> 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?

> Even very poor Americans who would literally have a much higher standard of living under socialism are taught to despise it.

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).

I doubt it, I have met many people from such countries and far from hating the West for having liberties, they despite that the West wraps their resource extraction, geopolitical interests and exploitation as delivering liberties for domestic consumption.

The West has directly supported the overthrow of a fair number of rather progressive leaders, at least by world scale.

"And the west for having them" - nope. Thats a propaganda line by the US goverment, and lately by the EU right wingers. There are much better reasons to despise the West than the percieved "freedom" they have. Like their actual acts of genocides and exploitation.

Agreed, probably not for the liberties per se but rather for hypocrisy.

The perception disconnect between the US and the rest of the world is that examples of “socialism” are dramatically different. Is socialism defined by the Cuba/Venezuelan example or Scandinavia/Nordic examples? I think what people see as socialism in the US is more related to their understanding of the term from the Cuba/Venezuelan flavor than Scandinavian flavor.

Americans have a distaste because they see people who prefer attempting a dangerous escape from those socialist countries to living in them.