Excellent article on Socialism vs Capitalism

[KS Toronado]

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/11/27/1998523/-Living-in-Socialism-the-Nuts-and-Bolts-of-it-All?

The Democratic Party needs to take away the republican party's talking points about how evil Socialism
is and how it'll ruin this country. IMHO

[Tom Rinaldo]

1. Bookmarking. Thanks. n/t

[yonder]

2. KnR

[AmericanCanuck]

4. That would be like putting lipstick on a pig

[JHB]

5. Nothing any Democratic congressperson has proposed is socialism...

...nor, for that matter, Bernie.

Nothing. None of it.

If you want to take away their talking point, then start there, not by calling every collective action and government program "socialism."

Like it or not, most Americans associate that word with oppressive police states, mostly because the governments that loudly proclaimed themselves "socialist" were. Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. It's right there in the name and as closely associated with that word in the American mind as the swastika is with Nazis.

Do not fight that fight. Go around it to get the things we're after.

Every time they accuse us, every time they say it, every time the insinuate it, confront them. Tell them to blow it out their ass because they call everything they don't like "socialism."

Thanks to conservative media always pushing a hard right views and lack of pushback, they have normalized a wildly expansive definition of that word, one that used to be the purview of street shoutycrackers on soapboxes, rich guys in country club bars muttering over their gin and tonics, and other assorted ranting cranks.

The thing we need to push is that conservatives are so busy calling everything "socialism" that it includes the US government during WW2 and the Cold War. If you listen to Republicans, we won the Cold War by being a "socialist" nation. That's how nuts they are, and we need to repeat that at every opportunity.

And while we're at it, add in how Republicans are now soft on crime, weak on defense, and not even on the same planet as fiscal responsibility.

[ThoughtCriminal]

6. RWers seemed to always bring up Venezuela

It used to be North Korea but since Trump admires Kim so much they don't want to talk about it.

The thing is, why Venezuela - which is in no way and has never been similar to the U.S. in any way? Why can't we talk about Canada, or Denmark, or pretty much any other industrial western democracy? Just this irrelevant straw man.

[Hortensis]

7. The way to convince people not to be afraid of monsters under the bed

at night is NOT to inform them that they're real but harmless and won't bite their feet off.

It takes a flashlight to show they don't exist.

A flashlight on America reveals that the vast majority of Democrats would no more support changing from capitalism-based to socialism-based economy and society than they'd agree to sign over their bank accounts to a cult. We see overwhelming rejection in every election.

AND we even see it here on DU, among the few who argue for socialism. Very few of the few know or admit what it is and would involve. Wonder why?

"Roads and schools are really just socialism." "Socialism is what Europe has." A couple of worn-bare whoppers from America's currently most famous socialist to illustrate the reality that he couldn't give it away even by promising it had no teeth and was nice as apple pie.

What we need is for more people to realize, as they once did, that America's not interested. And that as a boogie to be frightened of, the specter of a Socialist State of America is about as real as those monsters under the bed.

Now, fascism as an alternative form of extremism: nearly half the nation's already been herded to that side of the ship of state.

THAT's real.

[aidbo]

8. Nt