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Democrats Are Not "The Radical Left" | Renegade Cut
- Thread starter It’s Time To Go
- Start date
In a country where half of voters (who make up around 1/4 of the population) vote conservative, I don't see how you have a proper left wing party.
Then add to that, the center right (extending slightly center left) party doesn't really want to move all the way into the left, and doesn't really create space for actual left politics.
So you have nothing.
Then add to that, the center right (extending slightly center left) party doesn't really want to move all the way into the left, and doesn't really create space for actual left politics.
So you have nothing.
yet you can have a crazy right wing extreme party? why can you not have a very liberal party?
...Something has been bugging me on the news lately. The right is associated with fascism and authoritarianism and the left is associated with anarchy in the latest shouting matches but... shouldn't it be the other way around? I thought a conservative view used to mean LESS of a government role and oversight while a liberal view meant MORE. I feel like I'm forgetting which words mean what.
...Something has been bugging me on the news lately. The right is associated with fascism and authoritarianism and the left is associated with anarchy in the latest shouting matches but... shouldn't it be the other way around? I thought a conservative view used to mean LESS of a government role and oversight while a liberal view meant MORE. I feel like I'm forgetting which words mean what.
Don't try to make sense of any Republican spin, their lizard brains are too much for us lowly libs.
...Something has been bugging me on the news lately. The right is associated with fascism and authoritarianism and the left is associated with anarchy in the latest shouting matches but... shouldn't it be the other way around? I thought a conservative view used to mean LESS of a government role and oversight while a liberal view meant MORE. I feel like I'm forgetting which words mean what.
There is no consistency in right wing positions. Trumpism simultaneously tore down the administrative state under the guise of 'small government,' while also trying to shift the power balance to a supremely powerful executive branch. Trumpism is not an ideologically consistent movement, it's a brand of populism. American populism has never been ideologically consistent on the political axis.
I find a lot of his arguments are often quite sound and interesting. But in general he is always arguing from a really extreme position. like uncomfortably so.
Obviously that doesn't mean he can't be right, but it does mean that sometimes he is very hard to take seriously.
If a 15 dollar minimum wage, a public option, and 1400 dollar checks count as "radical" then we as a country truly have no idea what is possible with enough political will.
How do you imagine this political will taking shape into even more left laws and concepts with a 50/50 senate and a 6-3 Supreme Court?
I mean. Not to derail (i hope this isn't seen as that).
There is a difference between working within a context that requires a certain amount of pragmatism and realizing the ideal.
There are perfectly VALID arguments that there are really good progressive steps that are pragmatic but not ideal and should be seen as this and not "failures" to realize the ideal.
People have spent the last 20 years being told that democrats' ideal is the destruction of America, and that has been used to sell crippling austerity.
Pragmatic steps to alleviate austerity shouldn't be decried as failures to realize the left ideal. In my opinion.
Left wing and right wings can have large governments.
The Republican party isn't for small government, despite their claim. They love big government as long as it doesn't help any poor people or minorities.
Pretty much. Conservatives are basically allowed infinite leeway to define the terms of debate and political classification that basically anything that isn't outright fucking Nazism at this point is a "radical leftist agenda."
I would argue that it's because a crazy party doesn't need to live in reality or understand things like science and compromise. So they'll just exist no matter what consequences emerge.
A very liberal party will (mostly) recognize that sane, but more moderate policies, are still better than crazy.
That doesn't fundamentally change anything about society being built around capitalism and being structured for the owners of capital to exploit the workers and the poor. So no, Biden or any democrat, is not radical if all they do is rearange things within the bounds of capitalism. You can even swap in Bernie Sanders and his more far reaching plans and RC's critique still applies.
The label has no meaning now. When the right can label Joe Biden as a radical socialist shows you that it is pure partisan bull shit.
I will never understand how conservatives can call everyone to their left "radical" without pause or self reflection. Like the "radical" abolitionist John Brown.
When you were told that people on the right were "anarcho-capitalists" it was a lie via oxymoron. They aren't anarchists, they're neofeudalists. Actual anarchists oppose all hiearchies (including capitalism) and are on the left.
