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What some do not see, and it may even be an age thing, is that over the past ~2 decades the definition of liberal has changed in a very substantial way. In the

What some do not see, and it may even be an age thing, is that over the past ~2 decades the definition of liberal has changed in a very substantial way. In the early 2000s I was anti-war, anti-intervention, pro free speech, pro freedom of equality, against politicians trying to legislate morality or speech in any way, and thought we should have a strong border but with good immigration opportunities to allow the best to come and make the country even better. I was a fairly text book liberal, perhaps a bit more left than average. I still hold, more or less, these same values - yet somehow in contemporary times that's deemed conservative, if not very conservative. Why this happened is an interesting question, but it's ultimately irrelevant. It has happened. And so it's predictably going to have long-term consequences for the parties. Basically we keep using the same names for these ideologies, but the values they represent shift, and even flip flop, in dramatic ways over time frames that, in hindsight, seem extremely rapid. Yet paradoxically, it's not like there's any given year or election where you can officially say that issue [x] suddenly flipped.

pjc50 9mo ago
> yet somehow in contemporary times that's deemed conservative, if not very conservative. .. no, I think that sounds pretty capital-L Liberal to me. I think you may have confused the views of a few incredibly online leftists for "contemporary times". Or we get into specific issues and find out what the extreme conservativism actually is.
wan23 9mo ago
Liberal still means liberal, and still means all the things you said. Without getting into the merits of any particular side, IMO we have a categorization problem. People use the word liberal for all types of left ideologies, which is a mistake as it makes it hard to pin down what people actually believe. Also the concepts of left and far left (and right and far right) are overused. The combination of these two phenomena make it so that people will say that things leftists do are "more liberal" when they are in fact not liberal at all.
- 1718627440 9mo ago
  > Liberal still means liberal, and still means all the things you said. To you (and maybe me). Applying political terms is very much political in itself, I would expect the majority of people telling you a different opinion to actually believe that to be the case themselves.
  - somenameforme 9mo ago
    Exactly this. This is an issue where perception is 100% of the game. The problem I think in modern times is that parties are incapable of saying 'no' to anything that is politically beneficial in the short-run. For instance part of the official DNC platform involves putting more police out there and actively supporting them. This is obviously intended to appeal to traditional liberals, yet in practice it falls apart because the party exploits every single crisis as an opportunity which, over time, causes those exploitations to shift what people, including myself, perceive their "real" ideology and agenda to be. At the bare minimum, this most certainly would not include expansion and support of law enforcement. And so again I don't think this shift is being driven by social media or whatever. I do not partake in any social media whatsoever, besides this site and a handful of other fringe focus interest things, and my perspective of the parties, and one party in particular, has shifted radically - primarily because of their own actions.
danmaz74 9mo ago
The "liberal" in "liberal democracy" has nothing to do with the current common meaning of "liberal" - ie, left-wing - in the USA, as it comes from classical liberalism. In short, liberal democracy means a democracy based on rule of law, separation of powers, election of representatives, freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
- somenameforme 9mo ago
  In theory I agree with you, in practice I do not. This is one of those terms where the precise meaning is being, or has already been, lost. For instance in the overwhelming majority of rhetoric around the lines of this article, populism is framed as being in an adversarial relationship with liberal democracy. Yet that is, from a precise interpretation of 'liberal democracy', quite nonsensical. The entire system of democracy, of any flavor, is fundamentally populist. But populism trends towards values that are not what one would consider left-wing by US standards. And so far as I can tell, that is the only real basis for the claim of its supposed adversarial relationship with liberal democracy. It is framing "liberal" as being left-wing and US-centric left wing, and not simply of liberty.
  - danmaz74 9mo ago
    While "liberal democracy" has a very clear meaning, "populism" has very different definitions. I'm pretty sure that the definition you have in mind is pretty different from the ones I know, if you say that democracy "is fundamentally populist".
    - somenameforme 9mo ago
      How would you define it? Or would you disagree that democracy, in its nominal form, is a political system where political action is driven by the will of the masses?
      - danmaz74 9mo ago
        In a liberal democracy the "will of the masses" is applied indirectly, through the election of representatives, making laws, and then applying those laws and governing in accordance to those laws. To get elected, politicians and aspiring politicians tell electors all sorts of things. Some of them tell electors that their problems have simple solutions, which go against what the intellectual elites (scientists, doctors, engineers, lawyers etc.) recommend or say is doable. Those are what are usually defined populists. Some of them actually believe that "experts" lie for some agenda. Most of them know perfectly well that those simple solutions won't work, but say what they think electors want to hear. Not all politicians/parties act like that, even if it's common to have some populists in all most parties - because populism works.

