As you may have noticed, many members of the American media and political classes are currently rending their garments in terror and despair at the perceived threat of “socialism.” It’s not at all clear what that word means in 2026, in this context or any other.
It only helps a little to observe that whatever “socialism” is supposed to refer to these days, it doesn’t have much to do with an economic or political system where the state or the working class control the means of production. I’m sure we could find people out there who advocate that. Hell, I might be among them, if it were a remotely realistic possibility. But none of those people are prominent in the current (and long overdue!) internal power struggle within the Democratic Party and the American left writ large.
