Socialism means different things depending on where you are, even within Europe. For some socialism is the same as communism, for others socialism simply means social-democracy.
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".
Since political threads don't last long on HN, I'll add for the anecdote that I was first puzzled the difference in meaning by the lyrics of a Slayer song, "Consumed democracy returns to socialist regime" [1], certainly because at that time the government in my country was "socialist".