It is of course insane to call Biden and Harris socialists. But I do think there's something instructive in the way the RNC has linked socialism to Democrats and, particularly, the "destruction" of suburban America.

There's more going on here than the legacy of Cold War paranoia. Right-wing freakouts over socialism in America predate Stalinism. They're common in the late 19th century. There was a very violent Red Scare after WWI.

They often involve very explicit economic policy issues. But usually whatever "socialism" is ends up being pretty slippery. A lot of stuff the right just doesn't like gets dumped in a big bucket together and labeled socialism.

So Steve King says same-sex marriage is a socialist plot, Milton Friedman says progressive taxation is socialist, etc.

But a common theme through these various red scares is a simultaneous freakout over immigration and the Jim Crow order. At the turn of the 20th century the right rants about "Judeo-Bolsheviks" flooding the country from Europe; after WWII, a Marxist infiltration of the NAACP. etc.

So freakouts over "socialism" aren't necessarily about turning the United States into the USSR or an authoritarian butcher state. "Socialism" is just the word the right uses to describe anything other than the existing U.S. racial and economic order.

The McCloskey's aren't really afraid of mass nationalization of industry. The great fear is in their address was new zoning rules. Socialism here means desegregating the suburbs and having to interact with people who aren't rich.

The word "socialism," in short, is a placeholder for everything about democracy that makes the American right uncomfortable. It's still unacceptable for an American political party to just come out and say they don't like democracy. So they need another term.