system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why is calling Obama a socialist considered an insult? What's so wrong about that type of government anyways?
gpt
During the Cold War, the "enemy" of the United States (as well as most of the wealthy world) were all self-proclaimed socialist nations (The USSR and China being the largest). The word "socialism" has come to represent all the things US Americans prefer about their way of life to that of those countries: freedom, democracy and capitalism. So to call someone a socialist is often to associate them with the brutish Communist societies of the Cold War.

Objectively, Obama is not a socialist. Socialism is any social system where the means of production (ie, all the things presently owned by employers like machines and tools as well as land) are "socially" rather than privately owned and controlled. Obama is more accurately described as a Social Democrat, someone whose ideal society is quite capitalist but with a government who often intervenes to improve efficiency and fairness.