I worked for a hostel a long time ago and spoke about politics to both americans and canadians, and it's weird how uptight americans are about politics. Canadians had no problem with it. I kind of think of canadians as americans without a personality disorder.
After spending several weeks in the US once, my flight transferred through Canada and I spent a few hours wandering. I couldn't quite figure out why everyone seemed happy and helpful. It was a very strange experience.
American politics seems to make residents far, far angrier than anywhere else and they can barely bring themselves to associate with those at other ends of the spectrum.
You see people on city-data wanting to move to 'liberal' towns. What the fuck? In Europe you just move where it looks nice. Politics doesn't register.
Even though I'm not a socialist myself I think it probably would be healthy for them to have a proper and visible socialist party influencing society.