I feel like these new progressive candidates (Ocasio-Cortez, Sanders) are making things harder for themselves by taking on the name “democratic socialist.” Firstly, the name isn’t even correct, and I’ll keep saying it until the day I die. In order to be a democratic socialist, one has to be a… socialist. Neither Ocasio-Cortez or Sanders advocate for socialism. But the bigger issue is that by labeling themselves socialists, they’ve made it much easier for Republicans to smear them. Now their opponents don’t have to convince voters that welfare = socialism = communism = deathcamps = bad. All they have to do is convince voters that socialism = communism = deathcamps = bad. That first step, the one that progressives seem to be willingly giving up, is the most important one. Getting from ‘welfare’ to ‘socialism’ is a much bigger jump than getting from ‘socialism’ to ‘communism’ or from ‘communism’ to ‘deathcamps’. It’s the right’s weakest argument, the most tenuous connection in that entire chain of ideas, and they’re just throwing it away.