This is the result of not teaching history in schools.
If we did, people would understand that the "socialist" legislative platforms of both the Republican President Roosevelt and the Democratic President Roosevelt were enacted in part to stop socialism or communism from gaining significant support in the United States.
Most of us have probably heard the arguments for socioeconomic intervention as a means of preventing poor voters from attacking the pricing and allocation functions of markets. Are those arguments still relevant?
Our entitlements and transfer payments have now institutionalized poverty for working class Americans, and FICA appears to have inadvertently shifted poverty from the elderly to the youngs. Our entitlements do indeed appear to be nothing more than buying allegiances, rather than comprehensive economic policy. Why does the pro-market motivation behind the New Deal and possibly the Great Society exonerate them from Republican criticism?