this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2024
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Memes

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[–] [email protected] 93 points 4 months ago (3 children)

For those in here that take offense to this distinction:

2 party political systems function to collapse diverse political perspectives into one of two camps and normalize an 'average' view for both parties. Leftists take issue with this collapse because it erases dissenting views within each party in service of defeating an 'other' at the expense of pursuing our real political goals.

The label matters to those of us who want to make the point that the US democratic party does not really represent our interests; at-best they represent a less-objectionable flavor of the same ideological framework, but one that needs to be dismantled all the same.

"Stop trying to divide us!" is a refrain spoken by those who are better served by the party than we are.

Put another way: "We are not the same"

[–] [email protected] 24 points 4 months ago (32 children)

I think the current best demonstration on this is how hard people are pushing Mark Kelly as VP.

They push a center-right president onto the stage and then dangle another "centrist" to try and, what? Appeal to Never Trumper Republicans? Racists?

How about you offer actual progressives some goddamn enticement for once and offer it to Jamaal Bowman, who the Dems primaried in favor of a genocidal AIPAC stooge?

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago

Very well put

[–] [email protected] 31 points 4 months ago (30 children)

Meh, though the meme is true, most Americans would say liberals are EVERYONE left of center, and conservatives are EVERYONE right of center.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The center is now also conservative, unfortunately.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 4 months ago (29 children)

Using neo-liberals to define liberals is like using national socialism to define socialism.

It's authoritarian propaganda.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 4 months ago (1 children)

When you have only two parties you can only have one dimension.

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[–] Sabre363 25 points 4 months ago (17 children)

Do these labels really have any benefit or value in society, or are they just yet another lame excuse for us all to hate on a group of 'others'

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago

They referred to specific ideologies and economic and social policies before the modern corporate propaganda machine really started in the 80s. Pretty sure they’re meaningless to most Americans these days.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

I think at this point the average American conflates "liberal" with simply an attitude on how much you hate or don't hate queer people, regardless of any other political sentiment. One time a chud told me the only real political issue is abortion.

us americans are not, to put it lightly, an intellectual country

[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 months ago (12 children)

I mentioned this anecdote in another thread a couple weeks ago, but I think it fits here too:

It's not even just chuds ime, it's the majority of the US population that thinks the "further left" something or someone is, the more "liberal" it is. Even many liberals think this.

A while back I told someone (an acquaintance I met irl) that I considered myself a communist and their response to me was:

"I'm pretty liberal myself, but communism is too liberal even for me."

There were several other people present and none of them thought this was a strange thing to say. blob-no-thoughts

[–] ZombiFrancis 8 points 4 months ago (2 children)

It may in part have something to do with how only American liberal spaces allow for anyone to say they're a communist without severe social and professional ramifications.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Can't say I've experienced this. According to American liberals I've talked with, communism is just about synonymous with fascism. No way I could mention that I'm a socialist, that's like an insult towards liberals here. But I also live in Georgia where they ran ads about "radical socialist anti-israel anti-American Fidel Castro supporting communist Raphael Warnock" for the entire election, and that was supposed to scare us, so... maybe there's the reason. Yes the ads were by the Heritage Foundation

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

flashback to my college days getting asked on surveys what my politics are on a scale of liberal to conservative

they'd always mark me as "independent" since their scale had nowhere to put communists

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 months ago

.ml has entered the chat

[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 months ago

TBF there are about seven mutually exclusive definitions of “liberal” in each country.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The thing I love about lemmy is instead of neoliberals and weird racists silencing Leftists like reddit, it's Leftists and Social democrats constantly at each other's throats.

The latter is much more amusing

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago (3 children)

The latter is much more amusing

same here; but likely for different reasons.

i like learning about viewpoints that differ from mine; i think they help me question my own beliefs and, usually, it re-enforces them.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Americans are actually taught in school that the entire American political spectrum is inside liberalism.

They then immediately forget that anyway and fall into the conservative/liberal false paradigm.

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