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The myth of how much harm "leftists" can do/are doing in the US is probably what got you all here. It's another McCarthyist boogeyman, and it's not even being s

• spiderfarmer 2y ago
  That’s the most frustrating part. What America calls leftists is considered pretty centrist everywhere else. They’re so afraid of empathic policies it’s no wonder the country is falling apart.
  • lucasyvas 2y ago
    It has completely fallen apart to any outside observer. It will take decades, possibly a generational timescale to repair. The damage is already irreversible on any near to medium term timescale - how bad it gets on an absolute scale is the only thing left to speculate.
    • heresie-dabord 2y ago
      > decades, possibly a generational timescale to repair. It will easily take a generation just for people to find solidarity and courage again. Progress takes real sacrifice. People died fighting for basic dignity and rights. The anti-slavery movement in the US fought monied interests for centuries. It took real sacrifice for the labour movement to gain rights such as voting, education, housing, health care in the face of deadly opposition from the rich and their legislative puppets. It just takes a moment of complaceny on the part of progressive-minded people for the rich and their legislative puppets to undo the foundations of democracy.
      • _heimdall 2y ago
        The risk of undoing progress so quickly is only possible after nearly a century spent centralizing the very authority that makes a quick undo possible. The executive branch shouldn't have nearly as much authority as it does and anything we want to be difficult to be undone should be protected by law, with a legislative body needing something akin to a 2/3s vote to change it. Instead we have a massive, powerful executive branch and legislators that can wield way too much power with a simple majority.
        • cardamomo 2y ago
          In theory, that isn't too far from the system we have. The President was never meant to have so much authority, and Congress already requires a 2/3 majority in order to make certain kinds of decisions, including overruling a presidential veto.
          • _heimdall 2y ago
            Didn't congress change the rules a few years ago on only needing a simple majority for more things? I was living out if the country st the time and didn't keep up, I could be mistaken there.
            • cardamomo 2y ago
              There was some debate whether or not to remove the rule requiring a 60% vote to end filibusters in the Senate. Because this rule still stands, most laws cannot pass without 60 Senators' votes. Budget reconciliation bills, however, can be advanced with only a simple majority of the Senate. Though this is not a recent rules change, much recent legislation has gone through the reconciliation process to avoid the supermajority requirement.
              • _heimdall 2y ago
                Thanks! That must be the debate I remember happening and thought they actually made the change.
        • deepsun 2y ago
          No, it's not only executive branch. People voted in Trump adorers to majority in both Senate and House of Representatives.
          • _heimdall 2y ago
            If the voting public of a democracy fairly elected so many people to office like that, I don't really know what we can complain about. Democracy would have worked in that scenario, and society would just have bifurcated enough that the slight minority lost most power and very much disagrees with the direction. Congress does have to act pike adults though and do their job of keeping the executive branch in check. If they don't the system is just fundamentally broken and the only reasonable choice is to throw it out and start fresh.
      • giantg2 2y ago
        "for people to find solidarity" That's not going to happen with the way tech/algos are exacerbating the divide.
        • malfist 2y ago
          Which is increasingly looking intentional
          • giantg2 2y ago
            Nah, it's a by-product of giving people what they want to make money. This sort of issue has been building for a long time. It's based on abundance of resources and availability of choices. As we have more time and money to spend on things, we can make more independent choices and take positions on issues that we didnt even think about before. Essentially, the semi-homogeneous population slowly fragments into smaller and smaller factions that are not geographically constrained (thanks to tech).
          • HeatrayEnjoyer 2y ago
            We've known it is intentional since Cambridge Analytica at the latest.
            • giantg2 2y ago
              That wasn't about creating a split but rather taking advantage of an existing split, right?
              • HeatrayEnjoyer 2y ago
                Potato potato
        • soulofmischief 2y ago
          If you have engineering or product skills, now is the time to take a hard look in the mirror, inventory your interests and concerns, and figure out how to fight fire with fire. We need to be proliferating alternative, humanistic, empathetic software in the world and putting it into people's hands. It's easier than ever for us to independently build a wealth of defensive infrastructure for the common people.
      • wat10000 2y ago
        The problem right now isn’t the rich. The problem is that half of the electorate is on board with this stuff. You can’t rally the people against this when half the population is in favor of it. I’m sure there’s a good argument that wealthy people and a broadening wealth divide are responsible for this, but it’s too late to attack that now. We need a huge shift in public sentiment if this is going to change now. Even if the outcome had been different in November. We’d still be in deep trouble. A lot less, but still a lot. The fundamental problem we have right now isn’t that Trump is President, it’s that about 50% of those who bother to vote think he’s worthy of it.
