but we can do socialism using a bottom-up, direct democratic, consensus based decision making approach, rather than a top-down, centralized state. We can learn from the mistakes of the past.
No you can’t. Your country has spent more than the last 200 years glorifying and giving power to whatever sociopath was crazy enough to amass the most money at the expense of everything. You really think this group of people is going to sit back without using their circle of influence to corrupt whatever flavour of socialism you come up with? If you truly believe the people you’ve willingly given the keys to will do nothing and watch the world screw them over, I’m sorry to say you’re more gullible than optimistic.