Can someone help me understand my wing nut friends?

[JHB]

51. Ask them if they think the tax rates below are socialist:

(leave off the date if possible)



If they say "yes", remind them that these are the inflation-adjusted numbers for real-life taxes in this country when they were young. Their parents paid these taxes, as did they until Kennedy, when the rates on the lower brackets were cut some and the upper ones by a lot (but still topping out at 70%).

If that is "socialist", what were the Russians? And why all the talk of "socialism" and "Marxist" when nothing he proposes comes close to actual historical policy in the USA?

After all, there's such a fuss as to increasing taxes on income over $250K. In 1955 there were 16 brackets that affected incomes over the equivalent of that. Out of 24 total brackets! Yet Ike and his VP Richard Nixon did not exactly go around with a hammer in one hand and a sickle in the other.

So why all the drama now?