Ancestors

Written by Jack William Bell on 2025-02-05 at 19:00

Once again @pluralistic has managed to distill into once sentence something I've had trouble finding the words to explain. I'll be stealing this one!

"The classic leftist distinction goes: leftists want to abolish a system where 150 white men run the world; liberals want to replace half of those 150 with women, queers and people of color." https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/not-that-naomi/#if-the-naomi-be-klein-youre-doing-just-fine

See also: Why I refuse to be labeled as a 'Liberal'. (I'm not a 'Leftist' either, exactly. But I'll leave that for another toot.)

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Written by Toni Aittoniemi on 2025-02-05 at 19:25

@jackwilliambell @pluralistic There's an irony there only Americans can appreciate.

They literally conflate their two political parties with the whole truth of politics.

They result in a mishmash where they can say anything about anything and appear sharp and witty, yet has no application beyond their particular economic power structure.

I'm glad Europe isn't yet as fucked up talking about politics as they are. But hey, Elon is trying to get us there too.

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Written by Jack William Bell on 2025-02-05 at 19:36

@gimulnautti @pluralistic

The first thing to understand about USA politics is: everything is shifted one slot to the right.

Forex, Democrats aren't wishy-washy 'Liberals' really. They are more like a European Center Right party. What Europeans call 'Liberals', we call 'Socialists' and what Europeans call 'Socialists', we call 'Communists'.

The founding fathers of the USA tried to create a system hostile to political parties. In the end they created a system favorable to only two parties.

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Written by Angus McIntyre on 2025-02-05 at 20:13

@jackwilliambell @gimulnautti @pluralistic When I lived in Europe (where there are actual left-wing parties), I found it comical that Americans thought the Democrats were “left-wing”.

Now I live in the US, it doesn't seem comical at all.

But Trump & friends now claim the Democrats are "far-left radicals”: absurd, but many Americans seem to accept the new lie as uncritically as they accepted the previous one.

Meanwhile, the American right has gone far-right, but still pretend to be moderates.

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Toot

Written by somlu1968 on 2025-02-05 at 20:40

@angusm @jackwilliambell @gimulnautti @pluralistic

It's the same in Europe. The entire political spectrum has shifted to the right to such an extent that the demand for human rights to be respected is already classified as radical left-wing. Perhaps some countries are not yet as far as the usa.

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Descendants

Written by Jack William Bell on 2025-02-05 at 20:46

@somlu1968 @angusm @gimulnautti @pluralistic

I'll avoid getting into a dick measuring contest as to who has shifted the most to the right. (And when.) But I'll admit a general rightward shift is the trend.

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Written by somlu1968 on 2025-02-05 at 20:51

@jackwilliambell @angusm @gimulnautti @pluralistic

I didn't say anything about who is “most right-wing”, only that the political spectrum as a whole has shifted to the right. And that is not my observation alone, there are studies on this. For example, the party “Die Linke” by and large represents social democratic positions that have been considered far-left for a while, even by the SPD.

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