4 ms·

In the United States, terms such as "conservative" and "liberal" seem to be used primarily to describe whatever currently happens to be popular in the duopolist

by lapcat 1y ago

In the United States, terms such as "conservative" and "liberal" seem to be used primarily to describe whatever currently happens to be popular in the duopolistic Republican and Democratic parties. I'm old enough now to have witnessed both parties, and the definitions of those terms, morph into something unrecognizable to partisans of my youth. And the (morbidly) funny thing is that people today call themselves "true conservatives," for example, apparently with no recollection or recognition of the recent past. My own view is that the terms don't signify real, stable ideologies but rather just give the pretense that the duopolistic political parties are backed by ideologies rather than by constantly shifting power dynamics.

Gormo 1y ago
The problem is that these terms do signify real, stable ideologies, but the vast majority of people are superficial trend-chasers who don't actually adhere to any stable ideology, so misuse these terms to refer to whichever tribe they emotionally associate themselves with at the moment. IMO, the current US administration seems to be the most left-wing in my lifetime, but contrived cultural wedge issues seem to have eclipsed actual policy positions in most public discourse, so gets called "conservative" despite its policies being almost the diametric opposite of what was called "conservative" 30 years ago.
- paulryanrogers 1y ago
  > IMO, the current US administration seems to be the most left-wing in my lifetime Can you elaborate?
  - Gormo 1y ago
    Tax hikes on American consumers and businesses. Expansions in federal spending against growing budget deficits. Government pursuing ownership or de facto control of private industry. Aggressive use of executive fiat to pursue novel policies without clear legislative basis. Federal interventions that try to direct or challenge state sovereignty on numerous issues traditionally outside the scope of federal authority. Hesitant foreign policy that seems overly deferential to traditional US adversaries, especially Russia.
- esafak 1y ago
  Trump is left of Carter, Obama, etc. ? How are you defining left-wing, exactly?
  - Gormo 1y ago
    Yes. Far to the left of Carter, who I'd consider a moderate conservative, and marginally to the left of the more centrist Obama. I'm construing left-wing as (a) seeing an expansive role for the state -- and in the US especially the federal government -- as being a prime mover in social and especially economic matters, (b) willingness to use political power in novel and unprecedented ways to address perceived social and economic problems without being constrained by established legal and constitutional norms.
    - esafak 1y ago
      That describes everyone from Hitler and Mussolini to Mao. They all believed in big government, and wielding it internally.
      - Gormo 1y ago
        Yes, it describes everyone who aims to use unrestrained political power to reshape society, i.e. the precise opposite of what "conservatism" actually means.
        esafak 1y ago
        No, not necessarily. Conservatives condone social engineering as long as it agrees with their beliefs; e.g., to promote specific religions, and heteronormativity. Look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism#Beliefs_and_principles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism#Beliefs_and_princ... I think you are describing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_conservatism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_conservatism
        Gormo 1y ago
        Nothing in Russel Kirk's concept of conservatism implies any of the specific policy positions you're attributing to conservatism per se. Someone whose political agenda is to force society to confirm to a doctrinal ideology that in opposition to the established broad status-quo norms of that society is by definition not a conservative.
- dragonwriter 1y ago
  > IMO, the current US administration seems to be the most left-wing in my lifetime Can you name even a single left-wing policy or rhetorical position of this administration? > but contrived cultural wedge issues seem to have eclipsed actual policy positions in most public discourse, “Cultural wedge issues” are about actual policy domains, and have a real left-right valence. > gets called "conservative" despite its policies being almost the diametric opposite of what was called "conservative" 30 years ago. 30 years ago? The height of the neoliberal consensus when the Right leaned heavily on the cultural wedge issues of opposition to abortion, homosexuality, and affirmative action? (I guess it was also just after a midterm election where the Republican Party, being out of the White House for the first time in a while and having just taken a Congressional majority after mostly being in the minority for a generation was also emphasizing restraining government and elected officials more than the Right normally has before or since, but that was pretty obviously a tactical adaptation to the immediate circumstances, not the essence of conservatism.)
