Fair points.

I get your sentiment, but they really do decide elections. And left wing democrats get re elected over and over in very blue cities and areas... That's not where the presidency or senate is won. Look at Virginia and NJ recently, those were centrist dems that won.

Probably true... But enough of those voted for Biden in 2020 to stop Trump. Not enough of them did this time.

Hope you are right!

A) what does white have to do with anything? FYI I'm Latino. B) do or say as you wish, but these are actually important issues because of how socialism is perceived in this country.

It's not as much fear of optics as not giving an easy win. And they actually are not democratic socialists. Their policies and statements align far more with social democracy.

They are not socialists if you look at their policies and statements. Socialism seeks to overthrow capitalism, either democratically or by force.

Ignore them if you want, but they won trump the election. For example just the Latino vote alone was a huge jump towards Trump. They had it with identity politics and aligned with bread and butter economic issues, and they generally abhor socialism, so there's that.

Ok you didn't define the difference, so I will. Bernie Sanders is a social democrat. He does not want to abolish capitalism.

Midterms can't come soon enough

Also re read my post, I'm not claiming anything will stave off attacks from the far right, I'm claiming those attacks stick more with the average American when you self define as a socialist, democratic or otherwise.

Easy on the insults, you're not on X. Now, define the difference between a democratic socialist and a social democrat, from an authoritative source, and compare Bernie or Mandami's policies to the definition. I'll wait.

Exactly! It's probably a worse word than fascist to the average American, and more believable after decades of scare mongering.

Yeah of course MAGA and fsr right will always call any democrat a communist, but this doesn't hold water with centrists. But if a democrat self identifies as any kind of socialist, then the allegation of communist seems more believable. This could be avoided by calling themselves social democrats.

There are some great episodes on freakonomics radio about the economics of theater, and why prices have skyrocketed. As with everything, it's complicated.

It's amazing how the right have successfully chipped away at the mere thought of government helping provide these, when it's a given in every other rich country.

I wish him and Bernie called themselves social democrats instead of democratic socialists. It would remove an easy target from ill intentioned right wingers, which scares off centrists who don't know better. Either way, I hope he has tremendous success so we have proof of an alternative model.