“Leftist” means very different things to different people. It’s not a very well-defined term, and really never has been.
Some people will insist that leftist means socialist, and that Nordic-style Social Democrats are actually right wing because Social Democracy is capitalist and anything that involves private ownership of the means of production is right wing.
Others will insist that somehow CNN is the “Communist News Network”, and that anyone left of Trump is a leftist.
So the better question is really what they mean. Did they go from being a college communist to a Social Democrat, or from a Joe Manchin supporter to wanting Charlie Baker to run?
More college communist to social democrat/left leaning liberal. But nobody has actually asked me what my views are which just goes to show how actually interested in discourse people are if you don’t just agree with the hive mind. You’re possibly the most level headed person on this thread.
Conservatism means different things to different people. Just not being radical and accepting that some things don’t require extreme solutions gets you labelled a conservative these days, despite the fact I’ve never voted for a right wing party ever.
That’s a vague response that I can’t really make any reply to.
If you aren’t voting for right-wing parties, that’s a good thing. You might be a pretty middle-of-the-road liberal, at least statistically speaking that’s not unlikely. Which in the grand scheme of things, is still fairly conservative, supportive of the maintenance of the status quo.
So if that describes you, I can see why people would say that’s conservative.
How is being middle of the road,conservative in the grand scheme of things unless you’re massively overestimating the appeal of the far left? By definition it’s not.
This reminds me of when Reddit thought Bernie was a legitimate presidential candidate. Terminally online people have a warped perspective on the political spectrum.
How is being middle of the road,conservative in the grand scheme of things
I literally explained it in the comment. You should try reading it again.
Maintaining the status quo, opposing change, is still quite conservative. Hell the right-wing party in some countries are the “Liberals”. And note that I said lower-case-c “conservative”. Just because the self-described capital-c “Conservatives” are running further rightward and flirting with fascism, doesn’t make the middle position not conservative.
ntg but the general kind of surface level spectrum might look more like conservatives, not definitionally, or, in the sense of the origin of the word, conservatives want to regress society back to some previous state. centrists yadda yadda status quo. and then liberals want to progress society, and that’s kind of equivalent to progressivism or leftism. Which is partially because americans are not politically literate, or actually literate, and don’t understand the differences between different words, but also because america as a whole is so far to the right (so is much of the world), and so stuck in the past, that actual leftism is incredibly fucking radical, and advocating for liberalism, or at least, the identitarian implications of liberalism, rather than fucked up plutocracy and bigotry, is still thought of as a leftist position.
You said in the grand scheme of things it’s conservative, which is pretty vague and meaningless and screams of “everyone who is to the right of me is a conservative QED”.
There is a reason the left are terrible at building election winning coalitions and shit like this is exactly why.
Why do you assume that liberals just want to maintain the status quo, when actually most of us want change but not the radical economy breaking change the left seem to want?
I think we understand importantly that nothing gets fixed if the economy isn’t healthy. The left view the economy very differently.
I didn’t realise being a left leaning liberal rather than a raging communist makes one a freak. Good to know. Thanks for actually trying to understand what I believe (/s)!
you aren’t left leaning, and I’m not a communist. what happened to the nuance you were just prattling on about? abandon it already because you really like calling people communists that much?
College communists will absolutely label the entire democratic party right wing, and will call liberalism a fundamentally conservative philosophy. If you’re surrounded by literal communists, accepting that maybe a literal revolution isn’t the best idea will absolutely get you called a conservative.
That’s not really a new phenomenon, though. The German communist party literally labeled the social democrat party fascists, and thought they were just as bad as the nazis. Turns out they were kinda wrong about that.
College communists will absolutely label the entire democratic party right wing, and will call liberalism a fundamentally conservative philosophy.
I mean. I’m no college communist. But neither of those assertions are particularly out there?
When compared with parties in other democracies, the Democrats are pretty right-wing on many issues. And it’s not strange to refer to liberalism as a conservative philosophy, it tends to place emphasis on private property, free-market economics, and capitalism. There are places where the conservative party are “The Liberals”.
That is why I said “tends” to favour capitalism. Which I don’t think is unfair. Liberalism has also been built upon for a long time, so one would expect to find a lot of variation.
