It wasn’t until I started writing about politics again that I began to get messages like this:

Cathie: I agree Trump has issues, but the Democrats have demonstrated that they want to tear down our economy and lives. I just can’t get behind socialism either.

Charlotte: You have to decide between democracy and socialism. Do you really want AOC running your country? Think long and hard before you throw your freedom away.

Frankly, these messages startled me. I wrote on one of my blog posts that Joe Biden is about as socialist as a maple tree. And how I wondered, has this most centrist of politicians demonstrated that he wants to ruin everybody’s life, or take their freedom away?

These messages seem so outrageously ignorant and ill-formed that I could hardly believe I was reading them. I realize if I were to keep writing about politics they would soon enough not surprise me at all.

There is no penalty to lying, only to telling the truth. Cherie and Charlotte can spew lies at me all day and probably never know it or learn what the truth is.  That is not Donald Trump’s fault. He didn’t invent this system, he just sucks more blood out of it.

I wrote about politics 20 years ago, and I wanted to return to it to understand what is happening now and to help my readers navigate it. I see I also need some help myself.

The biggest revelation for me is two-fold: the lies They are more brazen, more destructive,  and less ethical than anything I saw or heard not too long ago when I was a political reporter.

The media enables one falsehood after another, snoozing through the degradation of our politics and people seem much lazier, weak-minded, and gullible to me.

So many people believe almost anything spoon-fed to them by their own personal media or political cocoons and are closed to reality, truth, or new ideas or information.

It feels like the whole world lives inside of their own personal conspiracy theories, and will ride them to the end of the world.  Freethinkers are missing, hiding, hated,  or on the margins.

There is no common understanding of truth or respect for truth and facts.

The American mind has shrunk to the size of a pea when it comes to politics, and nothing illustrates this more than the way politicians and big business have closed us off to new and different ideas: socialism, for one.

Who, exactly, is supporting a transition to socialism in the Democratic Party, how would it ever get past our Congress?

I am not aware of any Democrat in any kind of leadership position who is a socialist or who is advocating Socialism for America. I can’t find it in any platform, and polls show no support for it among Democratic voters.

If Trump supporters weren’t e-mailing me about it in response to my columns, I would have no idea that more than a third of the country is convinced of an impending socialist takeover that is a complete fantasy and believes that Joe Biden and Democratic Party are totally committed to it.

I’ve been researching this all week. This is a complete invention of President Trump, his campaign, and conservative media.  I spent hours rooting around; if there is a Democratic plot to give up on capitalism, it’s a big secret.

Distortions are common in politics; shameless lying doesn’t even seem controversial anymore.

Why would Cathie believe that the Democrats want to tear down the economy and ruin her life? Why wouldn’t she answer me when I asked her that question?

Bernie Sanders, who almost became President in 2016, is a self-declared democratic socialist – not the same thing as a plain old socialist (nobody is sure what they are, either), and he lost big.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of Donald Trump’s favorite targets when it comes to raising the dread specter of socialism, is bright and exciting and original.  Trump supporters seem terrified of her, and another bright kid, the 16-year-old Greta Thunberg, the outspoken environmentalist.

Could these two outspoken young women take Wall Street down?

I’m much impressed with these idealistic young people, they seem admirable and brave to me, but Ocasio-Cortez isn’t running for President and didn’t support Joe Biden in the primaries.

I feel like politics has become the Magic Kingdom, write nasty. What evidence could Charlotte possibly have to support the idea that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would be running our country?

She isn’t even old enough to run for President.

Is this what they are afraid of, these big tough men and women with their red hats, trucks, and machine guns? AOC?

Some of AOC’s ideas seem out there to me. Still, I would hardly see her as a threat to the Republic, especially after watching Donald Trump trample all over our democracy, and even our economy.

When did we start hating the best and the brightest among us? Aren’t young people supposed to be idealistic dreamers?

I should say that I am not a socialist, if it matters, nor did I get a sense of what Charlotte and Cherie were talking about until I watched Fox News for a few hours this week.