  - Gormo 1y ago
    > Can you name even a single left-wing policy or rhetorical position of this administration? Tariffs. Deficit spending. Federalization of law enforcement. Hyperpoliticization of social questions. Government ownership/direction of private industry. > “Cultural wedge issues” are about actual policy domains, and have a real left-right valence. They've not been about actual policy domains until relatively recently. These issues have been marginal with respect to actual policy considerations for decades. > 30 years ago? The height of the neoliberal consensus when the Right leaned heavily on the cultural wedge issues of opposition to abortion, homosexuality, and affirmative action? GOP candidates in certain regions invoked various wedge issues on the campaign trail in order to put them over the top in elections for contested seats. Upon election, they then did nothing whatsoever to shift the actual policy needle in relation to these issue, and focused precisely on "neoliberal consensus" economic issues of the exact sort that the current administration is diametrically opposed to. > but that was pretty obviously a tactical adaptation to the immediate circumstances, not the essence of conservatism. But no, it actually is the "essence of conservatism" where conservatism is an actual political philosophy, and not an empty term that refers to the haphazard policy preferences of whatever faction a particular political party happens to be pandering to at any given moment.
nradov 1y ago
Modern US mainstream politics have become weirdly like the ancient Roman "Green" versus "Blue" political parties that evolved out of chariot racing fan clubs. No consistent ideology or underlying theory of government, just blind support for your chosen side's leaders. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/blue-versus-green-rocking-the-byzantine-empire-113325928/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/blue-versus-green-roc...
- deltaburnt 1y ago
  I mean, there's very specific reasons either color gets support from their voters. I wouldn't say all of those reasons warrant the same amount of fervor, passion, and loyalty that they do. But "blind support" is a bit reductive when for some people it literally means their rights being stripped away. What appears to be "blind support" is people desperately clinging onto what tiny bit of representation they have. It's sad for both sides. It's Stockholm syndrome mixed with political pragmatism. It sucks, but the current political landscape in the US has entrenched itself so deeply in a local minima that people feel like they have to work backwards to make progress. Just see how any discussion of a third party is seen as a psyop to get that side to have a spoiler effect.
  - bilbo0s 1y ago
    As someone who typically supports a lot of third parties at the ballot box, I have to say that our problem is actually not people seeing us as a psy-op. It's people seeing us as, at best, irrelevant; and at worst, a joke. I've been voting since the late eighties, and have come to realize it is our lack of organization and, at times, our policies. Which in all honesty can be at once, foolish and bizarre. It's difficult to bring the platforms of any new party in hand precisely because they are attracting people whose ideas are maybe not very popular in the mainstream parties. The mainstream parties have bizarre and foolish policies as well, but they've had 40 years to brainwash their voters. It's hard to have the same effect in, say, 2 or 4 years. So you have to have a pristine platform and stick to it. This is where as independents and third party supporters, we've repeatedly failed.
    - 1y ago
AnimalMuppet 1y ago
In my perception, "true conservative" means "what the label meant in my youth, not what it has mutated to today". I think it is exactly a recognition of the past.
- lapcat 1y ago
  I agree that this is the claim of self-described true conservatives. However, I think the claim is empirically false, and they do not actually follow what the label meant in our youth.
  - AnimalMuppet 1y ago
    I think some actually do. And some follow what they thought it meant, or what they thought it should have meant.
    - lapcat 1y ago
      > I think some actually do. May I ask who? > And some follow what they thought it meant, or what they thought it should have meant. This isn't contrary to my claim.
      - AnimalMuppet 1y ago
        Me, of course. (I mean that somewhat ironically - everybody would say that it fits them. But I also mean it somewhat sincerely.)
        lapcat 1y ago
        Well, I was mainly referring to politicians and other prominent persons. I'm not denying that anonymous individuals exist who have remained consistent over the decades, but they don't seem to have much power anymore.
        AnimalMuppet 1y ago
skrebbel 1y ago
