*"OVER YOUR DEAD BODIES!"

ftfy

WHERE IS THE MONEY COMING FROM screams my family as I tell them that they will pay the same or less in taxes than they were for insurance in the first place.

Universal healthcare is not socialism nor is it socialist.

Literally any kind of government can have universal healthcare. What type of government is completely irrelevant for What kind of healthcare the country has.

Socialism refers to collective ownership of the means of production. Social democracy/democratic socialism refers to a capitalist market economy supplemented by welfare programs, labor protections, and public services. The two terms are not interchangeable despite frequent misuse on the internet. You are describing and advocating for social democracy/democratic socialism not socialism. 

https://youtube.com/shorts/zMmjKRettxA

But there are the De…

Oooh. I see what you did there.

instead of the inflammatory weasel-wording 'what if socialism takes over' like it's some kind of coup.

If I can give some context, as a DSA member, while DSA is parasitizing the Democratic ballot line, it essentially acts like an independent party.

The goal isn't necessarily to "take over" the Democratic Party. Rather, the dominant position in DSA is what's called a "Dirty Break", where the org parasitizes the Dems in the short term, essentially until they kick us out (Ideally in such a way that DSA comes out the stronger org, and that the Dems whither not unlike the Whigs).

Something which is already starting to happen, with Democrats telling us to go "make our own party" as though we haven't looked at the US political system, and ruled that out for now.

Further, DSA is a big tent organization, with everyone from reformist social democrats, to Anarchists, Trotskyists, Marxist-Leninists, etc. And the DSA party platform (the updated version of which gets released on the 14th, I believe) expresses an overt desire by DSA to transcend capitalism. So this isn't just a return to FDR style social Democracy, like you're suggesting, there's a bit more going on

Or both!

I'm pretty wealthy and I want the USA to be way more socialist. I want medical for all, free daycare, food security for everyone, and a huge expansion of public education. Unfortunately about 50% of the population equates any socialism with Marxism and refuses to even hear how bad they're getting screwed by their Corp sponsored overlords.

I'm literally explaining social democracies vs Marxism to grown adults on nextdoor constantly. These knuckle draggers have the strongest political opinions and the weakest base of knowledge, it's infuriating. The 24 hour news cycle has turned our dumb neighbors into hateful mean little people.

Russia took over the GOP, not Democrats.

Good.

Instead of a "what if" we need a "how" and "when"

the real solution is to do away with the two party system

How do envision getting from here to there?

Smart and wise folk generally do their best to stay out of formal politics. politics sucks.

Social democracy and democratic socialism are not the same.

Social democracy, yes, is what you describe: try to regulate capitalism and make it livable via labor protections, public services and a welfare state. The end horizon is something like the Scandinavian dream.

Democratic socialism is different: the end horizon is indeed full blown socialism, with social ownership of the means of production and ultimately with abolition of capitalist relations altogether. However, for democratic socialists, the path to that horizon does not pass via revolution but via the democratic process.

In practice social-democrats and democratic-socialists end up finding it easy to agree on a political program for the here and now and so very often they coexist. Both want to reform capitalism.They just don't agree as to how deep that reform can go. For the democratic socialists, the things social-democrats want are in fact the means towards the end result. For the social-democrats that end result is not necessary considered possible or even desirable. But the two have never won that much that their differences would actually come to a head.

At some point we're just masturbating over minutia.

In practice, in the real world, there will never be such a thing as a purely socialist or purely capitalist economy. You could have a fully automated luxury communist economy, and there would still be someone out there doing what is effectively capitalism, just in exchange for favors and owed favors. You could organize your society into Ayn Rand's dream world, and there would still be some folks there giving each other things for free out of the kindness of their hearts. Hell, even the Soviets tried running an economy without money for awhile, and it failed miserably.

There is a continuous spectrum between a fully government-run economy and an entirely stateless economy. And all real-world governments lie somewhere on that spectrum. The governments that we call "socialist" just lie more towards the government-run side of things. Neither extreme has ever existed. The USSR was not a complete collective ownership of the means of production. The US is not and never has been a purely market economy.

Masturbating over pointless minutia is just pointless masturbation.

Who is advocating workers controlling the means of production?

That would be communism, not socialism. Lennonist communism is where the workers control the means of production in a collectivist but decentralized manner (Stalinist communism is where the state (Stalin) controls the means of production). Socialism is where the capitalists are allowed to maximize profit all they want (hell they keep most of that under the socialist model), but society guarantees a minimal quality of life (the social bit) by taxing the capitalists to ensure a base-level of universal health-insurance and/or housing for the masses.

Basically, democratic socialism is the logical conclusion of FDR's New Deal.

If someone reveals themselves to be garbage, they were always garbage