Modern political discussions across the world are dominated by reactionaries. This is because bourgeois society produces these kinds of people. A society full of reactionaries but devoid of economic and socialist theory creates social culture wars that is devoid of any economic politics, consisting exclusively of social issues and political rights of minorities. The people will talk about anything but class, anything but the economic system, the rigged political systems, or even the violence and genocide committed against people by the state are an afterthought and just background noise for the culture wars that they spend all day arguing online about.
Building socialism is not just about changing laws or governments because in the past when that was attempted, the communist party just inherited the same problems of the society. Socialist Afghanistan had tribal factions in the communist party since their version of socialism was imposed upon them from the outside, and the people were not made into socialists and therefore could not have the mentality of socialists. They were not the socialist men and women that could struggle to build socialism. People thinking about socialism love the economic aspect and even reactionaries will want something similar (Even if only for their people) but many non-socialists forget that socialism is created through the application of Marxism-Leninism.
If we just increase social programs as the new left wants so nobody needs to work, that’s a form of leftism completely separate from socialism. Anti-work attitudes are good for disrupting the system and work is bad under capitalism since it is exploitative and provides funds and support to a war machine, but the goal under communism is not to avoid work. It is for the masses to own the means of production and to not be economically exploited by the bourgeoisie. The resistance we see comes from a mentality of reformism so they cannot truly pose as much danger to the establishment as they want to.
The socialist man or woman would not entertain extremist terrorist ideas such as harassing trans people in bathrooms or locking people up for slave labor. Let alone funding genocide in Palestine or imperialism across the world for the profits generated by the war machine. China (Despite its controversy) has shown the world that it is better to build and develop your own nation than to spend your resources, manpower, and effort in destroying others. The socialist man or woman is able to look at the mess going on in bourgeois society and immediately see how invalid it is.