Yeah wow huh! It took me many years of reading HN to figure out that “liberal” means “left” in the US. In my (European) country, the word means nearly the opposite, a belief in individual freedoms, free speech, free markets, small governments and so on. It’s mostly championed by right-of-center parties. I’ve been confused many times reading comments that go like “these liberals who want to ban free speech” which, to me, reads as funky as “these nazis who want to protect minority rights” or “these republicans who want to reinstate the monarchy”. It’s just, the word did a total 180 in the US and it’s super weird!
- bonoboTP 1y ago
  In the US they call that right-leaning version "libertarian".
  - skrebbel 1y ago
    Nah the thing we call liberalism is much milder than that. It’s like the watered down, we-do-trust-the-government-but-maybe-tone-it-down-a-little version of libertarianism. I mean the same meaning as eg the Economist gives the term. I think maybe the term changed meaning in the US because for decades pretty much everyone agreed with it (no social democrats in sight, barring the occasional Bernie). A movement that ~everyone agrees with isn't much of a movement, is it?
    - AnimalMuppet 1y ago
      It's a movement that won - won so thoroughly that nobody even remembers there was a war. But that means that, since nobody's fighting that war any more, the label (which has "winning" and even "being correct" attached to it in peoples' minds) is now up for grabs for other movements that want to win.
      - 1718627440 1y ago
        > It's a movement that won - won so thoroughly that nobody even remembers there was a war. I don't think so. Some things might have been taken more or less for granted, but a lot of policies are now reopening that war again. See for example, the various threads about Chat Control in the EU recently on HN.
csours 1y ago
> give the pretense that the duopolistic political parties are backed by ideologies rather than by constantly shifting power dynamics. I feel like it's very easy to get angry about politics, so speaking clearly is difficult. I would like to point out that the power dynamics do not always shift randomly, or by the will of the people (be that citizens at large, or party-line voters). The power dynamics have been shifted with intention. Apart from that intentional push for power, we also have social media dynamics. It feels like online self-critique is always towards the extremes. Once someone becomes energized or activated on a topic, they may start to feel that even trying to understand other viewpoints will cause harm.
- bonoboTP 1y ago
  People want to belong to a tribe. I think it's often quite a tossup where a young person ends up, depending on friends or whichever online circle accepts them best. It's also not rare for young people to flipflop between nominally widely opposing tribes before setting into one. People gradually learn all the opinions they are supposed to have on the various issues to truly belong to the tribe. It's not unlike learning the dogmas of a religion. It's much much more convenient socially to speak the same language and have the same cultural references and opinions to bond over and feel camaraderie about and curate a bubble of friends following the same opinion-setters, vs. creating one's own grab-bag idiosyncratic set of opinions that doesn't fit neatly into either well known combo-deal. You gotta support either this football team or the other one. People who start to lecture about how they like the goalie of the one team, but the striker of the other are just "not fun at parties", are kind of annoying and hard to relate to, especially online where people decide in a split second whether to upvote or downvote based on a fast pattern matching check to my tribe / enemy tribe.
  - csours 1y ago
    Before taking their current conservative role, one of our Supreme Court Justices was briefly associated with the radical left.
  - claytongulick 1y ago
    There's potentially a genetic predisposition as well? [1]. [1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101027161452.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101027161452.h...
bonoboTP 1y ago
What tends to be more conceptually solid is temperament and personality, rather than ideology. That is, things like conformism, trust in paternalistic authority figures, or instinctual contrarianism and distrust of authority, and openness to new ways of doing things, optimism about tweaking the knobs on society vs a more static view of how people are, etc., making it yourself (individualism and atomisation) vs focus on collectivism / community orientedness / family obligations. For example, an old man with a conservative mentality in Russia may be nostalgic for Stalin and communism. Or someone who has a contrarian, disagreeable personality in a liberal American college environment may decide to become a monarchist or trad Christian to show the middle finger to the real authority figures in his life. And a conformist person in the US workforce would more likely absorb a corporate-HR-compatible (superficially?) progressive worldview.