Writing this, I feel like I have to add this disclaimer about my  beliefs, I can picture the next congressional committee grilling me and others to know who was in my socialist cell.

Fox News isn’t worried about the pandemic, nor are they much concerned with any aspect of racial turmoil but black looters and thieves. They live in their own dimension. So do we.

Fox News is very worried about socialism and confederate statues; they agree with Cathie and Charlotte that this election is a choice between socialism and capitalism and that socialism in any form is evil.

They believe the people who want those statues to come down hate our country and want to destroy our value.

Cathie and Charlotte were using some of the same words as the Fox News commentators, who talk all the time about leftie radicals ruining the country.

This socialism panic is all a complete surprise me and to every Democrat that I know. I see it rising all over the Internet. Facebook strikes again.

Fox News and President Trump spend much more time demonizing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and pooh-poohing the coronavirus than urging their older audiences to wear masks.

This leaves me wondering who is the greatest threat to our democracy.

Some background and facts (remember those?)

Socialism is not Communism or Marxism, no matter what they tell you. It permits the ownership of private property, protects free speech, and embraces free enterprise.

Republicans and big businesses have hated the very idea of socialism for a long time. They dread the idea.

In reality, early socialism was a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole, not just the wealthy.

Democratic Socialism – Bernie’s kind – is newer much more limited than socialism itself; it would make health care and other worker benefits available to everyone. The government would work and tax to distribute wealth more widely, one percent of the population could not control nearly half of the nation’s wealth.

Marxism is not socialism. Neither is Communism.

Marxism was created as a transitional social state that governs between the overthrow of capitalism and the realization of Communism. Marxism and Communism are now considered failed ideologies.

Socialism has fared better and is generally popular in countries where it exists.

Why do Trump and billionaire donors hate socialism so much?

This is mostly because socialism in any form would cost them a lot more than capitalism, which permits them to treat workers any way they wish and pay them anything they want to pay them. Any form of socialism would take a chunk of their profits and share some of the profits with workers, a treasonous idea in America.

I’m not an advocate for socialism, but it doesn’t sound like such a dread idea to me, once I got into it. It is a wonder to me that so many workers are afraid of it.

Democratic socialism has been in practice for a while in some Scandinavian countries.  The idea is actually to combine democracy with socialism, not destroy democracy.

Workers elect their leaders. They are paid more, get paid vacations, home leave when they have kids, early retirement, longer lives, and free and better health care.

If they are laid off, they have to be taken care of. Communism decreed that the “people” – the state that is, own and control everything.

Democratic socialism argues that people should share in the profits for their work; private individuals can own property and businesses.

Workers in socialist or Democratic socialist countries have more say than American workers do when it comes to controlling their lives.

I can understand why some people might prefer the free and robust feeling of capitalism, but it’s hard for me to understand why so many people buy the idea that socialism is a dangerous path to be avoided at all costs and not ever discussed.

I think the truth is that for the corporations who rule America, treating workers more generously is a dangerous path to be avoided at all costs.

Only the wealthy and the powerful benefit from that phobia.

When I think about it, it’s quite a hat trick to convince the people who are getting screwed to fight so hard to keep a system that is screwing them. The Corporate Nation’s greatest fear is that white working people and people of color figure out one day they are allies, not enemies.

Black Lives Matter might be the first social organization to achieve that, which is why they are so reviled.

I would once have thought that impossible.

I always ask these people who send me messages like Cathie and Charlotte what they think it means to be a socialist or a democratic socialist.

None of them have ever replied, ever, which leads me to think corporations and billionaires like Donald Trump have done a great job of brainwashing the very people who could benefit from fatter paychecks, cheaper and more available health care, solvent retirement options, and longer life expectancy than American workers.

I love our country, but I don’t buy into the arrogant notion that nobody else has any better ideas than we have. Just look at the news. We are a mess; the whole world is pitying us now. I see that socialism has evolved, they do some things a lot better than we do.

