Is it true that Americans are to this day afraid of socialism?

[Bofferbrauer2]

Zoombael said:
After so many failures are there still people who think socialism/communism? Look at the Third Reich. That's "socialism".

That's fascism, not socialism. They just called themselves socialist to get the rather large vote share from socialist while they were hunting down the members  of the actual socialist and social democratic parties. They even had a slur for those who actually believed they had any socialism in the party by calling them beefsteaks (brown on the outside, but red inside, as in the colors of the NSDAP and Socialism respectively)

Otherwise, you could say that North Korea is the biggest democracy and force of good in the world. After all, it's called the People's Democratic Republic of North Korea. Can't get more democratic and anti-authoritarian than that, right? Names and labels mean nothing.

Also, Communism and Socialism are two very different things. By the time Stalin was firmly in power the only aspect of socialism that it still had was the planned economy - the one part of socialism that has been disowned by modern democratic socialists.