by lapcat 1y ago

Gormo 1y ago

The problem is that these terms do signify real, stable ideologies, but the vast majority of people are superficial trend-chasers who don't actually adhere to any stable ideology, so misuse these terms to refer to whichever tribe they emotionally associate themselves with at the moment. IMO, the current US administration seems to be the most left-wing in my lifetime, but contrived cultural wedge issues seem to have eclipsed actual policy positions in most public discourse, so gets called "conservative" despite its policies being almost the diametric opposite of what was called "conservative" 30 years ago.

paulryanrogers 1y ago
> IMO, the current US administration seems to be the most left-wing in my lifetime Can you elaborate?
- Gormo 1y ago
  Tax hikes on American consumers and businesses. Expansions in federal spending against growing budget deficits. Government pursuing ownership or de facto control of private industry. Aggressive use of executive fiat to pursue novel policies without clear legislative basis. Federal interventions that try to direct or challenge state sovereignty on numerous issues traditionally outside the scope of federal authority. Hesitant foreign policy that seems overly deferential to traditional US adversaries, especially Russia.
esafak 1y ago
Trump is left of Carter, Obama, etc. ? How are you defining left-wing, exactly?
- Gormo 1y ago
  Yes. Far to the left of Carter, who I'd consider a moderate conservative, and marginally to the left of the more centrist Obama. I'm construing left-wing as (a) seeing an expansive role for the state -- and in the US especially the federal government -- as being a prime mover in social and especially economic matters, (b) willingness to use political power in novel and unprecedented ways to address perceived social and economic problems without being constrained by established legal and constitutional norms.
  - esafak 1y ago
    That describes everyone from Hitler and Mussolini to Mao. They all believed in big government, and wielding it internally.
    - Gormo 1y ago
      Yes, it describes everyone who aims to use unrestrained political power to reshape society, i.e. the precise opposite of what "conservatism" actually means.
      - esafak 1y ago
        No, not necessarily. Conservatives condone social engineering as long as it agrees with their beliefs; e.g., to promote specific religions, and heteronormativity. Look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism#Beliefs_and_principles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism#Beliefs_and_princ... I think you are describing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_conservatism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_conservatism
        Gormo 1y ago
        Nothing in Russel Kirk's concept of conservatism implies any of the specific policy positions you're attributing to conservatism per se. Someone whose political agenda is to force society to confirm to a doctrinal ideology that in opposition to the established broad status-quo norms of that society is by definition not a conservative.
dragonwriter 1y ago
> IMO, the current US administration seems to be the most left-wing in my lifetime Can you name even a single left-wing policy or rhetorical position of this administration? > but contrived cultural wedge issues seem to have eclipsed actual policy positions in most public discourse, “Cultural wedge issues” are about actual policy domains, and have a real left-right valence. > gets called "conservative" despite its policies being almost the diametric opposite of what was called "conservative" 30 years ago. 30 years ago? The height of the neoliberal consensus when the Right leaned heavily on the cultural wedge issues of opposition to abortion, homosexuality, and affirmative action? (I guess it was also just after a midterm election where the Republican Party, being out of the White House for the first time in a while and having just taken a Congressional majority after mostly being in the minority for a generation was also emphasizing restraining government and elected officials more than the Right normally has before or since, but that was pretty obviously a tactical adaptation to the immediate circumstances, not the essence of conservatism.)
- Gormo 1y ago
  > Can you name even a single left-wing policy or rhetorical position of this administration? Tariffs. Deficit spending. Federalization of law enforcement. Hyperpoliticization of social questions. Government ownership/direction of private industry. > “Cultural wedge issues” are about actual policy domains, and have a real left-right valence. They've not been about actual policy domains until relatively recently. These issues have been marginal with respect to actual policy considerations for decades. > 30 years ago? The height of the neoliberal consensus when the Right leaned heavily on the cultural wedge issues of opposition to abortion, homosexuality, and affirmative action? GOP candidates in certain regions invoked various wedge issues on the campaign trail in order to put them over the top in elections for contested seats. Upon election, they then did nothing whatsoever to shift the actual policy needle in relation to these issue, and focused precisely on "neoliberal consensus" economic issues of the exact sort that the current administration is diametrically opposed to. > but that was pretty obviously a tactical adaptation to the immediate circumstances, not the essence of conservatism. But no, it actually is the "essence of conservatism" where conservatism is an actual political philosophy, and not an empty term that refers to the haphazard policy preferences of whatever faction a particular political party happens to be pandering to at any given moment.

