These two arguments seem incompatible with each other, but I see them together constantly:
American self-described socialists don't clearly articulate what they mean by socialism, and they may not even know themselves.
We should equate people who call themselves socialists with people who call themselves Nazis because [insert socialist, in the dictionary sense, regime] murdered millions of innocent people and that's what these kids are tapping into.
From my own personal experience, it seems obvious to me that most of the "socialists" in America are actually welfare state capitalists who just don't want to use those words. So I don't really see any benefit to calling them Nazis because that type of socialism isn't what they're talking about.
On the other hand, the ones who DO advocate for hideous violence and the type of central planning economic ignorance that would lead to people eating the family dog, those people DO clearly articulate their beliefs and they do know what they're saying.
So basically, there's no point in calling the Sweden-ites Nazis and there's no point in pretending the central planners don't know what they're saying. There is, further, no reason not to make the slight effort to disaggregate the two groups (even if DSA doesn't seem interested in disaggregating them itself).
I don't think there's the willpower to disambiguate the two groups. One side sees them both as enemies and the other is happy to have people to make up the numbers.
Welfare state capitalists, yep, that's a good description.
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