I think he'd like to be. His reflexes are certainly in that direction.

He just wants to erase everything Obama ever did. When he talks about replacing it with something, he talks some pretty socialist stuff. The congress the past two years just wouldn't give it to him.

But his socialism is nationalist, not communist, in nature.

When he says he supports universal healthcare? It's a social policy but far from socialist.

Universal healthcare, especially when you guarantee equal rates with pre-existing conditions, is gonna end up being highly government-involved. Whether by ownership or regulation.

He also supports social security and medicare

universal healthcare could be good
or it could be horrible
it all depends on whether they tackle the hard problems around cost and pricing
( they won't, there is a reason the investment portfolios on the hill do so well)

He advocates for a $1 trillion infrastructure initiative coordinated if not paid for by the government.

If he started talking about complete redistribution of wealth and workers taking the means of production I'd agree but at the end of the day he's a capitalist (also socialists don't lower taxes).

He keeps talking about what "he" will do, meaning the government, and taking credit for it. Not the market. Not entrepreneurs. But him, himself, as president.

Communists are about complete redistribution of wealth and workers taking the means of production. Socialists are about government directing, either by ownership or regulation, the flow of wealth.

When I say socialist, I am talking about socialism in the sense of western Europe and even 1930's Germany. The government didn't own everything, they just gave it to people who would do what they wanted and regulated the hell out of it.

I imagine any socialist you'd talk to would say Trump is far from being a socialist.

National socialism is very different from Marxist socialism. One has as it's guiding star benefiting individuals collectively - whether or not they ever achieve it is another story. National socialists are all about the state. Glorify and better the state and everything trickles down. In both cases, government either owns or heavy directs production and wealth distribution.

National socialism was a response to marxist socialism

Would Trump deregulating tons of things fall under that? I think not.

His people and Congress have edged toward deregulation, but when he actually talks he's talking about government solutions. Again, he's very populist and that tends to be government solutions. I'm certainly not saying he's AOC, but he's certainly tended toward solving things himself rather than leaving it to the market.

He runs the government like a business rather than like the government.

Which isn’t that efficient.

^^

His business sense is very autocratic.

how were the NSDAP socialist in anything other than name?

They were anti-capitalist, got a lot of support from working class Germans, and considered free trade to be disadvantageous to Germany.

and those are defining characteristics of socialism?

The NSDAP also did support nationalizing all industries.

National socialism wasn’t socialism in the traditional sense, but it did incorporate many of socialism’s ideas, with the notable exceptions of class conflict and internationalism.

so, NSDAP argued against private ownership of property?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Program#The_25-point_Program_of_the_NSDAP

So at the very least, they were opposed to non-Germans owning private property.

hence the nationalist part but that doesn't prove they were socialist

Did you read the points?

The NSADP redirected capital with state power in the name and for the (purported) benefit of the people, in their case as defined by the state. In the end it was more kleptocracy than anything else, but they knew they had to provide at least enough social benefit to maintain the support of the masses. This was the mid-30's. By the late 30's they could dispense with that since they could drive public opinion through the war. Good thing, too, since the capital derived from nationalizing Jewish wealth was drying up.

But again, I differentiate the Nazi's from the initial theory of national socialism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism

National Socialism was always Ethnic Socialism, mobilizing socialist revolution by mobilizing people on Nationalities (Ethnicity) lines

I am trying to separate out the basic philosophy from the German application

The original Italian put it that 'mobilizing on class lines doesn't work, but you can much more readily mobilize along ethnic lines.'

I suppose even the Chinese application has a strong ethnic component, but their goal is more to mobilize by creed than race as I view it from afar.

By having an etho-state supporting one race over others you have the foundations of Ethnic Socialism. In fact you can argue that the ANC is a National Socialist group.

So you believe you cannot frame the "nationalism" for national socialism around a national identity but that it *must* be framed as race?

But technically Judaism is not a race but a creed/religion.