@avilewis I've found some success explaining to people wary of the term that the NSDAP lied that they were socialist to hijack the popularity of the term across Europe at the time, the Soviet communists lied that they were socialist for the same reason, and the North American capitalists lied that socialism was somehow both fascist and communist to smear it with the justified unpopularity of communism and fascism post-WW2.

I tell them democratic socialism with when you have a right to everything you need to live and be free, and that takes precedence over anyone else's profits, but still allows private property rights when those wouldn't kill people or otherwise deprive them of human rights. In contrast, I tell them communism is when supposedly everyone owns everything collectively, so there are no private property rights, but in practice, the head of government and their favourite enablers effectively own everything.

Now that the American fascists have been calling every policy that reifies human rights as priority over oligarch greed "fascism," this clarification tends to land better than it did before.