I think that they’re implying that people likely to argue that state-controlled stores are socialist are also likely to conflate any service or good offered by the state is socialism.

In the US, “socialism” is both demonized and the actual definition is obfuscated by right-wing (read: most) media in the same way other terms are, such as “woke”. This alienates the average person in the US from movements, policies, organizations, etc that would benefit them, from free school lunch programs to socialist representatives running on taxing the wealthy.