        • JKCalhoun 2y ago
          Don't think you can address the one while not dismantling the other. Otherwise you're lucky to be trading water.
          • wat10000 2y ago
            I think you need the populace on your side first, though. Otherwise how can you change anything if you have neither government nor a majority? Unfortunately, I don’t see any way to change the minds of the American populace. They’ll have to learn the hard lesson of where this stuff goes. The problem is that we all have to learn that lesson alongside them whether we need it or not.
            • JKCalhoun 2y ago
              I hate to say it, but you need a populist leader that blames everything on the wealthy.
        • naijaboiler 2y ago
          It’s still the wealthy, leaning on social issues to create a democratic majority
    • rhubarbtree 2y ago
      What makes you think it will be repaired? I’ll go for America splinters into at least two countries.
      • inglor_cz 2y ago
        For this to happen, the US population is probably too old on average, and too overweight. Civil wars and the like are usually based on youth bulges, as they need a lot of breathing bodies to fight it out. Preferrably slightly hungry bodies, as hungry people are easier to provoke into fighting.
        • apeescape 2y ago
          Who knows what the next American civil war would look like.
          • inglor_cz 2y ago
            Lots of destroyed keyboards?
            • rvnx 2y ago
              Stealth donations to unauthorized political parties through OnlyFans or meme coins.
          • ben_w 2y ago
            Despite all the 2nd Amendement talk, it mainly comes down to the military. The military have the tanks, the air support, the logistics, the surveilence net, the miscelaneous support equipment, and all the training to use everything. A split within the military, that gets real ugly real fast.
            • ty6853 2y ago
              I think any civil war would have a split within the military, because in your premise that they're using tanks and aircraft, some people are not going to want to bomb the place where their mother or child lives, not to mention the supply chain of all that fancy stuff relies on a somewhat functioning domestic society to make and deliver much of the underlying goodies and support.
    • cscurmudgeon 2y ago
      To any neutral non European observer, this is what they may see 1. Europe propped up Russia despite Obama and Trump’s warnings before the war 2. Europe still buys more from Russia than they give Ukraine in financial aid 3. Europe is more friendly towards America’s rival China 4. Europe expects US to spend more protecting Europe than Europe
    • karparov 2y ago
      It doesn't help that the tech sector is falling in line. Spearheaded by Musk who is still glorified my many in the industry, other tech giants are following suit. Meta, Google, Amazon, nobody dares challenging the new US order and is playing along. This is really where the HN crowd should realize how much they are involved in this. Tech was one of the bullwarks against right wing fascist takeover. Not anymore, they are playing along. It's going to be dark.
      • LadyCailin 2y ago
        I never thought that. They have always just played along with society. When LGBT rights were fashionable, they were more than happy to jump on that bandwagon and rainbow wash everything for money. Which, is great, don’t get me wrong, but I never thought for one second it was because the leadership truly thought that was important deep down in their hearts (Tim Cook perhaps excepted, but even then not fully, as he still cares about business more than principals, though he has more to lose personally.)
        • karparov 2y ago
          Excellent point. Why would a move a certain crowd likes be out of principle and when the tide turned and a move in the opposite direction happens suddenly be just opportunism? The more realistic/neutral interpretation is that it's all just opportunism in either direction. Zuck is probably the best example.
  • ajuc 2y ago
    It's the ironic part. Trump is the result of anti-system vote by people who were ignored for decades by both parties. Trump obviously won't solve their problems. Inequality won't decrease. Healthcare won't become more accessible. Workers' rights won't be fixed. Homes won't get more affordable. Inflation won't drop. So - even when Trump disgraces himself completely - these disappointed voters will just vote for another anti-system con-man. Trump's core voters desperately need Sanders to win. But they will vote Trumps and get fucked over time and time again. This is how democracy dies. People distrusting the system so hard they destroy it.
    • epistasis 2y ago
      Trump voters will never vote for somebody like Sanders, and I think that fundamentally misunderstands Trump voters and what they want.
      • ajuc 2y ago
        I know what they want and I know what they need. The difference is precisely the problem.