Even socialists are not precisely clear about what socialism means. As best as I can determine, socialism is defined as a system of social organization in which private property and the distribution of income are subject to democratic control and participation.

The idea is that control of private property and the distribution of income shouldn’t only rest in the hands of the people who make the most money. That doesn’t sound so dreadful to me.

Democratic socialists like Bernie Sanders and Occasion-Cortez are different. They believe that both the economy and society should be run democratically—to meet public needs, not just to make profits for a few.

Am I missing something? That doesn’t sound so dreadful to me; neither does try to save the planet from corporate greed, which is basically what Ocasio-Cortez is trying to do.

Is the message going to our children that this somehow unpatriotic and dangerous?

To achieve a more just society, some socialists argue, some of the structures of our government and economy must be transformed through greater economic and social democracy so that ordinary people can participate in have a voice in decisions that affect our lives, from health care to layoffs.

It used to be okay, they say, for people to pay their doctors for health care. It is no longer possible for ordinary people to do that. So the system needs to change. Is that the part that so frightens Cathie and Charlotte?

Democracy and socialism seem to go hand in hand in most places.

A Gallup Poll in 2018 found that Americans today are most likely to define socialism as connoting equality for everyone, while some understand the term as meaning the provision of benefits and social services to everyone.

No wonder the billionaires hate it. What, I wonder, are Trump and  Cathie and Charlotte talking about when they suggest it will ruin our economy and destroy lives?

All over the world, wherever the idea of democracy has taken root, the vision of socialism has taken root as well—everywhere but in the United States.

Because of this,  a lot of false ideas – fake news –  about socialism have developed in our country.  If you do some research, the idea that socialism is incompatible with democracy and takes away our lives just doesn’t hold up.

As my e-mail and Fox News and other conservative media suggest, “socialist” remains a dirty and often misunderstood term in the realm of US politics. Nearly 21 percent of Americans still consider socialism to be a threat to the United States; an Insider poll found last summer.

Businesses and the Republican Party have always hated socialism and portrayed it as a threat to democracy.

But democratic socialism is very much connected to democracy – to elections, and to individual control of life, from work rules to pay to health care.

Reading about it, I think Democratic Socialism is democracy from both ends, not just people with a lot of money, as our democratic system has become.

What politicians like Sanders are pushing for is not akin to the authoritarian-style socialism in places like Venezuela. It is a way for Democratic countries to treat people more equitably and fairly when economic inequality is becoming so severe.

As part of his, campaign Trump has repeatedly depicted Democrats as dangerous and “radical” socialists.

As Governor Andrew Cuomo said recently, some people listen to Presidents, even Donald Trump, and his frequent and false rants about socialism are believed. Somehow, people have come to see it as something that takes their freedom away.

Whether it works or not, the driving notion behind Democratic Socialism is just the opposite – it would give more people more freedom.

It might not be the thing Americans want or need, I’m not qualified to say, but it is neither feared nor hated anywhere in the world as much as it is here.

And why the hysteria over Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez?

It’s creepy. She worked hard with pennies and no pollsters to upend a powerful opponent, is loved by her constituents, and has lots of fresh ideas, some utopian, some smart, some impossible.

Instead of slandering and demonizing people like her, we should be begging more of them to come to Washington and really bring change to our ossified legislative system.

Young conservatives have been doing that successfully for years. Is there really no room for a single Democratic socialist?

Isn’t she the kind of person, left or right, we want in Congress looking for new and better ways to do things? A person to really shake up the system, not just pretend?

Most of the muck-a-mucks in the Democratic Party hate her as much as Trump and his supporters do. She won’t be running our country anytime soon. We could do a lot worse. We have done a lot worse.

Her Green New Deal seems a naive fantasy now, but it remains the most ambitious and talked about proposal yet for helping to save our planet. In a country that thinks climate change is a hoax, is it an evil thing to propose or talk about?

I am not aware that she has done anything dishonest or dangerous. I like her a lot more than most of the brain dead old men I see bloviating in Congress.

