[maxmamis]

> Political note: calls for nationalisation, in American politics, is a gift to the other side.

Perhaps you should rephrase this as "calls for nationalization run counter to my own free-market ideology" rather than a) assuming you know what everybody else thinks, and b) suggesting that conventional wisdom should dictate the bounds of acceptable discourse.

Not to mention, plenty of countries — the US included — have successfully nationalized companies and entire industries.

[GavinMcG]

A practical understanding of the country's political messaging isn't the same thing as free-market ideology. I'm not especially free-market, but I recognize that poor messaging gets picked up by Fox News (for example) who beat their drum over and over and over again such that the underlying ideas have a huge uphill battle to fight.

[syshum]

I can not think of a single company or industries the US has nationalized that I would consider a "success"

[refurb]

No, you’re entirely wrong. Any call to nationalize just firmly placed you in the most left of the left-wing side of the Democratic Party. The one with no power and the one moderate Democrats like to distance themselves from.

[Miraste]

Unless you go back to FDR, the US has only "nationalized" (bailed out) companies when they were on the verge of collapse with catastrophic economic consequences, and because of 9/11. Nationalizing a functioning company, no matter how evil, would be unprecedented and immediately fail after being labeled communist. I'm not commenting on the merits of the idea here, only the political reality.

[tmp_anon_22]

> labeled communist

Its so crazy to me that some Americans label abstract ideas as evil. Communism == evil. Socialism == evil. Many welfare programs == evil. Immigrant labor == evil. High minimum wage == evil. Some languages, religions, cultures == evil. Stop subverting the English language because you're too lazy to check a thesaurus. None of those things are evil.

[tyre]

The comment you are replying to is not assuming that they know how everyone else thinks, _nor_ are they saying what is "acceptable discourse".

They are, rather, making a statement about strategy and messaging in American politics; a point which has borne out in countless political contests over the past decade alone. There is a reason why Republicans try to say "socialis(t/ism)" as often as possible. It works.

One example off the top of my head is Florida during the most recent presidential election. The Republicans beat the drums of socialism broadly and especially targeted at Cuban-Americans who immediately think of Castro. Voters who might otherwise skew towards Biden went Trump.

Again, that's one example, but the point is about _messaging_ and how the electorate in America broadly (not 100%, everywhere, etc.) responds to "socialism". (Nationalization being, of course, clearly tied to socialism.)