        • _heimdall 2y ago
          The idea that anyone can know without a doubt what someone else needs is part of the problem. People need to be treated as adults before they can be expected to act like adults. There's always the risk that goes wrong, it has in the past, but we're doomed if we believe the only way forward is a small group of elites forcing change on us because they "know best".
          • alabastervlog 2y ago
            Political science has decades of research that consistently shows that it’s entirely correct to think that most voters have no clue about anything, including what would be best for them. Reasoned, informed votes aren’t a major factor in elections. [edit] see if your library has a copy of Democracy for Realists and also dig into older major works they cite, if you’re interested in more on this. For a quick gut-check, look up the proportion of US voters that understand how marginal income tax rates work, then reflect on the fact that this is something very simple that directly affects them in ways they must confront at least once per year, and despair at how bad similar measures must look for practically everything else and that if they don’t understand the basics of how things work, they can’t even begin to figure out “what’s best” for them or for anyone else.
  • gruez 2y ago
    >What America calls leftists is considered pretty centrist everywhere else. They’re so afraid of empathic policies it’s no wonder the country is falling apart. Maybe on economic issues. On certain social issues it's definitely not "centrist" and arguably further left than other developed countries.
    • hobs 2y ago
      Which? Be clear, because the only ones I hear you dogwhistling here are Trans folks rights or Black folks rights if you are vaguely referencing "social issues" and generally America's historical context there is Pretty Dang Bad.
      • Der_Einzige 2y ago
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        • olivermuty 2y ago
          This is the stupidest thing I have read on HN today. With regards from a hardcore european leftist
          • Der_Einzige 2y ago
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          • huang_chung 2y ago
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            • deleted 2y ago
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        • yawpitch 2y ago
          I haven’t met a left or right wing European who has more than the slightest clue what America’s abortion laws actually are.
  • rhubarbtree 2y ago
    Indeed. Social democracy is a requisite for stability. It’s surprising it lasted this long. I guess the New Deal might have been instrumental in postponing collapse.
    • kjkjadksj 2y ago
      People forget how close we got last time with The Business Plot. Now the Business Plot actually went off.
      • ItCouldBeWorse 2y ago
        People forget, how oligarchies are actually not desirable for the oligarchs. Because there is no law and no stability. The zhar/king has a bad day and the whole crowd around you shifts in some economic landslide. Oligarchs in Russia came and went, and they took their money to europe/swiss/uk/us - because you can not thrust a oligarchy, when you are today in favor of the golden god king. Such moves towards such systems, are usually desperate jumps of those whose empires are under threat of being broken up anyway.
  • motorest 2y ago
    > That’s the most frustrating part. What America calls leftists is considered pretty centrist everywhere else. The most frustrating part is that Trump is sabotaging the US by enacting the pseudo-anti war policies that the republican party has been vilifying for decades.
  • deleted 2y ago
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  • ninetyninenine 2y ago
    Er no. There is a huge extremist leftist attitude that pervades the country. And all these leftists think they are centrists. Leftist now refers to that. The leftist of like over a decade ago. That leftist is now more centrist.
    • acdha 2y ago
      Do you have any specific examples?
      • ninetyninenine 2y ago
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      • deleted 2y ago
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  • rayiner 2y ago
    The countries that have had the most successful but empathetic policies have reversed course on the key issue of immigration: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/24/magazine/denmark-immigration-policy-progressives.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/24/magazine/denmark-immigrat.... MAGA would be thrilled to achieve the reversal of immigration that's happening in Denmark, for example.
    • bad_user 2y ago
      The kind of immigration that Europe had to deal with is very different from that of the US. If you want to copy Denmark, I'm guessing you also want their universal healthcare.
      • g8oz 2y ago
        Is it that different? Lots of low skilled people who are generalized to be a threat to the nation.
