Political Memes

I would just like to state that most Americans have no idea what the difference between a liberal and leftist is. When you say you're a liberal, they think you're a leftist. When you say you're a leftist, they think you're a leftist. The conflation will always be there, given the history of the US and decades of the usage of the conflation in everyday American language.

Edit Addendum: it doesn't help that liberals/democratic establishment are somewhat more """"""""""left"""""""""" of the conservatives/Republicans, which is why liberals are grouped with the "left" in the US. It also doesn't help that the "left", who would be more accurately known as that grouping of socialists, communists, anarchists, and every other small or large anti-capitalist and or progressive political identity group, just call themselves "the left" or "leftist", playing into the idea that one's politics can be quickly understood by pointing to the linear spectrum of "right" and "left", as if these broad and false dichotomies fit reality to a tee or some shit.

.ml leading the charge on this.

I see a lot of other really suspicious shit around Lemmy. I have a suspicion it's trying to be used like r/the_donald was.

Lol. Yeah im sure that it's China and Russians who are causing leftist to not trust liberals. The last 300 years of human history in which liberals gleefully murdered leftists has nothing to do with it.

I'm not saying that this isn't happening, but at the same time it also seems to get heavily implied in threads like these that the solution is for leftists to just get onboard with two-party neoliberalist capitalism just for this next one election, just this once, we promise.

Calling on the Democratic Party to adopt left-wing policies keeps getting branded "divisive", but calling on Leftists to adopt the center-right is treated like an attempt at unification.

The people calling for party unity don't want any of the political aspects of a united Left, they just want to carry on the same policies they had before but with more people being scared into holding their noses and voting for them.

Oh, the problem is much deeper than definitions. One group is socially progressive but economically right. Then, the other group is both progressive on social and economic issues. The economic policies is where the rift is.

Edit: wording

Yes, but I hate Trump more.
An inch of gained ground is better than a mile of lost ground.

I'm sure there's an actual Left in the USA, but it's not covered by any of the big parties.

There is no far left political party but there are plenty of people who are far left. Yes, even by the European standards of the left.

We have two viable political parties.

Fascist extremists and their enablers. Vote blue no matter who, so maybe the fascists won't come for you.

We have leftists with no one to vote for, shut out of politics by liberal NIMBYs who want good things to happen, they just don't want to see them. More concerned about the value of their house than the value of human life. We have extreme leftists, they're just not allowed to participate. And as of yet, none of them exist in enough numbers in the same place to start throwing Molotovs

American.

Most European countries have an (actually) liberal party; the one in Germany used to have its place between social democrats and conservatives, but has moved way to the right in recent years.

It was kinda done intentionally to muddy the terms to prevent people from thinking of alternatives to the status quo.

I don't call tankies "left".

Agreed. But also, you can just ignore those terms entirely and focus on actual issues..