What's with all this socialism business? A handful of lefty candidates are calling themselves socialists without a single radical socialistic item on their promise lists. They seem to have little idea of what socialism is. And most of the conservatives talking back to them don't seem to know, either... "Spreading the wealth" is not socialism. Sweden and other Scandinavian countries that Sanders habitually holds up as models to emulate are capitalistic powerhouses. They're not taking the means of production away from the private owners. They're just taxing wealth and using the proceeds to fund their plush social safety nets.
National Socialism and Socialism are the same thing, but some people (Stalinists, or the absurdly stupid) think they are polar opposites (good model for people who divide everything into two categories, as the op-ed writer does here).
Except for the fact that the National Socialists didn't nationalize any industries or banks (in fact, both the Nazis and Italian Fascists privatized several industries that their predecessors in the Weimar Republic and Facta's government) while Socialist and Communist governments did exactly that. And then there's the fact that the first people that Nazis and Fascists rounded up and shot were union leaders, Socialists, and Communists, not capitalists, landowners, or aristocrats (all of whom, if they weren't Jewish in Nazi Germany or opponents of their regime, kept their wealth and property).
But other than that, yeah, they're exactly the same /sarc>
but some people (Stalinists, or the absurdly stupid) think they are polar opposites (good model for people who divide everything into two categories, as the op-ed writer does here).
Actually, the "Nazis and Fascists were liberals" line of thinking is mostly limited to people who know nothing about history and who take hack talking heads like Jonah Goldberg and the staff at National Review Online seriously as political theorists.