Nah. It was the correct word choice. They can condemn till they're blue in the face. Every time they fear monger about socialism while talking about democratic socialists, they're selling both concepts to Americans.

Never let your enemies define your speech.

While true that the word is scary, the title is what they are. It’s just most people will think Democratic (associated with the democrats) Socialists rather than “Democratic Socialists”, all one term, that is not relating them to the major party that is most close but instead describing, “we would like light socialist policies that people vote for still”.

Then they'd just call them socialist anyway, and say that they're afraid to call themselves socialists because they know how bad it is. Reclaiming the word is a more effective strategy.