Whether Sen. Bernie Sanders wins or loses, one thing that can be said is that he’s done what few, especially on the right, thought possible even just a year ago: He made the word “socialism” viable within the bounds of U.S. electoral politics. It’s a change that has been a long time coming as polling shows creeping acceptance of the word, but Sanders’s campaign put it to the test and largely succeeded. The idea that it’s impossible to be taken seriously while proclaiming one’s self a socialist has been discredited.
And conservatives are getting nervous. Simply accusing someone of being a socialist used to be enough to discredit them, but now it seems you might actually have to make, gasp, arguments explaining why it’s a naughty. (And to force this change so soon after the same thing happened with homosexuality — will you liberals never stop?!) So Bill O’Reilly dug into the stacks of right-wing propaganda, blew the dust off them and started reciting them for the Fox News audience.