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This is incorrect. Just because the two party system has suppressed anything to the left of the democrats does not mean liberals are in any way “the left”; the

This is incorrect. Just because the two party system has suppressed anything to the left of the democrats does not mean liberals are in any way “the left”; there are many leftist voices in the US (Matt Taibbi, author of the post you’re replying to and presumably read, being one of them) and they are often critical of liberals.

akvadrako 6y ago
The terms are not well enough defined in common language to claim what you’re claiming. If you polled all Democratic voters, 90%+ would say they are left and liberal.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > If you polled all Democratic voters, 90%+ would say they are left and liberal. Or, in the real world, a bit fewer than half would say they are “liberal” or “very liberal”. Because that's something that's polled on quite frequently, so there is real data: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/01/17/liberals-make-up-largest-share-of-democratic-voters/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/01/17/liberals-ma... It's true that in popular, as opposed to politically sophisticated, conversation in the US, a one-dimensional spectrum where the left and right poles are liberal and conservative is popular, and it's true that partisans on both sides like to portray the opposing party as more ideologically unified and extreme on that axis than it is, so that if you polled Republicans, they'd probably come close to identifying Democrats as consistently both left and liberal.
  - joejohnson 6y ago
    It would seem the commenters on this site are mostly Americans who don’t know that their two-party system only represents two flavors of pro-capitalist neoliberalism. But left and right political spectrum and the corresponding terms have meaning outside of the limited political window of centre-right US mainstream discussion.
    - akvadrako 6y ago
      They don't have meaning in terms of "liberal media" vs "left media" though, at least how the poster you replied to was using the term. It doesn't do any good to introduce jargon to people who are unfamiliar with it without defining your terms.
      - joejohnson 6y ago
        There is absolutely a distinction between liberal media (the NY Times, MSNBC, etc) and left media (Jacobin, Democracy Now!, Current Affairs, etc) and this distinction is made by Taibbi. Your ignorance on the subject is not shared by everyone.
        akvadrako 6y ago
        NYT and MSNBC are left of center in the USA. As is Twitter, which is what's relevant here. Which is what makes them left-wing media.
        nl 6y ago
        This distinction is neither as clear nor as absolute as you appear to believe. Classical liberalism[1] is an economic stance somewhat similar to the economic views of libertarianism in the US. This is distinct from social liberalism which is what "liberal" commonly means in the US, which mostly overlaps with what could be called "progressive politics". "Classical Liberalism" is confusing in the modern context, so it is rarely used execpt by people trying to confuse people (eg, right wing commentators who claim to be "classical liberals"). The biggest exception to this is the (right-wing, conservative) Liberal party in Australia, which was founded on the ideas of "Classical Liberalism" There's also "liberal" in the "liberal democracy" sense. This is where multiple parties contend for power under known, written down rules.[2] And then there is "left-[wing]". Left wing can refer to a social view, where it is used as a close-synonym for social liberalism or progressivism. Or it can refer to an economic view, which is much more context (and country) specific. In the context of US politics the Democratic party is the most left-wing major party in both an economic and social sense. In terms of media sources, the NY Times is definitely a proponent of "liberal democracy", but in a social and economic sense it is fairly centerist (despite the claims to the contrary by populist). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism [2] https://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispeedia/wpcd/wp/l/Liberal_democracy.htm https://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispeedia/wpcd/wp/l/Libera...

akvadrako 6y ago

The terms are not well enough defined in common language to claim what you’re claiming. If you polled all Democratic voters, 90%+ would say they are left and liberal.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> If you polled all Democratic voters, 90%+ would say they are left and liberal. Or, in the real world, a bit fewer than half would say they are “liberal” or “very liberal”. Because that's something that's polled on quite frequently, so there is real data: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/01/17/liberals-make-up-largest-share-of-democratic-voters/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/01/17/liberals-ma... It's true that in popular, as opposed to politically sophisticated, conversation in the US, a one-dimensional spectrum where the left and right poles are liberal and conservative is popular, and it's true that partisans on both sides like to portray the opposing party as more ideologically unified and extreme on that axis than it is, so that if you polled Republicans, they'd probably come close to identifying Democrats as consistently both left and liberal.
- joejohnson 6y ago
  It would seem the commenters on this site are mostly Americans who don’t know that their two-party system only represents two flavors of pro-capitalist neoliberalism. But left and right political spectrum and the corresponding terms have meaning outside of the limited political window of centre-right US mainstream discussion.
  - akvadrako 6y ago
    They don't have meaning in terms of "liberal media" vs "left media" though, at least how the poster you replied to was using the term. It doesn't do any good to introduce jargon to people who are unfamiliar with it without defining your terms.
    - joejohnson 6y ago
      There is absolutely a distinction between liberal media (the NY Times, MSNBC, etc) and left media (Jacobin, Democracy Now!, Current Affairs, etc) and this distinction is made by Taibbi. Your ignorance on the subject is not shared by everyone.
      - akvadrako 6y ago
        NYT and MSNBC are left of center in the USA. As is Twitter, which is what's relevant here. Which is what makes them left-wing media.
      - nl 6y ago
        This distinction is neither as clear nor as absolute as you appear to believe. Classical liberalism[1] is an economic stance somewhat similar to the economic views of libertarianism in the US. This is distinct from social liberalism which is what "liberal" commonly means in the US, which mostly overlaps with what could be called "progressive politics". "Classical Liberalism" is confusing in the modern context, so it is rarely used execpt by people trying to confuse people (eg, right wing commentators who claim to be "classical liberals"). The biggest exception to this is the (right-wing, conservative) Liberal party in Australia, which was founded on the ideas of "Classical Liberalism" There's also "liberal" in the "liberal democracy" sense. This is where multiple parties contend for power under known, written down rules.[2] And then there is "left-[wing]". Left wing can refer to a social view, where it is used as a close-synonym for social liberalism or progressivism. Or it can refer to an economic view, which is much more context (and country) specific. In the context of US politics the Democratic party is the most left-wing major party in both an economic and social sense. In terms of media sources, the NY Times is definitely a proponent of "liberal democracy", but in a social and economic sense it is fairly centerist (despite the claims to the contrary by populist). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism [2] https://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispeedia/wpcd/wp/l/Liberal_democracy.htm https://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispeedia/wpcd/wp/l/Libera...