Some were people who grew up in former Soviet states where simplified versions of socialist writing in the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries were taught and they focused more heavily on the political structure of the communist state rather than the relationality and philosophical underpinnings of Marxism and socialism; structuralist and postmodern ideas didn’t even seem to factor in.

It’s true though, there has been a very intentional effort among liberals to appropriate socialist and communist ideas into their rhetoric as they have feminist, queer, and African American theory under neoliberalism. I’ve had classes where I have to explain what “liberal” means because it’s pretty much assumed it’s going to be heard the same as “progressive,” which has also been deprived of meaning but over a much longer period of time. Euros are the same though, and on Lemmy especially since it’s a bit more distributed among American and European users for a bunch of reasons. You see it on other platforms, but on here there’s so many Europeans who straight up think they’re altruistic socialists but presume everyone else agrees that colonialism is over and Europe is reformed (corporations and international law is what isn’t colonialism apparently btw, lol)

Liberalism is exceptional at appropriation because it has emerged over centuries of EuroAmerican imperialism and settler-colonialism, its main purpose is to steal.