For the past few months, I have been bringing up leftist ideas with my coworkers, some of whom I know tend to be more politically conservative.
For example, we all recently had to accept or decline healthcare coverage for the year, and so were all discussing how much came out of our paychecks for it, what/how much different plans covered, etc. And I said something along the lines of “man, I wish all those taxes we paid went to stuff that actually benefitted the people at large, like healthcare. Too much of our own money gets spent on corporate subsidies, bailouts, tax cuts, and other stuff that mostly only benefits a small percentage of people.”
Everyone was more or less in agreement.
I've talked about surplus value (without using that term directly), how companies wouldn't hire you unless you produced more value for them then they have to pay back to you. Often paying you only a tiny fraction of the profits your labour directly generates. I've talked about unions (without using that word) and how workers who organize tend to have more leverage to get back more of their surplus value back as wages. I've talked about the way the hyperwealthy use loopholes to avoid taxes when they accumulate untold wealth.
I've even talked about how cool it would be if our workplace was owned by the employees collectively, and run democratically, and about the decisions we would make to better the company. No one freaked out and said “but that's socialism! which is bad!” Everyone I talked to was incredibly receptive to it, and even had some ideas of their own for if our workplace was run that way.
It's incredible to me the amount of propoganda that has been pushed in order to demonize these ideas. Ideas that, frankly, people tend to really really like when they aren't viewing them as left-vs-right politics. Not to say that politics and a distinction between left and right isn't important. I am decidedly a leftist and by and large support left-wing policies.
But when they aren't framed that way, a lot of the baggage that comes from decades of propogandizing these ideas fades away.
Just some thoughts I had. Would love to hear all y'all's as well.