Groundhog Club handler Ron Ploucha holds Punxsutawney Phil, the weather prognosticating groundhog, during the 129th celebration of Groundhog Day on Gobbler's Knob in Punxsutawney, Pa.

It’s Groundhog Day, an arcane tradition that comes around every year, as predictable as the sunrise and nearly always wrong. That pretty much sums up socialism, come to think of it.

It seems that every generation of young people has to learn for itself that socialism is one great, flawed promise that can never be fulfilled in a fallen world.

Today, it’s Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders and filmmaker Michael Moore who are once again promoting socialism.

“To me, democratic socialism means democracy,” Sanders has said. “It means creating a government that represents all of us, not just the wealthiest people in the country … You go to your public library, or you call your fire department or police department, what do you think you are calling? These are socialist institutions.”

And here’s what Moore wrote on Twitter recently: “Most polls now show young adults (18-35) across America prefer socialism (fairness) to capitalism (selfishness).”

That’s fine with him, Moore said, because “Capitalism is an evil, and you cannot regulate evil… You have to eliminate it and replace it with something that is good for all people and that something is democracy.”

Let’s examine those claims, beginning with Sanders.

Words mean things. Socialism is an actual word, representing an actual thing. Sanders might find himself in a quandary with the Democratic voters who supported Bill Clinton, but that doesn’t give him the right to redefine words. Socialism doesn’t mean “democracy,” as he claims, but instead it means government ownership or control of the means of production. In other words, under a socialist system, the government is the ultimate arbiter of power.

Democratic socialism seeks to achieve the goals of socialism through regulations. These can take the form of generous benefits (which the government offers or forces employers to offer), price controls and redistributive taxes. That’s what Sanders believes America should be.

His second sentence is something of a non sequitur. We do, in fact, have a government that represents all of us. Yet Sanders speaks in dark and ominous tones about Wall Street, big money and the Washington elite.

There are just too many examples of the better-funded candidates (and causes) falling to grassroots movements and rivals with shoestring budgets. But Sanders’ own campaign is enough to prove the point – he’s giving Hillary Clinton many sleepless nights, though she has all of those things in her corner – Wall Street, big money and the Washington elite.

Now, about Sanders’ statement that libraries, fire departments and police departments are all “socialist institution.” That’s ridiculous. Those are government institutions, and government is not synonymous with socialism.

Moving on to Moore, he begins with a classic logical fallacy – that socialism is great because so many young people like it. That’s argumentum ad populum.

And as The Atlantic pointed out recently: “Millennial politics is simple, really. Young people support big government, unless it costs any more money. They’re for smaller government, unless budget cuts scratch a program they’ve heard of.”

Like Groundhog Day, socialism pops up regularly. But it’s no guide to how the world actually works.