This quote is an example of what I am talking about though. Roosevelt had to take great strides to ease the great depression, because of mass protest movements at the time openly led by socialist/communist parties, but he could not go so far as to address the economic system that created the great depression. Nor could the capitalist class allow these policies to be associated with the socialists that visibly fought for them. Doing so would threaten the power of capital; this is not long after the bolshevik revolution that created the USSR, so there was major fears of similar movements taking root in the US.

This is not Truman defending the new deal, this is him distancing the new deal from socialism.

The new deal was not socialist, which is by design, but it was made up of things that socialists would have certainly fought for and taken even further if their effort was sincerely meant to achieve socialism.

It’s time to stop letting socialism be used as a scare word. Sure, the loudest ones will continue to bury their heads in the sand, but those people weren’t going to be won over anyways. Furthermore, you aren’t going to win people over by talking down to them, and you cannot address their needs in a sincere manner if your base assumption is that they aren’t intelligent enough to understand their own lives.

edit: I’m also not suggesting that we should be fighting over “the word and meaning of socialism”; precisely the opposite, in fact. I’m saying that we should be living examples of what a socialist is and what socialists advocate for. We should be seen in our communities doing the ground work of organizing and being role models for what we believe in.

The difference between what we are accused of and what we are actually doing is stark, which can’t be pointed out if we’re constantly distancing ourselves from anyone that calls themselves socialist simply because we’re afraid of the word. There is so much present day and past evidence; from the rich history that was erased in the red scare and all of this anti-socialist sentiment; for us to draw on instead of trying to distance ourselves from the reality that what we advocate for is anti-capitalist in nature.

Simultaneously, American voters are “stupid, lazy, or both”, but intelligent and well-read enough to understand what you mean when you explain the difference between social welfare and outright socialism as you are backpedaling on being a socialist.

That being said; I’m not talking about progressive policies, I’m talking about socialism. There might be plenty of progressive policies between here and socialism, but the end of that side of the spectrum is socialism.

The thing is, you can “not call it socialism” all you like. The fact is that it is socialism, you have to respect people’s intelligence enough to know that they will figure that out (or be easily convinced of it, if you really need an argument that doesn’t respect their intelligence). When this happens, and even moreso when you inevitably reveal yourself to be socialist, it will make you look deeply insincere and subversive, because you yourself will have fed into this taboo and not done the work of separating the term from its negative stigma or generating positive media for it.

Socialism is simply the fact of the matter and being socialist means caring about material reality enough to not just lie and gaslight as a means of convincing people. When you get attacked for being socialist, you will not be able to backpedal without sabotaging your own movement, because there will be a litany of evidence that you are socialist. As there should be, or you would not have the support of actual ideological socialists (remember that whole material reality thing I just mentioned).

The material reason why socialism is a “no-no” word is because when the right attacks it, the liberal establishment does what they always do; they backpedal. Not only does this make the right’s criticism look reasonable, because it confirms there is real reason to fear being associated with socialism; but it ensures that the people only ever hear the arguments against socialism, never the arguments for it. All of the arguments which are intrinsically associated with socialism; which you have done all this work to propagate; are never connected to it optically, and the people never learn what it actually is, leaving all of your policy open to attack.

What you are suggesting here is not the solution but exactly the issue that has brought us to this point.

The only way that you will ever launder the term “socialism” is by openly advocating for socialism and calling it what it is when you do. You just aren’t going to beat the establishment at their own game; rather, we must show the people what it is to be respected and hear policy based in material reality that will actually address their needs, and you will win support from across the spectrum.