pjc50 9mo ago

> yet somehow in contemporary times that's deemed conservative, if not very conservative. .. no, I think that sounds pretty capital-L Liberal to me. I think you may have confused the views of a few incredibly online leftists for "contemporary times". Or we get into specific issues and find out what the extreme conservativism actually is.

wan23 9mo ago

Liberal still means liberal, and still means all the things you said. Without getting into the merits of any particular side, IMO we have a categorization problem. People use the word liberal for all types of left ideologies, which is a mistake as it makes it hard to pin down what people actually believe. Also the concepts of left and far left (and right and far right) are overused. The combination of these two phenomena make it so that people will say that things leftists do are "more liberal" when they are in fact not liberal at all.

1718627440 9mo ago
> Liberal still means liberal, and still means all the things you said. To you (and maybe me). Applying political terms is very much political in itself, I would expect the majority of people telling you a different opinion to actually believe that to be the case themselves.
- somenameforme 9mo ago
  Exactly this. This is an issue where perception is 100% of the game. The problem I think in modern times is that parties are incapable of saying 'no' to anything that is politically beneficial in the short-run. For instance part of the official DNC platform involves putting more police out there and actively supporting them. This is obviously intended to appeal to traditional liberals, yet in practice it falls apart because the party exploits every single crisis as an opportunity which, over time, causes those exploitations to shift what people, including myself, perceive their "real" ideology and agenda to be. At the bare minimum, this most certainly would not include expansion and support of law enforcement. And so again I don't think this shift is being driven by social media or whatever. I do not partake in any social media whatsoever, besides this site and a handful of other fringe focus interest things, and my perspective of the parties, and one party in particular, has shifted radically - primarily because of their own actions.

danmaz74 9mo ago

The "liberal" in "liberal democracy" has nothing to do with the current common meaning of "liberal" - ie, left-wing - in the USA, as it comes from classical liberalism. In short, liberal democracy means a democracy based on rule of law, separation of powers, election of representatives, freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

somenameforme 9mo ago
In theory I agree with you, in practice I do not. This is one of those terms where the precise meaning is being, or has already been, lost. For instance in the overwhelming majority of rhetoric around the lines of this article, populism is framed as being in an adversarial relationship with liberal democracy. Yet that is, from a precise interpretation of 'liberal democracy', quite nonsensical. The entire system of democracy, of any flavor, is fundamentally populist. But populism trends towards values that are not what one would consider left-wing by US standards. And so far as I can tell, that is the only real basis for the claim of its supposed adversarial relationship with liberal democracy. It is framing "liberal" as being left-wing and US-centric left wing, and not simply of liberty.
- danmaz74 9mo ago
  While "liberal democracy" has a very clear meaning, "populism" has very different definitions. I'm pretty sure that the definition you have in mind is pretty different from the ones I know, if you say that democracy "is fundamentally populist".
  - somenameforme 9mo ago
    How would you define it? Or would you disagree that democracy, in its nominal form, is a political system where political action is driven by the will of the masses?
    - danmaz74 9mo ago
      In a liberal democracy the "will of the masses" is applied indirectly, through the election of representatives, making laws, and then applying those laws and governing in accordance to those laws. To get elected, politicians and aspiring politicians tell electors all sorts of things. Some of them tell electors that their problems have simple solutions, which go against what the intellectual elites (scientists, doctors, engineers, lawyers etc.) recommend or say is doable. Those are what are usually defined populists. Some of them actually believe that "experts" lie for some agenda. Most of them know perfectly well that those simple solutions won't work, but say what they think electors want to hear. Not all politicians/parties act like that, even if it's common to have some populists in all most parties - because populism works.