Why do Americans think that socialism means "free stuff from the government"? Where did this false definition come from?

People are calling everyone who advocates social policies and safety nets a "socialist" these days. Some people go as far as to say that socialism is when the government does stuff, that government is socialism. Which is absurd bc that'd mean everyone but anarcho-capitalists are socialists.

I know it's unique to US politics, bc these "free stuff" and "tax the rich" types are usually associated with social-democracy outside of the US, but in the US they're mistakenly called "democratic socialists".For instance, when Bernie Sanders said his ideal model of "socialism" was Denmark, the PM of Denmark said that it was a capitalist market economy, not socialist. "Democratic socialism" is a form of socialism that thinks the transition between capitalism and socialism can take place through reforms rather than revolution. Its opposite is revolutionary socialism, which believes that the transition from capitalism to socialism cannot be peaceful bc of the limits of capitalist democracy.Socialism is a range of political and economic philosophies that advocate social ownership of the means of production (rather than private ownership), and production along with distribution on the basis of economic planning rather than markets.Some socialist countries (China and Vietnam for example) use markets insofar as they're a transitional measure to build up the productive forces to support a full socialist economy.qz.com/1805692/bernie-sanders-isnt-a-democratic-socialist-he-is-a-social-democrat