nradov 1y ago

Modern US mainstream politics have become weirdly like the ancient Roman "Green" versus "Blue" political parties that evolved out of chariot racing fan clubs. No consistent ideology or underlying theory of government, just blind support for your chosen side's leaders. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/blue-versus-green-rocking-the-byzantine-empire-113325928/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/blue-versus-green-roc...

deltaburnt 1y ago
I mean, there's very specific reasons either color gets support from their voters. I wouldn't say all of those reasons warrant the same amount of fervor, passion, and loyalty that they do. But "blind support" is a bit reductive when for some people it literally means their rights being stripped away. What appears to be "blind support" is people desperately clinging onto what tiny bit of representation they have. It's sad for both sides. It's Stockholm syndrome mixed with political pragmatism. It sucks, but the current political landscape in the US has entrenched itself so deeply in a local minima that people feel like they have to work backwards to make progress. Just see how any discussion of a third party is seen as a psyop to get that side to have a spoiler effect.
- bilbo0s 1y ago
  As someone who typically supports a lot of third parties at the ballot box, I have to say that our problem is actually not people seeing us as a psy-op. It's people seeing us as, at best, irrelevant; and at worst, a joke. I've been voting since the late eighties, and have come to realize it is our lack of organization and, at times, our policies. Which in all honesty can be at once, foolish and bizarre. It's difficult to bring the platforms of any new party in hand precisely because they are attracting people whose ideas are maybe not very popular in the mainstream parties. The mainstream parties have bizarre and foolish policies as well, but they've had 40 years to brainwash their voters. It's hard to have the same effect in, say, 2 or 4 years. So you have to have a pristine platform and stick to it. This is where as independents and third party supporters, we've repeatedly failed.
  - 1y ago

AnimalMuppet 1y ago

In my perception, "true conservative" means "what the label meant in my youth, not what it has mutated to today". I think it is exactly a recognition of the past.

lapcat 1y ago
I agree that this is the claim of self-described true conservatives. However, I think the claim is empirically false, and they do not actually follow what the label meant in our youth.
- AnimalMuppet 1y ago
  I think some actually do. And some follow what they thought it meant, or what they thought it should have meant.
  - lapcat 1y ago
    > I think some actually do. May I ask who? > And some follow what they thought it meant, or what they thought it should have meant. This isn't contrary to my claim.
    - AnimalMuppet 1y ago
      Me, of course. (I mean that somewhat ironically - everybody would say that it fits them. But I also mean it somewhat sincerely.)
      - lapcat 1y ago
        Well, I was mainly referring to politicians and other prominent persons. I'm not denying that anonymous individuals exist who have remained consistent over the decades, but they don't seem to have much power anymore.
        AnimalMuppet 1y ago

skrebbel 1y ago

Yeah wow huh! It took me many years of reading HN to figure out that “liberal” means “left” in the US. In my (European) country, the word means nearly the opposite, a belief in individual freedoms, free speech, free markets, small governments and so on. It’s mostly championed by right-of-center parties. I’ve been confused many times reading comments that go like “these liberals who want to ban free speech” which, to me, reads as funky as “these nazis who want to protect minority rights” or “these republicans who want to reinstate the monarchy”. It’s just, the word did a total 180 in the US and it’s super weird!

