In the United States, calling something socialist functions almost like a curse word, and journalist Abby Martin sets out to explain why. She traces the label's history from early twentieth-century labor fights, when workers organizing for an eight-hour day and fair wages met increasingly violent resistance from employers and the state, through the anti-communist purges of the House Un-American Activities Committee and the executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Interviews with Brian Becker, founder of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, and Jared Ball, a Professor of Communication Studies at Morgan State University, lay out the argument that programs Americans rely on daily, including public education, Social Security, and unemployment insurance, grew out of socialist organizing rather than free-market design. The film contrasts the United States with other developed nations, where socialist parties hold seats in parliament without controversy, and argues that the stigma serves a specific purpose: keeping questions about who owns the country's wealth off the table. It plays as an argument, not a survey, built to make you reconsider a word you already think you understand.