4 ms·

Part of this is that the Overton Window has shifted so far right that "left wing" in the mainstream now means "center", however it cannot be ignored that what t

Part of this is that the Overton Window has shifted so far right that "left wing" in the mainstream now means "center", however it cannot be ignored that what the mainstream considers 'normal' has indeed been shifted over time by the editors (and through them, the owners) of the newspapers. That's a bit disingenuous, considering the overton window had been relentlessly moving leftwards for decades before this. I think what you're seeing now is a correction, and the end of "peak leftism" - at least for another few decades.

fao_ 9y ago
No, it's been shifting more _liberal_, which is different. The effects of British and American McCarthyism still put Marxist (and also any associated leftist) thought very much out of the mainstream. You can easily observe this on politicalcompass.org They analyze voting records, speeches, etc. and use an objective test to score each party leader on where they stand on certain policies. Here is a general yardstick for you, you might not agree with it, but this is the scale that I tend to use: https://www.politicalcompass.org/images/axeswithnames.gif https://www.politicalcompass.org/images/axeswithnames.gif As you can see for America: 2004: The candidates are evenly spread around the map (https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2004 https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2004) 2016: Almost all of the candidates are on the right-hand side of the map (https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2016 https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2016) One of the problems in US discussions that I've noticed as someone from Europe, is that Americans tend to talk about "leftists" and "rightists" to mean people who are respectively "less authoritarian" and "more authoritarian", regardless on where those people actually stand on matters relating to the left/right divide. I would say this is one of the biggest problems in US politics, as it causes the most misunderstandings when two people enter into a discussion. As for the UK, you can see here that historically there is and always has been a right-wing bias, which fits with the (more or less) three party system that we have: https://i.imgur.com/yI0QXpL.png https://i.imgur.com/yI0QXpL.png
- HumanDrivenDev 9y ago
  > No, it's been shifting more _liberal_, which is different. The effects of British and American McCarthyism still put Marxist (and also any associated leftist) thought very much out of the mainstream. But Marxism is a much more socially acceptable than say, fascism. I've seen a lot of communist themed parties where people hang up hammer and sickle flags, but rarely any parties where people hang up swastikas (or at least, they don't post them on social media !) > Political Compass isn't an impartial or scientific measure. It's center is not guaranteed to correspond the political center of the globe.
  - fao_ 9y ago
    > But Marxism is a much more socially acceptable than say, fascism. Are you sure? I'm seeing a hell of a lot of openly fascist speakers (Spencer et al) getting positive publicity in the mainstream press. I mean, really the only reason why Milo's book tanked was because he said some disgusting things about child-abuse. My more right-wing leaning friends (pro-Tory) have been sourcing Breitbart lately, which is an obviously fascist news source. It's also important to note that Fascism traditionally has never been seen as a widely acceptable option by the mainstream since Mussolini, possibly before. This has had even more reinforcement with the US's operations in Iraq and the surrounding regions supposedly being justified with "They're fascists, we want to give these people democracy". Compare that with Communism only really getting a bad rap under McCarthyism and Stalin (And I guess China? Except only really Stalinists will call that Communism, since less than 3% of the workers were in the "People's Party" at the time of the revolution...). Communism's affinity for the unions, which in non-American are systems that guarantee that employees get treated like humans, only helps further a positive image for it. > Political Compass isn't an impartial or scientific measure. It's center is not guaranteed to correspond the political center of the globe. Of course. But it's much, much more impartial than many other sources I could bring up.
    - HumanDrivenDev 9y ago
      I'm not very familiar with Richard Spencer. Can show me an example where he self-describes as fascist? I couldn't find anything relevant on the wikipedia page. Ditto with breitbart being "obviously fascist". I might accept it being a right-wing tabloid, but that seems about as silly as calling huffington post "obviously communist". I've noticed terms like "fascist", "white supremacist", "far-right" are thrown about fairly casually, while calling self-proclaimed communists "communists" is often met with derision or denial.

fao_ 9y ago

No, it's been shifting more _liberal_, which is different. The effects of British and American McCarthyism still put Marxist (and also any associated leftist) thought very much out of the mainstream. You can easily observe this on politicalcompass.org They analyze voting records, speeches, etc. and use an objective test to score each party leader on where they stand on certain policies. Here is a general yardstick for you, you might not agree with it, but this is the scale that I tend to use: https://www.politicalcompass.org/images/axeswithnames.gif https://www.politicalcompass.org/images/axeswithnames.gif As you can see for America: 2004: The candidates are evenly spread around the map (https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2004 https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2004) 2016: Almost all of the candidates are on the right-hand side of the map (https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2016 https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2016) One of the problems in US discussions that I've noticed as someone from Europe, is that Americans tend to talk about "leftists" and "rightists" to mean people who are respectively "less authoritarian" and "more authoritarian", regardless on where those people actually stand on matters relating to the left/right divide. I would say this is one of the biggest problems in US politics, as it causes the most misunderstandings when two people enter into a discussion. As for the UK, you can see here that historically there is and always has been a right-wing bias, which fits with the (more or less) three party system that we have: https://i.imgur.com/yI0QXpL.png https://i.imgur.com/yI0QXpL.png

HumanDrivenDev 9y ago
> No, it's been shifting more _liberal_, which is different. The effects of British and American McCarthyism still put Marxist (and also any associated leftist) thought very much out of the mainstream. But Marxism is a much more socially acceptable than say, fascism. I've seen a lot of communist themed parties where people hang up hammer and sickle flags, but rarely any parties where people hang up swastikas (or at least, they don't post them on social media !) > Political Compass isn't an impartial or scientific measure. It's center is not guaranteed to correspond the political center of the globe.
- fao_ 9y ago
  > But Marxism is a much more socially acceptable than say, fascism. Are you sure? I'm seeing a hell of a lot of openly fascist speakers (Spencer et al) getting positive publicity in the mainstream press. I mean, really the only reason why Milo's book tanked was because he said some disgusting things about child-abuse. My more right-wing leaning friends (pro-Tory) have been sourcing Breitbart lately, which is an obviously fascist news source. It's also important to note that Fascism traditionally has never been seen as a widely acceptable option by the mainstream since Mussolini, possibly before. This has had even more reinforcement with the US's operations in Iraq and the surrounding regions supposedly being justified with "They're fascists, we want to give these people democracy". Compare that with Communism only really getting a bad rap under McCarthyism and Stalin (And I guess China? Except only really Stalinists will call that Communism, since less than 3% of the workers were in the "People's Party" at the time of the revolution...). Communism's affinity for the unions, which in non-American are systems that guarantee that employees get treated like humans, only helps further a positive image for it. > Political Compass isn't an impartial or scientific measure. It's center is not guaranteed to correspond the political center of the globe. Of course. But it's much, much more impartial than many other sources I could bring up.
  - HumanDrivenDev 9y ago
    I'm not very familiar with Richard Spencer. Can show me an example where he self-describes as fascist? I couldn't find anything relevant on the wikipedia page. Ditto with breitbart being "obviously fascist". I might accept it being a right-wing tabloid, but that seems about as silly as calling huffington post "obviously communist". I've noticed terms like "fascist", "white supremacist", "far-right" are thrown about fairly casually, while calling self-proclaimed communists "communists" is often met with derision or denial.