bonoboTP 1y ago
In the US they call that right-leaning version "libertarian".
- skrebbel 1y ago
  Nah the thing we call liberalism is much milder than that. It’s like the watered down, we-do-trust-the-government-but-maybe-tone-it-down-a-little version of libertarianism. I mean the same meaning as eg the Economist gives the term. I think maybe the term changed meaning in the US because for decades pretty much everyone agreed with it (no social democrats in sight, barring the occasional Bernie). A movement that ~everyone agrees with isn't much of a movement, is it?
  - AnimalMuppet 1y ago
    It's a movement that won - won so thoroughly that nobody even remembers there was a war. But that means that, since nobody's fighting that war any more, the label (which has "winning" and even "being correct" attached to it in peoples' minds) is now up for grabs for other movements that want to win.
    - 1718627440 1y ago
      > It's a movement that won - won so thoroughly that nobody even remembers there was a war. I don't think so. Some things might have been taken more or less for granted, but a lot of policies are now reopening that war again. See for example, the various threads about Chat Control in the EU recently on HN.

csours 1y ago

> give the pretense that the duopolistic political parties are backed by ideologies rather than by constantly shifting power dynamics. I feel like it's very easy to get angry about politics, so speaking clearly is difficult. I would like to point out that the power dynamics do not always shift randomly, or by the will of the people (be that citizens at large, or party-line voters). The power dynamics have been shifted with intention. Apart from that intentional push for power, we also have social media dynamics. It feels like online self-critique is always towards the extremes. Once someone becomes energized or activated on a topic, they may start to feel that even trying to understand other viewpoints will cause harm.

bonoboTP 1y ago
People want to belong to a tribe. I think it's often quite a tossup where a young person ends up, depending on friends or whichever online circle accepts them best. It's also not rare for young people to flipflop between nominally widely opposing tribes before setting into one. People gradually learn all the opinions they are supposed to have on the various issues to truly belong to the tribe. It's not unlike learning the dogmas of a religion. It's much much more convenient socially to speak the same language and have the same cultural references and opinions to bond over and feel camaraderie about and curate a bubble of friends following the same opinion-setters, vs. creating one's own grab-bag idiosyncratic set of opinions that doesn't fit neatly into either well known combo-deal. You gotta support either this football team or the other one. People who start to lecture about how they like the goalie of the one team, but the striker of the other are just "not fun at parties", are kind of annoying and hard to relate to, especially online where people decide in a split second whether to upvote or downvote based on a fast pattern matching check to my tribe / enemy tribe.
- csours 1y ago
  Before taking their current conservative role, one of our Supreme Court Justices was briefly associated with the radical left.
- claytongulick 1y ago
  There's potentially a genetic predisposition as well? [1]. [1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101027161452.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101027161452.h...

bonoboTP 1y ago

What tends to be more conceptually solid is temperament and personality, rather than ideology. That is, things like conformism, trust in paternalistic authority figures, or instinctual contrarianism and distrust of authority, and openness to new ways of doing things, optimism about tweaking the knobs on society vs a more static view of how people are, etc., making it yourself (individualism and atomisation) vs focus on collectivism / community orientedness / family obligations. For example, an old man with a conservative mentality in Russia may be nostalgic for Stalin and communism. Or someone who has a contrarian, disagreeable personality in a liberal American college environment may decide to become a monarchist or trad Christian to show the middle finger to the real authority figures in his life. And a conformist person in the US workforce would more likely absorb a corporate-HR-compatible (superficially?) progressive worldview.