Not even democracy makes socialism respectable.

Sharing is not caring.

I live in a senior condo in FL, yesterday I received a mass mailing from the republican party of Florida supporting of course the traitor trump, showing Biden, Harris and Bernie and AOC, trying to scare people with the use of socialism and how radicals are influencing the moderate dems. All residents got one. Scare tactics work on some of the elderly, but I was pleasantly surprised when a neighbor opened her mailbox and commented sarcastically "yes, who the fuck wants free medicine, free college and an environment where we all can live, right?"

Look it's just the manifestation of the human need to have "A" answer of some kind.
It doesn't matter if it's inaccurate.
Consider all the anal bleeding caused by the recategorization of the "planet" Pluto to "dwarf planet", like why would anyone care? Pluto is what Pluto is regardless of what we call it and no one is going in the foreseeable future, so why all the emotion?
It's really simple, humans don't like the rules to change, EVER.
As it turns out the only actual authority any of us accepts is our own, and Pluto not being a planet challenges that concept for people that feel they already know "enough" about the planets and would prefer not to ever give it a second thought again, so now they're pissy about it.
Socialism = Bad is as true as Pluto = planet.

Of course you do realize that they are brainwashed to believe that socialism is related to Russian communism, and ignore the realty of socialism and it's real purpose in our society and civilization.
Capitalism is good and is needed for a healthy and stable economy, but only in moderation.

Trouble is both candidates are against advancing socialism.

Excellent.