this post was submitted on 23 Dec 2023
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“Democrats are liberal/progressive”
In reality, they’re pretty conservative.
The Overton Window
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
A concept where political discourse is slowly shifted to one side or another over time. For example conservatism.
Politics are talked about the right who move even further right, the centralists are moved to old right and the leftists are moved to the center .... the old leftists are now seen as extreme and unacceptable while the far right are also unacceptable but gain some ground ... everyone shifts one step to the right and now everything is more conservative.
The right shift is what is happening now ... but it can happen and shift towards the left as well.
They are still liberal though but not progressives. Liberalism isn’t necessarily a left wing ideology.
A lot of leftists (and I hardly ever saw it before coming on Lemmy) use 'Liberal' to mean Classic or Neo Liberal - basically a synonym of capitalist.. That's not at all what it means in American politics, where it means the opposite of Conservative. If we used that definition, Conservatives would be called Liberals as well as Liberals being Liberals, which obviously makes no sense for US lingo. However, they both are Liberals in the neo/classic sense as most US Liberals aren't calling for communism.
The conservatives are only liberal in the economic sense. They are the party of book banning, anti-abortion and anti-lgbtq. Liberalism is also about human rights and freedoms. But just because you think gays should be allowed to marry and acces to have an abortion should be a right that doesn’t put you left on the political spectrum or even make you a progressive. Since that is pretty much a centrist political position in the rest of the world. Most Democrats are liberal in the economic sense but also in the human liberty sense. But only a few Democrats in the house and senate can be truly called progressives. Since most Democrats are fine with the status quo and aren’t pushing society forward. They are just fighting of the attacks of the GOP
This sort of confusion is why I think we need to always define economic and social political positions separately rather than lump them together.
You'd need more than two parties for that.
Good
Right, I agree. The progressive side of the US is not fairly represented by Democrats nationally.
Two red scares and a cold war created an Orwellian memory hole such that Americans don’t even have the words anymore. It’s double-plus ungood.
It's an inherently right wing ideology lol. They're just conservatives that want/like to think they're progressive.
Liberal economic theories beleive the free market is the best solution generally, but allow the free market to be intervened in or even entirely supplanted in cases of market failure or where significant social problems arise from private ownership. There is a lot of debate inside liberalism as to when a market has failed, or when a social issue requires intervention, which is why sometimes you will see centrist liberals and left liberals arguing. Just look at Canada with our Liberal Party, its a big tent party with a small social democrat rump(since most social Dems are NDP), a larger social liberal / left liberal group, as well as some centrist and "blue liberals" (these would be right liberals, who are harder to convince about market failures).
Liberalism can be progressive, especially when the main thrust of a liberal party is left liberal or social liberal. Some Liberal parties are progressive sometimes, then more centrist at others as members and the membership changes over the years (or often on the strength and leanings of their leader). All still liberalism.
The real lie is the notion that "liberalism" was ever anything other than right-wing to begin with, let alone adjacent to progressivism.
Democrats are liberals. Republicans are too. Both of them are reactionary.
That’s only true if you use the international definition of “liberal”. In America, “liberal” means “left wing”. And we’re talking about American politics.
No it doesn't. Widespread ignorance does not change objective reality. This sort of thinking is Hyperliberalism. Just because most Americans are politically illiterate doesn't mean the definition is changed. 40% Americans also believe the entire universe is only 6000 years old.
If you ask an american political scientist to define "liberal" they will tell you the "international" definition. If you allow technical and scientific terms to be subjected to "language just evolves" you end up with a Tower of Babble type situation where different groups of people are unable to communicate with one another despite using the same language and society collapses.
If you ignore the actual usage of words then you’re speaking your own language and talking only with your own in-group bubble.
This was not a conversation about the political science term “liberal”. It is about lies told to everyone. We’re obviously discussing common usage.
Saying something is obvious doesn't make it true. The only noun you use in your first comment is "Democrats" so how is this not a discussion about politics? I am having a discussion about politics and I'm going to do my best to use political terminology in its established scientific meaning not a niche dialect that you believe is "common use."
The world is much bigger than the USA. Americans only make up 15% of the English speaking world. What you call "common use" is just "ignorant and wrong" to the rest of us.
By any civilized standard democrat politicians are far right extremists (a few token exceptions are closer to right or even center-right on some points, but they have little effect on the whole). Republicans are outright deranged lunatics, mixed with a worryingly increasing percentage of fascists.
Socially left, but not communist