Ok so this is my current understanding, please correct me where I err and supplement where I omit needed information.
Historically the Mensheviks and chartists inspired social democracy whereas the Bolsheviks inspired Marxism-leninism.
They (demsoc and socdem) are extremely similar but have some key differences. Social democrats are to the right of democratic socialists and they are both centre-left parties slightly to the left of social liberalism.
left-ish------Center-left----Center
---------Demsoc-----Socdem Libsoc Lib
Where they differ is usually on imperialism and capitalism.
Social democrats typically support imperialism continuing so long as a slice of the spoils support a welfare state. In that sense they're just capitalist reformists. It also appears that the DSA and the "Democratic-Socialist" movement in the United States is simply social democracy with no intention of seizing the means of production.
Democratic socialists do advocate for seizing the means of production and want the end of imperialism but believe this can be accomplished democratically -- however naive that may be.
As far as I can tell social liberalism appears to be almost synonymous with social democracy but with an added emphasis on the "freedom" to own private property and a more laissez-faire role of the state.
Please fill in my understanding :)
If we want to create a term that properly disparages while also describing these kinds of compatible leftists, I think it needs to be centered in already existing rhetoric among the masses. We shouldn't be like liberal "intellectuals" who invent abstract terms that have little practical application and alienate the average person, or atleast the average learning leftist.
Paperite, for example, although it signals its meaning to others like ourselves, it doesn't properly convey meaning to someone who we want to be agitating against opportunism. I picked Institutionalist on a whim based on my own experience with university administration and anti-imperialist organizing. These people's arguments consistently looked towards their institutions as checklists for legitimacy on any discussed policy, rather than recognize that students/community members organizing around a policy on its own indicated a level of mass support. They viewed democracy as passing through hurdles rather than inspiring dynamic action/engagement.
Another term that I've thought of, though it's more crude, is "liberal pick-me" or "pick-me socialist" maybe. The idea of a "pick-me" is self explanatory. A person, often a marginilzed person but not always, who feels the need to be validated by the opinions of those who degrade them.
Examples include: A woman who makes "ironic" jokes to a bunch of discord losers about woman's place in soceity. An Arab adult who goes on about how Muslims and other Arabs are barbaric to their white associates. A black teen who gives their majority white friends access to say a slur.
The list goes on, but I think I made my point. People we'd call comprodors, mentally colonized, internally bigoted/misogynistic, etc.
One of the main issues that alienates people from socdems is there perpetual need to be legitimate by liberal bourgeois politics. They can't just be representatives to the working class, they must do so in a way that is acceptable to the bourgeoisie. The term is absolutely reviled by those who get accused of it usually, and it's also immediately understandable to the people most open to revolutionary consciousness in the west, young marginalized people.
It's less refined than "institutionalist" but I think it conveys more to the proper audience while also not seeming like it comes out of the aether.
Valid criticism. Definitely easier to make use of existing terminology than to try to make new stuff. So "pick-me" as a term for it would probably resonate with younger people in particular. Then maybe "institutionalist" if talking to older people who may not have heard of a term like "pick-me."
I'm wondering if Western libs aren't so thin-skinned and defensive if the very accurate term "pick me" won't also be alienating?