I asked Charlotte to tell me what it is that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ever did to her to generate so much fear and confusion. No answer, of course. Very few people know to listen or learn right now. Very few want to learn.

Socialism is not a crime and is not illegal or unconstitutional.

Nothing I  have read has persuaded me to be a socialist, I am not much of a joiner. Democratic socialism versus our kind of capitalism would make for a great presidential debate.

The American political culture has embraced the idea that there are only two ways to look at the world, from the “left” or the “right.” Those ideologies are the American equivalent of two Communist Parties. They don’t want to let anybody else in.

It seems to me that people deserve more options than that.

We have such strange ideas about helping people. “When I give food to the poor, the call me a saint,” wrote the author Dom Helder Camara,” when I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a Communist.”

If people in America donate to food pantries, they are lauded. If they fight for everybody to have enough to eat, they are socialists or communists.

Show me a capitalist, wrote Malcolm X, and “I’ll show you a bloodsucker.”

If you look at the stats about the distribution of wealth in America, he had a point.

Lenin’s argument was that freedom in capitalist society always remains the same throughout human history. It means freedom for the slave owners and the rich.

His solution didn’t work out too well, but the question of who is f free in a capitalist culture remains.

I don’t know if I will ever see a real discussion about changing our social structure to even things out more, although I never imagined Black Lives Matter would be the biggest social movement in American history either.

Good for the young; they are out and moving.

There is nothing I have read about socialism that makes me wet my pants over the prospect of democratic socialism coming to our country in some form at some time. If I were Jeff Bezos, I might have a different feeling about it.

People often cite the autocratic leaders of Argentina as an argument against socialism. Argentine is not related to mainstream socialism.

People all over the world also warn about the capitalist billionaire who is ruining America. Does that mean capitalism should become something to dread?

That doesn’t seem to bother Chiel or Charlotte.

It is very much in the interest of billionaires and corporations, and now, it seems, Republicans, to steer people away from socialism.

I always liked Elizabeth Warren’s campaign pitch about wealth and equality.

She insisted she was a capitalist, but she sometimes sounded like a democratic socialist, which is why the banks hate her so much: “There is nobody in this country who got rich on their own. Nobody. You built a factory out there – good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory… Now, look. You built a factory, and it turned into something terrific or a great idea – God bless! Keep a hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward.”

That was the best description of socialism that I found anywhere.

Socialism in any form would cost the one percent a lot of money. We live in a country where one percent of the population controls 40 percent of the wealth.

That isn’t okay for Democratic socialists. Why is it alright for Charlotte and Cherie, or for so many Trump supporters who message me?

The left and the right have killed off the ability of millions of Americans to think for themselves.

We are becoming a people of sheep, lying machines,  labeled and herded into pens, and told what to believe. We are too often lazy and weak-minded to check things out for ourselves.

We can reject socialism if we please, but wouldn’t it make some sense to know what it is first? Maybe the witch hunts are never over.

So here’s the ironic bottom line. Nobody knows what socialism is.

There is no single definition of socialism. A socialist is simply an adherent of socialism. Donald Trump (or Fox News) has never defined their notion of socialism other than to attack people they consider socialists.

I am fairly sure from his remarks that Donald Trump, of all people,  has no idea what socialism is or might mean in America – we have never been permitted to get that far.

Bernie Sanders came closer than anyone, in part because he rarely mentioned socialism in any form. Running against him was Donald Trump’s wet dream.

Hellen Keller was not especially political, but she also seemed to embrace a socialist ideal, and she expressed it as eloquently as anyone has in her book Rebel Lives.

It’s a good way of wrapping up this piece:

“The few own the many because they possess the means of livelihood of all … The country is governed for the richest, for the corporations, the bankers, the land speculators, and for the exploiters of labor. The majority of mankind are working people. So long as their fair demands – the ownership and control of their livelihoods – are set at naught, we can have neither men’s rights nor women’s rights. The majority of mankind is ground down by industrial oppression in order that the small remnant may live in ease.”