        • bad_user 2y ago
          Immigrants to the US are mostly from the Americas, so Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Venezuela, etc. The US also has people fleeing war, such as Ukrainians. The main difference is that they are easier to integrate. For instance, immigrants from the Americas speak a romance language, and if they speak Spanish, that's like a second language for the US. Most are also Christians, and yes, it matters because they don't uphold Sharia over local laws. Yes, the US is also getting drug dealers and such, but I bet that a vast majority are there to work and pay their taxes. Europe has the problem that it took in many people from Africa and Asia, that are harder to integrate, and with many of them fleeing war. And the difficulty here is that people fleeing war have no intention to integrate or even to work for a living if they can get away with subsidies, many intending to return home as soon as possible. Europe also has the issue that it has never been a melting pot, smaller countries in Europe don't have a tradition of cultural diversity, they are unprepared to integrate that many people over a short period of time. There was also a story recently about Russia apparently fuelling immigration from war zones into Europe, to destabilize the EU and its governments. They also funded “green” NGOs and politicians who succeeded in shutting down shale gas extraction and nuclear power plants, increasing the energy dependence on Russia. I'm guessing their hybrid war is a wild success. Not to be misunderstood here, I am pro immigration. For example, Germany has been a powerhouse of Europe due in no small part to their generous immigration policies. The population is growing old, and we need people to support society. The “low skilled” classification is a canard. Countries require “low skilled” work as well, and note that unemployment is at an all-time low, US and EU included. I'll also note that the UK ran xenophobic ads ranting against Poles, Romanians and Bulgarians, as a justification for Brexit. After Brexit, they wanted them back, especially during the pandemic, since “low skilled” Eastern Europeans started going to Germany and other EU countries instead. And immigration actually got worse for them after Brexit, which was ironic, but not unpredictable.
• FrustratedMonky 2y ago
  The US is so far right, that being against segregation, is now considered a far left 'woke' idea.
  • typeofhuman 2y ago
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    • wordofx 2y ago
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      • typeofhuman 2y ago
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        • FrustratedMonky 2y ago
          It was literally in an official gov directive this week, to remove any requirements from government contractors that they not be segregated. so now a government contractors can be segregated if they desire.
          • typeofhuman 2y ago
            Can you elaborate on what you mean by segregate?
• gjsman-1000 2y ago
  Nonsense, you have no idea how many conservatives are still mad the “leftists” forced the baker to make a custom cake endorsing gay marriage against his beliefs. (Not sell an off the shelf one, he was okay with that, a customized cake.) That’s the kind of persecution they are talking, and angry, about. If that incident had not happened, Trump may never have been elected.
  • epistasis 2y ago
    I think this is precisely it. The culture war stuff may sometimes get a veneer of economic interests, but those are subservient to culture war.
  • jayd16 2y ago
    They were upset about a tan suit. I don't think it's about any specific little incident.
    • thfuran 2y ago
      And fancy mustard.
  • latentcall 2y ago
    They also didn’t like how Harris, a center right politician by all accounts, laughed “too much”.
• tgma 2y ago
  Regardless of how McCarthyism is antagonized under post Cold War era, it is not at all clear to me that such crackdowns wouldn't have been essential in ensuring the culture war is not lost to the Soviet Union.
  • atoav 2y ago
    Yeah? How about you check out the rest of the western world, where each single democracy had their own pickings with communist tendecies. And most of them handled that in the common sense way of giving workers basic protections and ensuring their share of wealth so they don't feel the need to go to the communists. Worked pretty well for most European countries. Although, once communism was gone, the ideology of neolibral economic thinking took over and thus all benefits to workers were seen as unnecessary expenses. Leading to the current rise in nationalism and fascism nearly everywhere. It is pretty simple: If you want all people to carry a system, all people need to feel like they profit from its existence. Once the mask slips and people realize they aren't profiting, they will be unwilling to hold up their side of the social contract. This is what is happening right now.
    • ModernMech 2y ago
      > This is what is happening right now. Yup, and the response to from the owner class is not to uphold the social contract, but to renegotiate it. "the whole structure of society will be up for debate and reconfiguration." - Sam Altman
      • atoav 2y ago
        I agree with Sam Altman that the whole structure of society will be up for debate. But he probably assumes that in the new structure he is going to be on top. I mean I am actually impressed by the sizeable part of the population media moguls managed to convince into a cultish devotion to lie to themselves against their own naterial interests. This is bad everywhere, but the current US has a propaganda machine that is truly astonishing, in a scary way. The problem with that is that authoritarians have no incentive to figure out the real roots of a problem. Like a doctor that always blames it on some devil, demon, or whatnot when you go to them an authoritarian will not solve the problem, because every (real) crisis is a chance to blame the (fictional) enemy.
• atoav 2y ago
  This is such a wild con, especially looking at the whole thing from Europe. The Us has no significant political left, how on earth are they "behind everything" if they can't even manifest some influence within the Democratic party? If the left was strong in the US there would have been a contest between Hillary Clinton and an actual left wing contender like Bernie Sanders. Even people like AOC would make a decent centrist candidate in Europe.
