitalism and compels some people to start businesses and chase dreams.
I personally love my Subaru because it takes me skiing in New England, where I have to drive through snow sometimes to enjoy a powder day. Skiing is expensive. You have to work hard to afford it. I’m quite willing to pay for it. Skiing might be cheaper if Bernie Sanders nationalized the slopes, but then the ski lifts would probably break down and everything would go dark during the next government shutdown.
Capitalism also entails the careful management of money—thrift—because you worked hard to get it. Many headlines highlight Bezos-style excess, the crass part of capitalism. But anybody who ever built a business will tell you about pinching pennies and cutting corners. I appreciate my Subaru because it respects my money. It does what I need with no extravagant features, leaving more money to spend on other stuff than if I ponied up for a luxury car or an overstuffed SUV.
I suppose there are some Subaru owners who identify as socialist. Maybe I’ll meet them skiing or hiking. We’ll probably have a great time chatting about our adventures and what we plan to do next.
I agree Kang stuck 2 words together in "Subaru" and "socialist" for no apparent reason other than marketing his article. As a Marketing guy, I am ok with it in that it worked ... I read it! But he never really explained the Subaru part of the the thesis. Somewhat of a random connection to socialism. Subaru is just getting over the lesbian branding, now they are socialist too! Setting the Subaru thing aside, I thought Kang's articles had an interesting perspective on where the Bernie momentum came from and where the democratic socialist trend is headed and why. Although, its interesting to think that it may be an expectations thing of a liberal arts degree vs an economic structural problem. My 3 kids chose engineering, finance and marketing. They are doing very well. All 3 drive better cars than my 2015 Subaru with 130k miles with a kayak on the top and 2 bikes on the back. Can I be a "Subaru progressive" please. Not sure I like the capitalist label much better than socialist in current climate.
I remember noting back in Boston/Cambridge that all the Volvo owners were MIT professors who skied. Great story.