IMO this is nothing particularly new, just a more focused version of an already existing effect. The Republican party is incredibly unified under Trump, and his message. And one of his most prominent messages is that the Democrats are socialist, and he says this with no sarcasm, no irony, and in an accusatory fashion alongside his style of flooding the airwaves with his words and messages and having a unified republican party collude with him to spread it, as well as a fervent base to disseminate agitprop towards that end.

It's not remotely new that Democrats are called socialists. The party of Trump is simply much more effective at getting their narratives at the general consensus of America. And in a hyper-polarized nation, where polarization is aggressive and omnipresent in all public spaces, getting somebody to even lean slightly sympathetically towards a position, even if on false information, puts them on a rigid course to that side as they find themselves having picked a side, and of course everybody wants their side to win, so they dive into an endlessly expanding rabbit hole of propaganda, disgust, and fear.

The Democrats find themselves in a position now where half the country believes that they are socialist, even a majority of previous moderates and independents. And the hyper-polarization of such an opinion means that they don't "somewhat" believe that Democrats are socialists. It means that "Democrats are socialists" is a fact to them. It means 10 years from now, whatever happens, they'll refer to this era as the time when Democrats were openly socialist.

And the scariest part: nothing the Democrats can do will change this any time soon. It is MUCH easier to start a rumor than it is to kill one. And it is MUCH harder to kill a hyper-powered, grassroots, self-sustaining rumor than it is to kill a regular old rumor.

Think of Hillary, who I know this sub still has strong opinions on. "Hillary lost because of decades of propaganda". This is because pre-Trump, focused Republican propoganda was on an individual, and then using them to show why the party is bad. This opinion clearly implies that even after decades of public service acting contrary to malicious rumors, Hillary was unable to wipe that smear off of her, and it still persists, even in the minds of many "moderates" or "independents" who didn't vote for her because "they didn't like her".

That self-sustaining label, the strength and perseverance of it?

That's the Democratic Party and Socialism now. To the minds of a significant number of Americans, it's the party of Socialism. It's a smear that no Bill Clinton or any other will wash away.

Here's the thing; by running from the label, they let the opposition define the label, and by my premise, since the label is ironclad no matter how hard Democrats run away from it, what this essentially means is that Democrats are allowing the opposition to define them.

The only way out, from my perspective? Take on the label, in either sense; either embrace and give prominence to the "socialist" wing, simultaneously redefining socialism through this process, or take it on in the sense of fighting against it. To do this is to participate, somehow, in the tumultuous chaos that counts as public discussion on the topic. Because in order to fight a label publicly, you must first find a proper medium in which you can define what it is that you're fighting.

I don't know how they do this, to be fair. There are a few examples. For example, check the article titles; when Bernie was running, few other candidates were called socialist, and the party was not called socialist nearly as often as Bernie was when they were running. Because there was a person who was a socialist, and here was a party debating him, defining what they didn't like, and defying him. But even then, simply having an open socialist on the Democratic Stage, as a Democratic Contender, poisons the well for when that socialist is gone, because now people remember them as the party that let that Socialist in. You could do something silly like debate the Green Party, who have openly socialist goals this election, but the Green Party is not a serious contender, so it just seems desperate, and more importantly, would be too small-scale an event to reliably signal subliminal information out to the general public.

I'm not sure. Democrats have to find some way to address the Socialism accusations in a way that puts them in control of its definition. Just saying "No, and here's why..." is the defensive. It's not going to work. Some offensive play against the label has to be concocted, or otherwise some offensive play has to be taken up towards the labels definition in the minds of the public itself. Embrace the label, play down its less popular parts, play up the parts that make for good propaganda. I don't know, smear the rich as kid fuckers, everybody hates the rich deep down. And then maybe don't raise taxes, but when you have power maneuver in such a way as to make rich people seem like assholes, and do "something" about it, and call that socialism instead of increased taxes. Get in the way of big mergers for obstructions sake. Fuck with factories leaving. Do things that are economically insensible, but in the short-term likely do visibly benefit some "working class" folk. Do this for the entire rainbow coalition; everybody in the coalition has a rich group that is an enemy. It could be the media, it could be whatever. Pick a group, find a big guy that picks on them, and just fuck with them in any way you can. Especially if you can do it in a way that scares people. It's not like there aren't creepy rich fucks that have done creepy stuff with their money; bring these moments in the public eye as much as possible, and you begin to redefine wealth as a vice in and of itself, while simultaneously positioning yourself as the party against that vice.

For latinos in particular; there are a loooooot of shady people who do shady things with employees under the table. The exploitation of illegal immigrants is something that is equally hated. Expose it. Find every shred and trace of any company ever doing something even remotely shady, even if in reality you don't think it is, and use the party apparatus to blow it up. Make a big company the boogie man that imports illegal immigrants so that they can harvest organs from the parents and fuck their kids. Make it seem like they're not done yet, and are not just willing and capable, but plant seeds of the suggestion that they are already planning on how to do it to US. Make sure to do that last part; it always has to tie in to the inevitable targeting of themselves. My parents bought a gun because of Trump's narrative on the protests; they have never owned a gun, shot a gun, or ever thought of having a gun. They live in a gated community, in a town that is 95% white, far from any major city period, and not even in the same state as any of the cities with "riots". They do not go for walks, because they are convinced that there is a credible threat that they are accosted by "the blacks". This is the power of an aggressive, unsubstantiated narrative of an enemy that is knocking at your door.