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I'm wondering what you think of the idea that the people we call "liberal" in this country aren't really all that "leftist" - they're just more left than our "c

I'm wondering what you think of the idea that the people we call "liberal" in this country aren't really all that "leftist" - they're just more left than our "conservatives". This is especially true for economic beliefs, I find. Like, ask an Italian communist (they still exist!) whether Joe Biden is a leftist and he'll choke from laughter on his ravioli. And after all, Barack Obama's world leader bff wasn't some Green Party guy in Bolivia or something - it was Angela Merkel. I came around to this some time ago and I'm always curious if it makes sense to others.

ralusek 6y ago
Liberalism isn't a leftist ideology, why on earth would you expect a liberal to be a leftist?
- globular-toast 6y ago
  This is what happens when several orthogonal concepts are distilled into two categories. Nobody actually knows what left or right actually mean. Originally it was just about economic policy, left being larger government, right being smaller (no party was extreme because that's insane). Now right can also mean authoritarian or racist. To many it's simply left=good, right=bad.
  - reducesuffering 6y ago
    It was never originally about economic policy, you've got them mixed up. Right was originally about support of the French King, authoritarianism, conservatism. Left was in support of the French Revolution, liberalism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left%E2%80%93right_political_spectrum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left%E2%80%93right_political_s...
- pbourke 6y ago
  The terms have lost all meaning in contemporary American discourse. “Socialist”, “liberal”, “leftist”, “progressive” are just used either as a pejorative or arbitrary categorical unrelated to any prior representation. To a “progressive”, “liberal” is a pejorative. To a “liberal”, “leftists” are the enemy. To “the right”, all 4 words mean the same thing and are interchangeable in usage.
  - ajmurmann 6y ago
    Unfortunately this is true. The two-party system is removing all nuance from arguments, forces everything into one of two boxes and it's dividing the country. The number one issue to solve is election reform. We desperately need an election system that's not extremely prone to the spoiler effect. If we don't get this, politics will only become more of a shit show or worse we might see more violence. It's encouraging to see that places like Fargo and Saint Louis have success in adopting STAR voting.

ralusek 6y ago

Liberalism isn't a leftist ideology, why on earth would you expect a liberal to be a leftist?

globular-toast 6y ago
This is what happens when several orthogonal concepts are distilled into two categories. Nobody actually knows what left or right actually mean. Originally it was just about economic policy, left being larger government, right being smaller (no party was extreme because that's insane). Now right can also mean authoritarian or racist. To many it's simply left=good, right=bad.
- reducesuffering 6y ago
  It was never originally about economic policy, you've got them mixed up. Right was originally about support of the French King, authoritarianism, conservatism. Left was in support of the French Revolution, liberalism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left%E2%80%93right_political_spectrum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left%E2%80%93right_political_s...
pbourke 6y ago
The terms have lost all meaning in contemporary American discourse. “Socialist”, “liberal”, “leftist”, “progressive” are just used either as a pejorative or arbitrary categorical unrelated to any prior representation. To a “progressive”, “liberal” is a pejorative. To a “liberal”, “leftists” are the enemy. To “the right”, all 4 words mean the same thing and are interchangeable in usage.
- ajmurmann 6y ago
  Unfortunately this is true. The two-party system is removing all nuance from arguments, forces everything into one of two boxes and it's dividing the country. The number one issue to solve is election reform. We desperately need an election system that's not extremely prone to the spoiler effect. If we don't get this, politics will only become more of a shit show or worse we might see more violence. It's encouraging to see that places like Fargo and Saint Louis have success in adopting STAR voting.