  • latentcall 2y ago
    It’s just a boogeyman so we can swing this country into full blown fascism. Hitler did the same crap. It’s always somebody else’s fault, usually your friends and neighbors.
    • atoav 2y ago
      Exactly. And the actual root cause of the problem is left pestering.
• CamperBob2 2y ago
  [flagged]
  • aqme28 2y ago
    > Eh, the right still has a lot of work to do if they want to catch up with the economic damage (and the sheer body count) perpetrated by leftists over the last century. I'm curious to see this quantified. Mao was certainly terrible, but so was Hitler of course and so were the various famines imposed by British rule.
    • CamperBob2 2y ago
      The numbers are out there, but they won't have any impact on this conversation. They never do.
      • apstls 2y ago
        How could they if you don’t provide references to them?
        • CamperBob2 2y ago
          It's well-accepted that Stalin's various purges and famines killed several times more civilians than Hitler managed to, for instance. Here in the US, I'm personally more concerned about a replay of Pol Pot's regime. He took Hitler's warped notions of anti-intellectualism ("Jewish physics") to a whole new level ("Kill anybody wearing glasses.") The fact that he did so under the standard of leftism doesn't really seem that meaningful or relevant, because if/when it happens here, it will evidently be perpetrated by the extreme right. A pox on both their houses.
          • Gibbon1 2y ago
            > Stalin's various purges and famines killed several times more civilians than Hitler managed to, for instance. Oh look one of you. Hitler didn't get the chance to execute Generalplan Ost.
• alfiedotwtf 2y ago
  The funniest part is how MAGA are literally rabid against anyone left of Bret Baier while embracing the overtly obvious Russian propaganda to the point where you start feeling sorry for them when the outright repeat Russian talking points e.g. deep MAGA don’t care a single iota for about anything more than 20ft from the US shores (because America first!) and yet they will have the strongest and most deeply detailed opinions on Crimea lol
  • forgetfreeman 2y ago
    During Trump's first term in office I developed a hobby wherein I would get hardcore conservatives to unequivocally support various talking points from the Communist Manifesto, normally in response to them bitching about "leftists". This takes a lot less effort than you might think.
    • mafuy 2y ago
      Could you share one or two examples of how that went? :)
      • forgetfreeman 2y ago
        I mean it's not like I told them they were agreeing with communist propaganda at any point during the conversation so from everyone's perspective in the moment everything was going fine. The typical workflow was something along the lines of them bitching about liberals which is fine by me until they misapplied the term leftist or similar at which point I'd normally inject a non-sequitur about how bankers and execs are piling up cash with a forklift while the folks that actually work for a living can't hardly get by. This never gets any pushback and provides the perfect opening to quote your choice of communist propaganda, which also doesn't get any pushback as long as you aren't goofy enough to attribute your sources. ;) My favorite example is probably getting my wife's uncle to agree that the proletariat has nothing to lose but it's chains mid-rant about how right-wing militia groups are the only folks in the country with a finger on the pulse and how they were absolutely going to overthrow the federal government with a selection of canned goods and small arms...
• xnx 2y ago
  > The myth of how much harm "leftists" can do/are doing in the US Every single bit of the right is projection. "The left hates America" = we (the right) will dismantle and destroy this 250 year experiment
  • sebazzz 2y ago
    Every single bit of the Trump club you meant. The USA used to have a sane right wing party. But yes, projection. Like free speech, playing with World War III, etc.
• fallingknife 2y ago
  I completely distrust and generally regard leftists with contempt due to my personal interactions with them alone. I regard them as societal cancer and would prefer any other group to be in charge over them. No McCarthyist propaganda needed. I'll take a fascist's boot on my neck any day over a lefty who pretends to do it for my own good.
  • tigrezno 2y ago
    wow you're full of hate
  • bongodongobob 2y ago
    99% of leftists are completely normal people.
    • bdangubic 2y ago
      99% of leftist and roughly 2.76% rightists :) the saddest part about a comment you are commenting on is that their mind has been so polluted that they only see the world through the views of two arbitrary political parties (who shift their own views every couple of decades, hard rightist from few decades ago is basically same-ish person as far-leftist today). all empires fall and USA is slowly getting there (now going “little” faster) because of thinking like this in part.
  • wholinator2 2y ago
    Strong words here friend. Just curious, have you ever had a boot on your neck? What does leftist mean to you? And reading your comment back slowly do you still agree?