On Thursday, Vice President JD Vance was asked to define socialism, and his answer was concerning.
To the likely 2028 Republican presidential candidate, socialism means “want[ing] to replace American workers with foreign workers” and “want[ing] boys to play in girls sports.” That “definition” has less to do with an economic system than with the vice president pinning his favorite culture-war grievances on his political enemies.
On Thursday, the vice president, flanked by other Trump administration officials, announced that the federal government would suspend Microsoft from PERM, a Department of Labor program that allows employers to sponsor skilled foreign workers, including those on H-1B visas, for permanent residency, citing allegations of fraud. Whether Microsoft is the worst offender remains debatable.
But at one point, the discussion took a turn when a reporter asked Vance to define socialism and explain why socialist candidates are gaining ground across the U.S.
Socialism is government control or ownership over the means of production. For example, government shares/ownership in what used to be private companies is a step towards socialism.
— Daniel Di Martino (@DanielDiMartino) October 8, 2026
"How do you define socialism personally and why do you think socialist candidates are popping up everywhere across the country?" a reporter asked.
"Oh man, you know, I guess it's honestly it's a hard term to define these days because very often socialism, you know, classically you would think socialism is about prioritizing workers and yet in reality I guarantee that most of the self-described socialists running across the United States of America are going to howl about this announcement today which is prioritizing American workers over foreign workers," the vice president said. "So I don't know what the term means anymore. I think in reality what it actually means in the American context is that you want to replace American workers with foreign workers and you want boys to play in girls sports. That's what unites the socialists that I see running across the United States of America today."
The vice president is simply wrong.
The definition of socialism is government or state control over the means of production, whether that means control over capital, the business itself, or the workers.
As for Vance’s own warped definition, there’s an argument to be made that every communist or socialist leader, from Lenin and Stalin to Mao, Chávez, and Pol Pot, “prioritized” their own nation’s workers over foreign workers. That alone tells us neither how a nation organizes its economy nor how much freedom it allows.
And if the argument is really that H-1B visas constitute “socialism,” a program accounting for less than 0.3 percent of the national workforce is a curious place to start. The government’s more than 30 stakes in private companies, the entitlements drowning the country in debt, the tariffs, the redistribution, and poll after poll showing Americans’ appetite for socialism and government intervention, and their reluctance to trust the free market, might deserve attention first. But those are harder to turn into an electorally popular punching bag.
But Vance’s definition reveals more about him than it does about socialism: it’s whatever he dislikes. The tactic is much the same as Democrats calling every Republican over the last decade a Nazi. At first, it rallies your side. Eventually, it empties the word of meaning, dulls the accusation, and gives cover to the very conduct it’s supposed to condemn.
For an official who has proudly proclaimed that it’s time to move past the economics of Milton Friedman and give the government far more direct control over the country’s economic activity, that’s quite the convenient definition.
