Socialist is not a bad word. Only in the US it's a bad word, because socialism means billionaires need to earn less, and the billionaires won't allow that.

Her party is democratic socialist, center left, not socialism, left.

Being a socialist doesn't mean you have to ban capitalism the moment you get power. Or at all. There are many ways to be socialist and do socialist policy. The overarching ideology is the belief we can do better than capitalism by distributing the resources we create according to amount of work and need, instead of profit maximization. How and how quickly we achieve that differs between different kinds of socialists. Sometimes dramatically.

The morena Party she is from could be defined as a "social democrat party" The state provides some social programs like healthcare, scholarships, help for single mothers, subsidized public transportation, and monetary help for the elderly.

I magine to people in highly capitalist countries these policies would be seen as socialism, but it feels more like a hybrid system. Most of the markets are capitalist with some light government regulation and some basic needs are socialized. I always find it weird how people draw these black and white distinctions today. I'd argue most governments of the world have hybrid systems in their economic management, even America with their welfare programs.

I wish European capitalism was anywhere near what you seem to think. It's just less worse... for now.

There is a very long tradition of gradualist reformist socialism, that goes all the way back to the 2nd International.

I can't find anything about her calling herself a socialist, but she's definitely to the left of most European politicians. Of course she's working from a less development and more rightwing starting point so her policies seem like common sense to Europeans, but equating her with folks like the SPD based on that would be wrong. You don't really get this kind of anti-neoliberal, overt social democracy from mainstream European parties anymore.

Pretty sure she is socialist in the "when the government does things" sense, not the "will end capitalism" sense.

Im really confused.

Is she going to ban capitalism (stock markets, public companies, private properties, bonds, etc.)?

This is communism.

Socialist think that goverment funds should be used to help its people. You know.. Society. Schools, healthcare, public infra. Things like that. Socialism does not mean banning private schools and hospitals, or that nobody could not own any land.

She is kind of a socialist, though. Not a communist.

Those Europeans you speak of call themselves socialist too, but they still with the capitalistic system and control the redistribution mechanisms bolted on.

It makes a certain kind of sense to me. Making capitalism serve social goals is obviously a mix of philosophies but if capitalism is serving socialistic ends, isn’t socialism prioritized?

The essence of socialism, to me, is serving the social good as top priority. Not centrally managing the economy. Capitalism can be a “how” with socialism as the “why.”