[ganomi]

One thing that irritates me about the political terminology in the US is the use of the word 'socialist' which often comes across as an insult.

In my opinion there are big differences between beeing 'social' and beeing "socialistic". [0]

The big german party SPD and even Die Linke rather fall into the category social than socialist.

[0] https://spfaust.wordpress.com/2011/06/12/socialism-vs-social...

[erikb]

Yes, also hard to express for me. Die Linke of course is not just social, but really socialist, as in pre-communist.

The SPD itself also started out as the socialist-like-communist party in its very early days. Then it became a social-but-not-socialist party, and now it's hard to define any political agenda for them.

Of course your direct political rival is associated with the devil, but for Germany Russia is even a possible political partner, just like the US. So being socialist is not really bad in itself. Many educated people actually have a pro-socialist view on the world here. What probably also need to be considered for non-German readers is this: The word socialist itself has a different meaning. It is more focussed on helping each ohter and helping the poor, than on political agenda. The same way a US citizen wouldn't consider a "Liberal" as a monoply-supporting exploiter, which is a common interpretation of the word "Liberal" here in Germany (which is why the FDP is one of the less strong parties). it's always important to consider that people don't mean the same thing as one would think, when they say such big words.

[Pica_soO]

I would not compare die Linke with the KPD.