In a lot of American discourse, it honestly seems like the baggage surrounding the term is more of an issue than the policies being debated that are labelled "Socialist".

Also timely/relevant: https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/i-want-you-to-tell-me-what-s...

Very true. I’ve started talking to older generations about their Socialism Security checks. “That’s different! The government taxes me and then… uses it… to support me when I’m not making money… Oh.”

Lots of people detest socialism until you show them how they’re already benefitting from it. I’m not even really pro-socialism, except in the simplified case where you have a number line with “capitalism” on one end, “communism” on the other, and “socialism” as the range in the middle. I definitely wouldn’t want to live on either end of that spectrum, and a mixed economy where private enterprise handles wants with a government handling needs for those who can’t do it on their own — i.e. socialism — is a reasonable alternative.

The Ruling Class in the US has long been effective at influencing public opinion and behavior with boogeymen: communism, socialism, woke-ism, and so on. Mention publicly funded healthcare to 1000 random Americans, and the response from 950 of them is gonna be "Socialized medicine is bad!", and nothing else.

>Socialism means that the government owns the means of production.

You mean soviet-like socialism. Socialism is older and broader than bolchevism.

I'm so curious why this comment is being downvoted. Isn't it true? Words have meanings and meriam webster agrees with this comment. If we say any country anywhere that provides anything to its citizens is included in the socialist umbrella, then every country on earth is socialist and what's the point of the word in that case? The DSA in the US have hitched their wagons to this word that is highly ambiguous and it feels unhelpful when it comes to any meaningful national political goals.