2% tax raise for the top 1% of wage earners? Socialist. Gets used to flip votes in the elections.
Even very poor Americans who would literally have a much higher standard of living under socialism are taught to despise it.
Are you sure about that? The very poorest Americans likely have higher living standards than you think. Homelessness due to mental illness or drug abuse is a separate population, I mean working poor.
What socialist system would you like to hold up as an example?
Americans have a distaste because they see people who prefer attempting a dangerous escape from those socialist countries to living in them.
Pretty much the same for people living in oppressed countries. They would benefit from at least some liberties but are taught to despise them (and the west for having them).
The West has directly supported the overthrow of a fair number of rather progressive leaders, at least by world scale.