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It simply means something different in the US vs Europe. In the US, "left" tends to be centered around social and cultural issues, such as racism, sexism, immi

It simply means something different in the US vs Europe. In the US, "left" tends to be centered around social and cultural issues, such as racism, sexism, immigrant rights, abortion rights, affirmative action, or increasingly things like white privilege - what is sometimes derisively called identity politics. In Europe, "left" tends to be centered around the economic sense of the term, that is, socialism, communism, redistribution of wealth, social safety nets, etc. By US standards, many European politicians are on the far right because of their social and cultural views. By European standards, most US politicians are on the right or even far right because of their economic views, whereas they're to a European perspective absolutely extreme on the social politics scale. In general, while they're handy for bandying about in a very general sense, I don't think political axes between countries can be compared in a very meaningful way. There are all kinds of bizarre mismatches even in the same domains - for example, the VAT would be considered a very regressive tax favored only by the more extreme libertarian-conservative types in the US, but it's hardly seen that way in Europe.

dfxm12 6y ago
It simply means something different in the US vs Europe. It means something different to you. The US is a big country, and your understanding of the left is pretty shallow and certainly doesn't speak for the whole country. That you say the left is centered on ID politics is evidence that you're out of touch with leftist politics. I would venture to say because there's not a loud leftist voice in the mainstream media.
- Amezarak 6y ago
  > It means something different to you. The US is a big country, and your understanding of the left is pretty shallow and certainly doesn't speak for the whole country. Although I am leery of placing myself on a political axis for the same reason, I think most people would consider me a leftist. Certainly they would think so based on my voting record, with a couple of exceptions. Firstly, it may be - and I think is probably - the case that the average self-described liberal or independent in the US does not prioritize most culture war issues, or identity politics issues. They might instead be more concerned about conventionally leftist economic policies, like raising the minimum wage or improving safety nets. But that's not, by-and-large, what political campaigns, politicians, or the news media focuses on. Cultural issues and (increasingly) identity politics surrounding specific issues take up an immense amount of bandwidth in the US to a degree they do not in Europe - or if an analogous issue does, the battle lines are drawn and the conversation is framed in a totally different way. Even issues that are the 'same' are often downstream of US politics. I don't think this is an argument that there's no loud leftist voice in the mainstream media. That is maybe true, in the conventional sense. But it's not because the media is conservative or reactionary in some sense - there's a similar problem on the right; if anything, this was strongly illustrated by Trump's success - Trump brought to the forefront issues like immigration restriction that had wide support among the voting base but very weak to no support in the conservative political and media establishment. It's because the "leftists" who are actually in power, and control large 'leftist' institutions, care more about identity politics and culture war issues than they do about conventional leftist economic policies. US politics on both sides is charged along different lines than in other countries. There's no doubt similar phenomena in Europe - it's not as though politics as represented by politicians and in the news accurately reflects the desires of the people there, either. Nor is Europe a unified block either, so we're being a little sloppy. But this is still a substantial difference. At any rate, there's still other issues I mentioned like VAT - VAT would never fly in the US even if the "left" took complete power because liberals would consider it horrifically regressive!

dfxm12 6y ago

It simply means something different in the US vs Europe. It means something different to you. The US is a big country, and your understanding of the left is pretty shallow and certainly doesn't speak for the whole country. That you say the left is centered on ID politics is evidence that you're out of touch with leftist politics. I would venture to say because there's not a loud leftist voice in the mainstream media.

Amezarak 6y ago
> It means something different to you. The US is a big country, and your understanding of the left is pretty shallow and certainly doesn't speak for the whole country. Although I am leery of placing myself on a political axis for the same reason, I think most people would consider me a leftist. Certainly they would think so based on my voting record, with a couple of exceptions. Firstly, it may be - and I think is probably - the case that the average self-described liberal or independent in the US does not prioritize most culture war issues, or identity politics issues. They might instead be more concerned about conventionally leftist economic policies, like raising the minimum wage or improving safety nets. But that's not, by-and-large, what political campaigns, politicians, or the news media focuses on. Cultural issues and (increasingly) identity politics surrounding specific issues take up an immense amount of bandwidth in the US to a degree they do not in Europe - or if an analogous issue does, the battle lines are drawn and the conversation is framed in a totally different way. Even issues that are the 'same' are often downstream of US politics. I don't think this is an argument that there's no loud leftist voice in the mainstream media. That is maybe true, in the conventional sense. But it's not because the media is conservative or reactionary in some sense - there's a similar problem on the right; if anything, this was strongly illustrated by Trump's success - Trump brought to the forefront issues like immigration restriction that had wide support among the voting base but very weak to no support in the conservative political and media establishment. It's because the "leftists" who are actually in power, and control large 'leftist' institutions, care more about identity politics and culture war issues than they do about conventional leftist economic policies. US politics on both sides is charged along different lines than in other countries. There's no doubt similar phenomena in Europe - it's not as though politics as represented by politicians and in the news accurately reflects the desires of the people there, either. Nor is Europe a unified block either, so we're being a little sloppy. But this is still a substantial difference. At any rate, there's still other issues I mentioned like VAT - VAT would never fly in the US even if the "left" took complete power because liberals would consider it horrifically regressive!