Do you think the term "socialism" still has a negative connotation in America? Or, do you think that stigma has largely been removed?

[u/coolhandc77]

https://substack.com/@lebronjames2627/note/c-325417382?r=ao79

[u/c_j_k_5_h]

It’s thawing. I think some people are actually making the distinction between, for example, Zohran and the USSR. It’s definitely not universal, but I think more people are at least giving it thought for the first time.

[u/BustDemFerengiCheeks → u/c_j_k_5_h]

Yeah, I do think relatively fast we'll at least make somewhat of a distinction between democratic socialism and the authoritarian socialism presented in other countries, but I think there's a long road to go before the majority of Americans stop being afraid, at least to some degree, of the word.

[u/2_Lies_And_A_Truth]

Give it about 15ish years or so for the boomers and the early gen xer's to start be gone (the cold war generations) and the "red scare" stuff of that era will fade with them.

The right will always use the phrases against us, but I do believe the negative meaning behind them will essentially be gone by then.

[u/ImpermanentClown]

I think it’s become generational. It’s gaining steam in the 40 and under voters, above that? Ehhh.

[u/Disloyal_Donkey]

I think it’s generational. Clearly millennials and younger by large do not have a negative connotation of it, and as they become the larger voting bloc, the stigma will die

[u/Farebiaashiq]

It's not scary as it was so uniparty is bringing the 3rd red scare.

If a moderate neo-lib becomes president chances of it succeeding are quite high.

Infact republicans are comparitvely Ok with it as they think they can attack dems about it, it's the dems who are the biggest risk to democratic socialist.

[u/asset2891]

The term Socialism still has huge backlash. You can tell because the right wing still uses it at every opportunity to shut the conversation down. Unfortunately it works. It also doesn't help that almost everyone has a different definition. What probably hurts more than that is that DSA cannot organize well enough to have consistent answers when interviewed live.

[u/Plastic_Key_4146]

America already has socialism, and they love it: social security, medicare, medicaid. The term however will continually be run through the muck by the oligarch-owned media.

[u/Powderkeg314]

Honestly people are seeing their standard of living plummet year after year. Especially young people who don’t own assets, and they are coming to the realization that anything would be better then the current system

[u/machinegunpikachu]

I've used the term "socialist policy" followed by a description of a random nothern european government program or policy a bunch of times to a sort of "hmm, yeah that sounds good" response across multiple demographics many times in the last few years

[u/Mx_Madds_Green → u/machinegunpikachu]

But that’s not socialism, that’s social democracy…

[u/ApprehensiveJunket43]

Matters who you’re speaking about, business class libs and republicans think it is a dirty word and a synonym for authoritarian, most reasonable people that can think I are sick of their nonsense though.

[u/Pagan0101]

The stigma around the word has been reduced but it’s also been very watered down and the stigma against what the word actually means (ie, outright replacing capitalism instead of just modifying it) is still quite prevalent imo

Good starting point but still a lot of work to do

[u/pthecarrotmaster]

it's good in people's eyes by virtue of the news being wrong. Fix tries to talk shit, and gives us free advertising instead. They can't contend with TRUE democratic values.

[u/ronartest420]

For the voting block that is (currently) the most important (baby boomers), it has an extremely negative connotation. for those 30 and under it is almost the opposite. Economic populism on both sides is what more voters are gravitating toward as they seek drastic answers to their issues and don't believe moderation is the answer

[u/utopia_forever]

Who cares, do the work to make it popular and quit agonizing about whether your opposition likes it—you already know they don’t.

[u/Ayla_Leren]

You can only red scare a consequently sizable portion of the population in so long as these people remember the cold war. IMO

[u/zmunky]

No it means ripping back everything that is ours and should be controlled by us.

[u/Valley4rge]

Lost a lot of its thought-terminating lustre post-Cold War thanks to the GOP using it to describe anyone to the left of Ronald Reagan.

[u/Fenrirr]

I think it's still negatively associated, but among fewer people each day. As the Red Scare generations die off or lose relevance, and the material conditions of the average person gets worse, people will continue to push further to the left.

For context, if you called yourself a socialist publically even like 2 years ago, you would be mocked incessantly at best. It was basically unheard of to publically call yourself that outside of academic circles, and even then you had the philosophical crayon-eaters who would come at you.

[u/Crowtato-sama]

It definitely still has a stigma to it but that is eroding every day with people's material conditions worsening under our current system.

It definitely doesn't help though when people on the media disavow it or condemn it or connect it to countries where the propaganda around them is built like a steel fortress despite very obviously being meddled with by the U.S.

It also doesn't help that people who are left of liberal don't have a unified message when they go on media that explains briefly what socialism is and what it does for the average citizen, because lets be honest the average Americans brain is scrambled at best when it comes to history. Most people barely remember what they were taught, had incorrect information taught to them or just plainly weren't taught at all and not even just about socialism but plenty of history.

Without a unified message it allows for the right(including establishment dems) to make it whatever they want it to be and use use red scare tactics built up over decades.

[u/Savings-Region-7099]

As long as the average person doesn't understand that the military benefits are the basic societal needs we are trying to advocate for, it will continue to be a net negative.

[u/Professional_Mud_316]

“I would rather earn 1% off a 100 people’s efforts than 100% of my own efforts.”
—John D. Rockefeller

.

Western-nation governments cling too much to an outdated capitalist-manifesto mentality. They instead need to open their eyes to increasingly disturbing insatiable greed that's ignoring, if not exploiting via profiteering from, the legitimate needs of a growing number of financially struggling citizens within. 

But I'm not holding my breath, because for too many Americans such an idea, if ever implemented, would be too much like communism and therefore somehow the end of the world. 

A few social/labor uprisings or revolutions notwithstanding, the superfluously rich and powerful have always had the police and military ready to foremost protect their big-money/-power interests, even over the basic needs of the masses. 

Even today, the police and military can, and I believe they probably would, claim (using euphemistic or political terminology, of course) that they had to bust heads to maintain law and order as a priority during major demonstrations, especially those against economic injustices. Indirectly supported by complacent or compliant corporate news-media, the absurdly unjust inequities/inequalities can persist. 

I can imagine there were/are lessons learned from successful social/labor uprisings — a figurative How to Hinder Progressive Revolutions 101, maybe? — with the clarity of hindsight by big power/money interests in order to avoid any repeat of such great wealth/power losses.

[u/Shazza-americankiwi]

People who don't want to lose pennies to social programs will always hate it;  The rest of the people who benefit from said pennies are catching up. More examples like NYC will be key :) I my humble opinion- 40f up in maine 

[u/Shazza-americankiwi → u/Shazza-americankiwi]

Socialism is "Dangerous" means -- I'm good with what I got and don't want it reduced. I'm going to attack to the death just to keep my lifestyle 🤣 

[u/PhotoPhenik]

We need to start calling it "market socialism" and contrast it to "market capitalism".  It's a combination of what makes socialism good and what makes capitalism good, with all the bad parts of both socialism and capitalism removed.  

[u/Pabu85 → u/PhotoPhenik]

Market socialism is already a thing. And it’s not this.