You can literally predict what most college age leftists think about on any given news article before they even open their mouths.
They’ve descended into sloganeering identity politics and away from policy largely.
Lots of leftists genuinely believe society could just remove property, the police, money and all sorts of crazy shit and that we’d emerge out of the other side with no issues. They think problems are easily solved with just taxes on the rich and everybody just acting like them as though that’s a realistic proposal.
Don’t even get me started on the modern Monetary theorists who think there is no downside to endlessly printing money.
Yes, the far right are awfully shit too. But because the left is comparing themselves to people who can’t separate their arses from their elbows they are blind to their own biases and fallacies.
This whole comment is a straw man that feels like it was written by a walking Fox News segment.
They’ve descended into sloganeering identity politics and away from policy largely.
Completely nonsense. Just because there are some slogans like ACAB or BLM doesn’t mean that there aren’t policy proposals, it just means that “modern policing is a corrupt institution with bad systems that lead to bad outcomes and we should end qualified immunity and force police unions to pay when cops drastically abuse their power” doesn’t fit on a bumper sticker.
Lots of leftists genuinely believe society could just remove property, the police, money and all sorts of crazy shit
More complete nonsense. This is lemmy.ml, so they over represent here, but the vast majority of American leftists are mostly along the lines of “we should improve society somewhat.”
They think problems are easily solved with just taxes on the rich and everybody just acting like them as though that’s a realistic proposal.
This one I won’t disagree with. Quite a lot of things could be solved simply by taxing the rich, who are currently experiencing some of the lowest taxes in the history of the US, and during the US’s real heyday from 40-70 or so, were taxed at a significantly higher rate. They were also paid significantly less, with CEO to worker pay usually being around a 10-20x multiplier, instead of a 100s of times. This is simply empirically true, like the fact that other countries exist that do tax the wealthy more, have more social programs, and generally have better outcomes (lower crime, lower rates of poverty, lower rates of maternal mortality, lower overall average mortality, etc.) Even still, the calls for taxing the rich aren’t really even pushing for tax rates of the 50’s, they’re pushing for tax rates of like 2003, or even 2015 before they were given yet another tax break with no plan for paying for it. So yeah, pretty realistic given that we’ve done it in this country, and many countries are still doing it even more than we did.
Don’t even get me started on the modern Monetary theorists who think there is no downside to endlessly printing money.
Please don’t. This would be another argument against a straw man, unless you’re arguing for a gold standard or something which would just highlight a lack of knowledge about modern economic theory.
I don’t want to respond to people who just assume I’m American as is the case here. It makes it very difficult to even have a proper discussion.
I have no qualms with the people who just want to improve society in sensible ways, but you know the cohort I am referring to. These people arent your allies and are just as blind as the far right. They are over represented on Lemmy as you astutely observed.
Please open your eyes to how the right has driven the left to mimic them.
I think I agree with you. Since the left is more “popular” it now brings in more people with dumber takes. I do think though that some of the problem is were going to need some extreme solutions in the near future for increasingly pressing issues, and determining which of those are reactionary and lazy, and which are needed is difficult
Another example of how people think tugging a lever to have the most extreme leftist positions is the way to properly analyse politics. It’s low effort and requires no thought and makes you feel like a good person despite achieving nothing in terms of political change.
But thanks for assuming that because I disagree vehemently with typical leftist economics and their general tactics that I must be a raging transphobe.
Another example of the lack of nuance I referred to.
there’s the victim complex again. twitter hates me! Reddit hates me! Lemmy hates me! do you have anything to do besides cry about how everyone didn’t start jerking you off for being a rightie?
I’m the opposite. Being a hardcore leftist is a right of passage as a younger person, as I’ve aged I’ve discovered nuance and pragmatism.
Good luck to you then. The more I learn about the world, and the more different people I meet, the more repulsive conservatism becomes.
“Leftist” means very different things to different people. It’s not a very well-defined term, and really never has been.
Some people will insist that leftist means socialist, and that Nordic-style Social Democrats are actually right wing because Social Democracy is capitalist and anything that involves private ownership of the means of production is right wing.
