I always tend to think americans have a bit a different perspective on socialism than europeans.

Need to see communism and socialism didnt originate from Russia or China , France had their commune in paris in 1870 before stalin was even born.

And in Europe communism had strongly a dimension that it was something more remanent of how things worked before the revolution, and capitalism/industry with a rather atheist / materialist mindset overthrew catholicism.

The idea of hospital is from 11th century or something, from knight hospitalier, who were operating hospitals to help pilgrims.

The idea of guild and corporation of worker more or less auto organized has been there through the whole middle age, the idea that it was good thing To help the sicks during plague was there long before the left/paradigm and before democracy.

But the revolution threw a massive disruption in the traditionnal way of life, with the new bourgeoisie taking power, strong of the slave trading and colonial exploitation, and completely disrupted the whole traditionnal way of life, and communism rose more as the natural way things were working before, in France City of < 2000 inhabitants are still called "communes", and i tend To think communism in its early form des just the natural way things were working before the revolution, rather than something really new in itself, it just for a new positionning in the new world against the new emerging bourgeoisie, and recontextualized by marx in the new political context of left vs right etc but originally has very little to do with what it became in Russia or China.

Even centralisation around a core of elite is a very old form of organisation in France, it used to be called jacobinism, and different sort of clerical order were already taking this role way before the revolution and this whole left/right thing.

I think lots of people in Europe still have a form of cultural attachment to this sort of functionning, with public hospital and some form of collectivism, working union/corporation, and power delegated to an intelectual/spiritual élite, that come from way way back before Marx and Stallin.

I tend to think the exact same thing is going on with islam, which has been practiced for centuries and centuries, and now its mostly represented by nutjobs like ben laden and daesh and very bastardized/spoiled form of it, that become ultra formalized and politicized, whereas it used to be a traditionnal way of life for millions of people for centuries. 

And same has been going on with a core of values that were traditionnal things, and then got formalized into political theories, and bastardized, with nutjob fore front figure of revolutionaries like mao and stallin.

Now i think lot of people in Europe feel a bit trapped by this political scam of left vs right that lead nowhere, but the core cultural value behind socialism are something that is way older, and many people feel the trend of materialist atheism that came with capitalism after the revolution is not really a good thing for them, and socialism is the last thing that seem to be able To keep a bit of cohesion in society, with values of helping the needy, having hospitality, and an elite who is concerned with idea of common good etc.

Actually the maxim that says its always a good thing to give to those who have less than you is probably the oldest spiritual maxim in the world.