...Something has been bugging me on the news lately. The right is associated with fascism and authoritarianism and the left is associated with anarchy in the latest shouting matches but... shouldn't it be the other way around? I thought a conservative view used to mean LESS of a government role and oversight while a liberal view meant MORE. I feel like I'm forgetting which words mean what.
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You have a right wing extremist party because America is located in an area of the political compass where it can happen.
See below, America is in the blue square (No free healthcare, no free college, no UBI, very little green initiatives). Trump would be closest to the up/right in the blue square; A conservative authoritarian.
If America had more politicians like AOC and Bernie, it would effectively move towards the green square (free healthcare, GND, free college, more public transport, Etc).
Conversations would be different, and the threat of fascism diminishes. If you believe in Overton Window, this means that the right is pulled towards the left because the left moves even more left.
Ah. So they like the VISUAL of being for small government, but none of the actual mechanisms.
I try my best to never attempt to "truly understand" politics the same way you never really want to "truly understand" a serial killer or a cannibal or that one remaining Blockbuster employee.
I was about to post this. Thanks for doing it for me.
It's also worth pointing out that anarchists don't advocate for chaos. That's right wing anti-anarchist propaganda to make us seem scary and irrational. Anarchists consider anarchy to be order, not the absence of it. Whether people agree with that assessment or not is a different matter.
I was hoping for a video that I can send to my friends, but this video isn't very good at communication.
It starts with calling Mitch a ghoul and then use a meandering, boring, nuanced way to explain that establishment Democrats are incremental centrists, but the Fox News visuals he uses get much more attention.
It starts with calling Mitch a ghoul and then use a meandering, boring, nuanced way to explain that establishment Democrats are incremental centrists, but the Fox News visuals he uses get much more attention.
The Democratic party is simply a big tent party that includes most of the left. The only people who call it the "radical left" are Republicans as a campaign attack. There's a reason they very rarely lose the popular vote in national elections (president and house).
I used to do tons of backflips off the swingset in elementary school so growing up I was pretty radical.
I'm not sure we need to be very concerned about this "radical left" framing from conservatives, it strikes me as one of those lies so blatant that it will never land with anyone outside of the far right. It's the kind of thing that's red meat to a certain portion of the base but anathema to everyone else. It's the smooth talking shitheels that we need to be more worried about.
I'm not sure we need to be very concerned about this "radical left" framing from conservatives, it strikes me as one of those lies so blatant that it will never land with anyone outside of the far right. It's the kind of thing that's red meat to a certain portion of the base but anathema to everyone else. It's the smooth talking shitheels that we need to be more worried about.
Ultimately I don't really see much changing for the American peoples day to day lives. A conservative supreme court will do things that will hinder what Biden will get passed (the public option is definitely going there. They will probably strike it down in some form. They can't call the whole thing unconstitutional but they will make it toothless in some form) and they might kick Roe v Wade back down to the states. However I ultimately see alot of America's future defined by it's past these last couple of years. Grid lock, jobs being outsourced or automated away, and growing disenfranchisement with our current political system. Whether people on here like to admit it or not there's a reason why facism is showing itself in America today. Yes it's because of racism, privilege, and entitlement. But it's also because large groups of people out there don't have anything to give their lives meaning. All they do is work all day and have become separated from anymore of meaning in their work. That's just open tinder to the fires of facism. So I see another Trump rising in our lifetime. And the only thing this go around has proven to me is that we are unprepared, and continue to be unprepared, for facism. Until we improve people's lives and actually do things to give them meaning in life (universal Healthcare so they don't have to work sick, unionization/ worker co-ops so they have representative in the work place, Nationwide mandatory vacation time so people can experience life, and a universal basic income so that they can leave their jobs and not stress about it) we will be fighting facism again. I'd bet money on it. Liberalism won't be enough to fix our current problems
I can understand why someone would do incremental change as opposed to drastic immediate change however I am not convinced that the incremental change will be enough to solve America's problems. It is a country living off debt, poor people pretending to be rich just for the sake of appearance. Breadlines of cars in my opinion are the perfect metaphor for our current situation. We want to appear just fine but in reality we are over worked, under paid, and uninformed. Many of you think that January 6th was the powder keg exploding. I'm trying to tell you that that was just it cracking alittle.