Others will insist that somehow CNN is the “Communist News Network”, and that anyone left of Trump is a leftist.
So the better question is really what they mean. Did they go from being a college communist to a Social Democrat, or from a Joe Manchin supporter to wanting Charlie Baker to run?
More college communist to social democrat/left leaning liberal. But nobody has actually asked me what my views are which just goes to show how actually interested in discourse people are if you don’t just agree with the hive mind. You’re possibly the most level headed person on this thread.
Conservatism means different things to different people. Just not being radical and accepting that some things don’t require extreme solutions gets you labelled a conservative these days, despite the fact I’ve never voted for a right wing party ever.
That’s a vague response that I can’t really make any reply to.
If you aren’t voting for right-wing parties, that’s a good thing. You might be a pretty middle-of-the-road liberal, at least statistically speaking that’s not unlikely. Which in the grand scheme of things, is still fairly conservative, supportive of the maintenance of the status quo.
So if that describes you, I can see why people would say that’s conservative.
How is being middle of the road,conservative in the grand scheme of things unless you’re massively overestimating the appeal of the far left? By definition it’s not.
This reminds me of when Reddit thought Bernie was a legitimate presidential candidate. Terminally online people have a warped perspective on the political spectrum.
I literally explained it in the comment. You should try reading it again.
Maintaining the status quo, opposing change, is still quite conservative. Hell the right-wing party in some countries are the “Liberals”. And note that I said lower-case-c “conservative”. Just because the self-described capital-c “Conservatives” are running further rightward and flirting with fascism, doesn’t make the middle position not conservative.
ntg but the general kind of surface level spectrum might look more like conservatives, not definitionally, or, in the sense of the origin of the word, conservatives want to regress society back to some previous state. centrists yadda yadda status quo. and then liberals want to progress society, and that’s kind of equivalent to progressivism or leftism. Which is partially because americans are not politically literate, or actually literate, and don’t understand the differences between different words, but also because america as a whole is so far to the right (so is much of the world), and so stuck in the past, that actual leftism is incredibly fucking radical, and advocating for liberalism, or at least, the identitarian implications of liberalism, rather than fucked up plutocracy and bigotry, is still thought of as a leftist position.
You said in the grand scheme of things it’s conservative, which is pretty vague and meaningless and screams of “everyone who is to the right of me is a conservative QED”.
There is a reason the left are terrible at building election winning coalitions and shit like this is exactly why.
You can think whatever you like, but that isn’t what I wrote.
Why do you assume that liberals just want to maintain the status quo, when actually most of us want change but not the radical economy breaking change the left seem to want?
I think we understand importantly that nothing gets fixed if the economy isn’t healthy. The left view the economy very differently.
no it doesn’t.
Yes it absolutely does.
jesus you freaks have such a victim fetish
I didn’t realise being a left leaning liberal rather than a raging communist makes one a freak. Good to know. Thanks for actually trying to understand what I believe (/s)!
you aren’t left leaning, and I’m not a communist. what happened to the nuance you were just prattling on about? abandon it already because you really like calling people communists that much?
College communists will absolutely label the entire democratic party right wing, and will call liberalism a fundamentally conservative philosophy. If you’re surrounded by literal communists, accepting that maybe a literal revolution isn’t the best idea will absolutely get you called a conservative.
That’s not really a new phenomenon, though. The German communist party literally labeled the social democrat party fascists, and thought they were just as bad as the nazis. Turns out they were kinda wrong about that.
I mean. I’m no college communist. But neither of those assertions are particularly out there?
When compared with parties in other democracies, the Democrats are pretty right-wing on many issues. And it’s not strange to refer to liberalism as a conservative philosophy, it tends to place emphasis on private property, free-market economics, and capitalism. There are places where the conservative party are “The Liberals”.
Liberalism, as in the philosophy, isn’t inherently pro-capitalism. There have been liberals that are opposed to capitalism.
That is why I said “tends” to favour capitalism. Which I don’t think is unfair. Liberalism has also been built upon for a long time, so one would expect to find a lot of variation.
