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For nearly a century, Republicans have characterized everything and everyone they don’t like as “socialist.” Social Security? Socialism! Medicare? Socialism! Health insurance for all? Socialism! Joe Biden’s infrastructure bill? Socialism! Bernie, AOC, and now Mamdani? Socialists!

“Socialism is a scare word they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years,” President Harry Truman said all the way back in 1952. “Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people.”

In recent years, with the help of their media allies, Republicans have revived that bogeyman once more and conditioned their supporters to believe that the threat of “socialism” is everywhere. 

Of course, that only works because their gullible voters/audiences don’t understand what socialism is, and, more importantly, what it is not. 

Socialism is a utopian economic and political system in which the people own all property and resources. The few times it has been tried, it hasn’t worked as advertised because humans are greedy (ironically, this is also why unrestrained capitalism doesn’t work). 

For example, in the Soviet Union, in Cuba, and, more recently, in North Korea and Venezuela, a one-party political system and complete state control of the economy have resulted in chaos, poverty, and repressive governments.

Socialist leaders, who really are just one type of authoritarian, want to nationalize businesses, suppress an independent media, control all institutions, dictate which ideologies can be taught, and plan the economy in a way that leads to rationing and shortages of goods. 

In other words, actual socialism is indeed something to be worried about, which is why, contrary to the claims of all of those talking heads on Fox News, nobody in his right mind in the US is advocating for it. 

So it’s instructive to consider just what socialism is not: It is not socialism to want people to be able to afford housing, to have health insurance, to put food on their tables, and to get an education without going into crippling debt.

That’s just sensible and compassionate governing. 

Now, you might say: “But wait a minute, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), and Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic candidate for mayor of New York City, are calling themselves Democratic Socialists. What’s up with that?”

Yes, that is correct. However, Democratic Socialists are nothing like actual socialists in the way Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels envisioned them. 

Instead, they want a democratic society with a healthier market economy that leads to a more equitable distribution of wealth. 

There are quite a few models of those in Europe. For example, the Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands, and Germany come to mind. These are places where “medical debt” is unheard of, students can go to college for free, workers have considerably more power, and people are generally happier than in the US. 

And, because less wealth is accumulated at the very top, a greater number of people live comfortably. Conversely, in the US, there are more really rich people, but the poverty rate is also higher, millions of people lack health insurance, and the social safety net has gaping holes. If the US adopted similar policies and started properly taxing the rich, there would be more opportunities and economic safety for tens of millions of Americans.

Speaking of Americans, when they get a say in the matter, e.g., via referendums, they generally support “socialist” policies like Medicaid expansion, which is why Republicans are working so hard to deny them opportunities for direct democracy. 

There is, however, one politician in the US today who is acting like the kind of socialist that Fox News keeps warning us about. 

Is it Sanders? Or AOC? Or maybe Mamdani?

Not even close. 

It’s Donald Trump. 

Since taking office in January, he has done and said things that look and sound familiar to those who have studied failed socialist states.

For example, Trump is trying to dismantle or undermine institutions that are not ideologically aligned with him. These range from courts and government agencies to law firms and media organizations.

He and his allies are also scrubbing government websites to eliminate unwanted narratives. 

In addition, he is using the power of the state to pressure universities into doing his bidding. 

Now, you might say that those are just the actions of any authoritarian, and that is certainly correct. As we noted before, that label certainly fits the leaders of the Soviet Union, Cuba, North Korea, and Venezuela. 

However, Trump is also embracing some of the economic ideals of these countries. He has repeatedly told Americans that they may have to make sacrifices as a result of his policies, for example that little girls might just have to make do with fewer dolls. 

Furthermore, Trump is also using the power of the state to pressure private enterprises. Earlier this year, he cautioned retail giant Walmart not to pass on the cost of his arbitrary tariff policy to consumers. More recently, he warned oil producers to “KEEP OIL PRICES DOWN,” when his military strike on Iran threatened to increase the cost. 

Another example is that Trump has personally prevented the government from enforcing the ban of the social media site TikTok, which allows the Chinese company to continue operating in the US. 

Speaking of China (another authoritarian regime with roots in socialism), perhaps the most egregious example of Trump’s embracing state control of a business took place in the same week as the executive order related to TikTok. 

In order to sign off on Nippon Steel’s acquisition of US Steel, which the president approved two weeks ago, the Japanese company issued something called “a golden share.” 

Essentially, the holder of such a golden share gets a special ownership stake in a business that allows him to veto certain corporate decisions. These golden shares are very common in China, where they allow the government to maintain a great degree of control over companies that are supposedly private enterprises… like TikTok.

This is obviously not in line with America’s private enterprise model, which is why Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) — not otherwise known as a red-eyed radical — had some things to say about golden shares in January. 

“If a company has a ‘golden share structure’ it means that one of the shareholders is Xi Jinping, the head of the Chinese Communist Party. He owns you and makes all the decisions,” Graham stated back then, before vowing that he would introduce legislation “that prevents any company that has a ‘Chinese golden share’ from being listed on any American exchange and further, remove any existing company that has a golden share structure from any American exchange.”

The craziest part is that Nippon Steel did not issue its golden share to the US government, but rather to Trump personally (for as long as he is president), according to documents it filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. 

What this boils down to is that Trump now has personal control over the decisions of a public company.

Imagine what would happen over at Fox News if a Democrat would do any of these things. 

But, of course, this isn’t about what is actually a socialist policy. Rather, it’s about scaring voters into believing that an ideology they themselves believe in is dangerous — an ideology that calls for a fairer distribution of wealth between a country’s richer and poorer people, and providing, among other benefits, a stronger social safety net. It is the kind of policy that might be found in a country run by, say, a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.