Just to reinforce this point. Here is how the Political Compass site has rated different candidates to help visualize it better:You have a right wing extremist party because America is located in an area of the political compass where it can happen.
See below, America is in the blue square (No free healthcare, no free college, no UBI, very little green initiatives). Trump would be closest to the up/right in the blue square; A conservative authoritarian.
If America had more politicians like AOC and Bernie, it would effectively move towards the green square (free healthcare, GND, free college, more public transport, Etc).
Conversations would be different, and the threat of fascism diminishes. If you believe in Overton Window, this means that the right is pulled towards the left because the left moves even more left.
The Political Compass
The Political Compass: a 2-dimensional typology of political opinions
www.politicalcompass.org
You have a right wing extremist party because America is located in an area of the political compass where it can happen.
See below, America is in the blue square (No free healthcare, no free college, no UBI, very little green initiatives). Trump would be closest to the up/right in the blue square; A conservative authoritarian.
If America had more politicians like AOC and Bernie, it would effectively move towards the green square (free healthcare, GND, free college, more public transport, Etc).
Conversations would be different, and the threat of fascism diminishes. If you believe in Overton Window, this means that the right is pulled towards the left because the left moves even more left.
Should probably be noted that while the compass is way better than the typical left/right spectrum, it's still a pretty limited representation.
It would move up towards authoritarian though? Free healthcare, free college, and public transport require government funding and assistance and that is the opposite of libertarian.
Biden's administration hasn't even taken office yet. All the progressive posturing they're doing could turn out to be just that - posturing.
You're missing the authoritarian/libertarian axis as Pekola mentioned. There are auth lefts (classic US History example is Stalinism) and lib rights (lib for libertarians not liberals, Friedman, Kochs, etc), and the American GOP has spent a lot of time selling itself as the party of small government, of fiscal responsibility (and conversely, the Dems as big government and fiscal waste), but this is just advertising. The lib right has spent a lot of time in the last couple of decades trying to take over the GOP and Trump upended all of that in 4 years. They thought they could control and utilize Trump's auth right tendencies, they were wrong. Still profited off of Trump though, so it wasn't a total loss for them.
It never struck you as odd that they talk about "small government" while also wanting loads of money to feed into the military industrial complex, legislate against women and minorities, and enact anti-LGBTQ laws? Small government is about removing barriers like environmental regulations and corporate oversight. They don't actually mean to make the government smaller all through out.
"radical liberal Raphael Warnock" "radical liberal Raphael Warnock" "radical liberal Raphael Warnock" "radical liberal Raphael Warnock" "radical liberal Raphael Warnock" "radical liberal Raphael Warnock" "radical liberal Raphael Warnock"
And then he won. In a red state. I agree that I don't think it really matters when right wing extremists say it.
And then he won. In a red state. I agree that I don't think it really matters when right wing extremists say it.
Demilitarization and defunding of police, cuts to defense spending, rolling back domestic surveillance, decriminalized immigration, friendlier foreign policy, decriminalization of drugs...
Aaaah. The liberal !=libertarian thing clears up a lot. As I said, I try to avoid modern politics because the levels of hypocrisy and flimflam make my head hurt.
Which is why it's important to continue to work with and within the Democratic Party until we can get legislation and reform that makes alternative parties viable on the national level.
Been trying to put this into words for a long time, so thanks.
Actions speak louder than words, let's see what biden actually does when he gets in there. I have zero expectations of any large progressive policies.. I sincerely hope I am wrong
Get ready for a page-long dogpile about how you should be banned for not being enthusiastic.
Democrats (especially establishment dens) in America are center-right politicians through and through.
They certainly tricked me when I was younger during the Obama days on that one 😒.
We definitely need an actually left political party in the US but unfortunately the people are barely voting for people on the left (the US is frustratingly conservative as a whole).
They certainly tricked me when I was younger during the Obama days on that one 😒.
We definitely need an actually left political party in the US but unfortunately the people are barely voting for people on the left (the US is frustratingly conservative as a whole).
It doesn't help that younger voters are underrepresented in Dem primaries.