I’m not even talking about the cool, major transformative stuff, like expropriating industry or creating free public housing for everyone.

I’m just talking about things like ending gerrymandering and moving from a two-party system to a multi-party system. That doesn’t sound like much, but it would basically require a revolution, or something close. The things that would be necessary to make a multi-party system possible (getting rid of the electoral college, implementing proportional representation for legislative bodies, and implementing ranked-choice voting for executive positions, and probably a couple other things) are not possible through the processes and institutions that make up American politics currently. No sitting politician is going to do any of that, because they benefit from the two-party system, and it would go against their own political interests.

So, yeah. Never mind socialism. Even if all we wanted was to get rid of these stupid two-party spoiler effects and make third parties electorally feasible, that would still require taking up arms.