I grew up in England and moved to the States in my mid-late 30s, about 12 yrs ago.
My take on why socialism became a no-go sort of expression is to do with the Cold War. The great struggle for a few decades was defeating communism, principally the USSR, but also other expressions around the world.
For some reason, Communism and Socialism have become conflated in many people’s minds. Lots of Americans grew up on the idea that America stood for freedom, and would fight communism/socialism around the world because doing so is an absolute good, and will help people.
It’s not very sophisticated, but neither is the electorate!
Earlier in the 20th Century America was more socialist, though I’m not sure how much the word was used. Roosevelt helped the country out of the Great Depression with the New Deal, which, while not academically pure socialism, was certainly socialist in terms of government reaching in to help build the country and build the economy. FD Roosevelt was President for a long time, and after his time a limit of two terms, or 8 years, was put on the Presidency.
In my opinion Roosevelt’s policies nurtured the middle class and the sense of the American Dream, as America prospered in the fifties and sixties. There was a very large middle class, and even though it is all desperately old fashioned now, there was a strong sense that if you worked hard you could buy a place in the suburbs, own a car, and usually only the income of the husband was needed to sustain that lifestyle, and the wife was championed as mother and home maker.
In later years the country changed. Reagan benefits from a schmaltzy sort of avuncular personality, but in many ways he was just as bad for America as Thatcher was for the UK. If you are at the top of the economic pile you will likely think both were good for their countries, but what happened was a massive widening between rich and poor.
A massive underclass sprang up, and the idea that you could work hard and have a decent job and a decent middle class family life started to disappear. The middle class shrunk and the money flowed to the top.
Several decades of that sort of thing has got us to where we are now. The gap between rich and poor is enormous. The cycle of poverty, and related problems it brings - crime, guns, drugs, little or no health care, poor education and bad schools, etc. - is desperately difficult to break out of.
Technically speaking, the sort of socialism that FD Roosevelt helped to garner would help the country enormously. Rebuild it. Give people good jobs, on a living wage, so they have dignity and worth, and a middle class grows up again. It’s fine if people get rich from taking a risk, innovating, working hard, etc. But to have multi-billionaires make so much, and pay so little in taxes, while many of their employees also claim government benefits and assistance because they don’t make enough money to live… that has got to be wrong.
But unfortunately the word “socialist” has been hijacked, and is perceived as a great evil.
So to my mind, in the very small way I can do, among friends and colleagues, I talk about fairness, sharing, and particularly, helping as many people as possible to win. When the conversation is cast in those terms, there’s a lot more common ground to be found.
