They are parts of the problem, Republicans aren’t the only ones calling everything socialism
Arguably, the more things that are called socialism right now, the better. It’s the Boy Who Cried Wolf effect. If the word is used for everything left of Reagan it’s no longer taboo to anyone persuadable, which makes it easier to talk to those folks about what socialism actually is. We’ve already seen this work: Republicans called Obama communist and socialist and Marxist and whatever other trigger words they could think of, and by the time Bernie came along “socialist” was no longer a smear capable of putting a fork in him.
Yeah but what does that matter if socialism just means welfare and Medicare in the eyes of the average American. We’re not actually moving to the left we’re just lying to people and changing the definition to make it less scary to libs, who hate socialism because of its actual substance, not because it’s a bad word.
If we got a working welfare state and Medicare for All that absolutely would move us to the left. First, it would dramatically improve the material conditions of hundreds of millions of people, which is a pretty fundamental goal of socialism. Second, it would lift the boot a little bit off workers’ necks – it’s a lot easier to challenge management when you know it won’t cost you your healthcare, and when there’s a safety net if you wind up losing your job. Third, it would be concrete proof that we can do big things for people and not destroy the country, and it would similarly be proof that the folks on the left might be worth listening to.