Ah yeah, the non nuanced view of leftists
You can literally predict what most college age leftists think about on any given news article before they even open their mouths.
They’ve descended into sloganeering identity politics and away from policy largely.
Lots of leftists genuinely believe society could just remove property, the police, money and all sorts of crazy shit and that we’d emerge out of the other side with no issues. They think problems are easily solved with just taxes on the rich and everybody just acting like them as though that’s a realistic proposal.
Don’t even get me started on the modern Monetary theorists who think there is no downside to endlessly printing money.
go ask some conservatives their opinion on trans people and see the incredible variance in their answers.
Yes, the far right are awfully shit too. But because the left is comparing themselves to people who can’t separate their arses from their elbows they are blind to their own biases and fallacies.
conservatives learn what hypocrisy is challenge
I’m not even a conservative, I’m a liberal/social democrat but nice try 👍
who just happens to agree with conservatives on everything
Sure I do mate.
This whole comment is a straw man that feels like it was written by a walking Fox News segment.
Completely nonsense. Just because there are some slogans like ACAB or BLM doesn’t mean that there aren’t policy proposals, it just means that “modern policing is a corrupt institution with bad systems that lead to bad outcomes and we should end qualified immunity and force police unions to pay when cops drastically abuse their power” doesn’t fit on a bumper sticker.
More complete nonsense. This is lemmy.ml, so they over represent here, but the vast majority of American leftists are mostly along the lines of “we should improve society somewhat.”
This one I won’t disagree with. Quite a lot of things could be solved simply by taxing the rich, who are currently experiencing some of the lowest taxes in the history of the US, and during the US’s real heyday from 40-70 or so, were taxed at a significantly higher rate. They were also paid significantly less, with CEO to worker pay usually being around a 10-20x multiplier, instead of a 100s of times. This is simply empirically true, like the fact that other countries exist that do tax the wealthy more, have more social programs, and generally have better outcomes (lower crime, lower rates of poverty, lower rates of maternal mortality, lower overall average mortality, etc.) Even still, the calls for taxing the rich aren’t really even pushing for tax rates of the 50’s, they’re pushing for tax rates of like 2003, or even 2015 before they were given yet another tax break with no plan for paying for it. So yeah, pretty realistic given that we’ve done it in this country, and many countries are still doing it even more than we did.
Please don’t. This would be another argument against a straw man, unless you’re arguing for a gold standard or something which would just highlight a lack of knowledge about modern economic theory.
I’ve never watched Fox News in my life.
I don’t want to respond to people who just assume I’m American as is the case here. It makes it very difficult to even have a proper discussion.
I have no qualms with the people who just want to improve society in sensible ways, but you know the cohort I am referring to. These people arent your allies and are just as blind as the far right. They are over represented on Lemmy as you astutely observed.
Please open your eyes to how the right has driven the left to mimic them.
I think I agree with you. Since the left is more “popular” it now brings in more people with dumber takes. I do think though that some of the problem is were going to need some extreme solutions in the near future for increasingly pressing issues, and determining which of those are reactionary and lazy, and which are needed is difficult
well, you definitely didn’t move right then.
Another example of how people think tugging a lever to have the most extreme leftist positions is the way to properly analyse politics. It’s low effort and requires no thought and makes you feel like a good person despite achieving nothing in terms of political change.
remind me again how going apeshit every time you see a trans person requires thought and achieves something?
I don’t go apeshit when I see a trans person.
But thanks for assuming that because I disagree vehemently with typical leftist economics and their general tactics that I must be a raging transphobe.
Another example of the lack of nuance I referred to.
and i didn’t pull a lever to get the most extreme far left positions
but thanks for assuming that because i disagree with you
another example of the hypocrisy i referred to
You attacked what you thought my politics was.
What Lemmy wanted me to say was “yeah I’m way more leftist now, more left is good. Left left left.” Updoots for everyone. It’s fucking sad as fuck.
there’s the victim complex again. twitter hates me! Reddit hates me! Lemmy hates me! do you have anything to do besides cry about how everyone didn’t start jerking you off for being a rightie?
I’m. Not. A. Rightie. Dickhead.
Why do you disagree vehemently with leftist economics?