I don’t think it changes its meaning so much as it erases preconceived opposition rooted in decades of anticommunist propaganda. That makes it easier to educate people on what socialism actually is, because starting from a roughly blank slate is better than starting with dug-in opposition.

Say you want to convince Jimmy that basketball is fun and good. He knows nothing about basketball, but his entire life he’s been subjected to a media environment telling him basketball is dangerous, unfun, and no one gets laid if they play it. You try to talk to him about what basketball actually is, but his response is “nah, fuck basketball, I don’t even want to hear it.”

But a few years pass and the media environment changes to where people call damn near anything basketball. Jimmy, not actually knowing what basketball is, now hears about it all the time – often positively, if inaccurately – and his hardline opposition to even the concept of basketball changes to “hell, they’ll call anything basketball these days.” Now if you try to talk to him, you aren’t going to get that immediate, visceral opposition, and he might listen a bit if he likes you and thinks you might have some clarifying information.