A linguist’s case against "socialism": History has made the term vague and unproductive. Should it be retired?

short answer: no.

long answer: no, because the problem is ultimately with how people use them rhetorically, not necessarily with the actual terms themselves, and you're never going to get people to stop using terms incorrectly either unintentionally (as the right does with socialism and as some leftists are wont to do with fascism) or with intent (as sanders probably does with democratic socialism). if everybody started using, i dunno, "communal ownership" to refer to the idea of socialism and "individual liberty" for liberalism, you still have the same problem sooner or later. the article even acknowledges this reality:

McWhorter contended that adopting a new term was simply a matter of accepting a reality of language: The meanings of all words tend to shift over time. Their uses grow more and more pejorative. Their origins are clouded by the different contexts they move through. Progressivism, he warned, will be no different. He gives it “roughly 20 years”—and then a new term will have to be found once again.

so, honestly, if the terms are going to have to be invented or refurbished with regularity anyways just to "break away" from stigmatization, it's worth asking if doing that is even worth the time in the first place, as opposed to just continuing to lean into the already established terms regardless of their implications or potential stigmatization. i certainly don't think so, honestly.

This basically exists with every word. Capitalism, liberal, free trade, communist, socialist.

All have a 'intended' meaning different than common usage. Many people use these terms to mean different things. That is just how language is.