It's not really a redefinition. The right, especially in the South, has long used "socialism" & "communism" to mean "things that help Black & non-white people."

That was true in the days of the segregationist Dixiecrats & the Citizens Councils. It remains true today. https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/1328328558889082881

What's changed is that a lot of national reporters are recognizing that many people who shout, "Socialism!" don't mean the dictionary definition.

Often when people bring up fears of socialism & I ask them to define it, they'll say something about POC getting special benefits.

Trump has also helped ensure that the once-coded cries of "Socialism!" are now more blatant in meaning.

What many white people fear when they hear, "Socialism!" is not that the people will seize the means of production & have common ownership. What they fear is that their "hard-earned tax money" will be support "less deserving" POC.

Many politicians, including Trump, exploit that.

That's why, to many on the right (and to Trump), Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton are just as "socialist!" as Bernie Sanders and AOC.

It isn't about economic policies. Bernie Sanders in 2016 deemphasized race compared to HRC & attracted some who later voted Trump.

Bernie Sanders joined other Democrats in 2020 in putting greater emphasis on structural racism; no surprise he couldn't win those people back.

The fear isn't about socialist economics. The "Socialism!" boogeyman is really about egalitarian, multi-racial liberalism.

And psst... there are a lot of white men who really like left-wing socialist economics, and may even identify as socialists or progressives, who nevertheless really, really hate the multi-racial egalitarian liberalism that so many white southerners misidentify as "socialism."

What do you think McConnell meant when he said it'd be "full bore socialism" to make grant D.C. & Puerto Rico statehood?

Did he mean, it'd be "full bore seizing the means of production"? Or was it about giving full representation to millions in two new majority non-white states? https://twitter.com/resistbot/status/1140457721399037953

This woman, explaining why she calls Joe Biden a socialist, does a great job of illustrating my point: "I define socialism as when you bring down your own country, your own race, because he’s not black." https://twitter.com/keithboykin/status/1147301694952411136?s=20