I mean….. I would say most of this is leftists not liberals, but perhaps that’s splitting hairs a bit
this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2025
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I've settled on the word "progressive" as being the best general word for this.
The problem is that, outside of politics, "liberal" is the opposite of "conservative". "Add a liberal amount of mayonnaise," means "err on the side of too much", while "Add a conservative amount of mayonnaise," means "err on the side of too little".
But in politics, sometimes, "liberal" literally means "conservative". Especially in Europe, it is associated with free market capitalism. But in America, it is not generally associated with it.
On the other hand, the meaning of "progressive" is basically the same everywhere, political or otherwise, and it has a common-sense opposite meaning from conservative, unlike "left".
Yeah, even in Canada our Liberal party is just centrist. The only times they actually enact anything progressive is when our left wing party (NDP) push them to
That is across the west, the non-conservative parties have all been taken over by conservatives. Better than the other guy is generally their only selling point. Which has allowed the conservative parties to become rabidly extreme and still win elections. These European countries still think they are immune even while fascism is on their doorstep gaining voteshare every election as they refuse to offer any reform.
Ok here’s what annoys me. People who CALL themselves liberals think they’re on the same side leftists in North America, but the politicians do not have these delusions. If you’re a liberal or a democrat in actual politics, you are for free market capitalism.
Did you ever consider that people don't always fully align with any of these terms but feel compelled to use them anyway because it would take too long to explain their entire worldview repeatedly?
WHAT IS THIS NUANCE???
Only on Lemmy do I see such petty debate over liberal vs leftist vs progressive.
In the US, where we really only have two parties, are democrats really just centrists? Yes. But on a spectrum where you only have one dimension, the above terms all generally mean the same thing.
Also, the opposite of "progressive" is "regressive," which does accurately describe the opposing political force.
Progressive is for the here and now.
Socialism, or just leftism in general, is the end goal.
I tell my friends and family that I'm a progressive. Online, I call myself a socialist.
At least in the US, you're doing your advocacy right.
You're using different terminology. Typically in the US liberal usually means socially liberal/progressive. Not economic liberalism. They're technically right. But the slang redefinition of the term due to decades of fascist propaganda definitely muddies discussions. As intended.
Doesn't help with the general lack of education on the topic. You have to stay constantly vigilant to not talk passed eachother because of it.
It's apart of both liberal and conservative dichotomies to co-opt any positive social movement and claim it as their own - to outweigh all the stupid shit.
Exactly this, liberals love to point at shit that they fucking opposed, like integration, women’s rights, etc and claim they built it
Progressives and radicals are always ahead of the Liberals, so the Liberals shouldn't get credit for simply eventually giving way to the ideas of other ideologies.
There's a plethora of progressive ideas that Liberals still refuse to give into. Universal Education, Healthcare, Four day week, Modern Monetary Theory, Free Public Transport, the end of the prison system, community based policing, addiction as a health problem.
Plenty of Liberals still rallying against progressive and radical ideas... Some of which will be deemed Liberal ideas once they become accepted.
These terms aren't so cut and dried in actual usage. In 2008 nearly every young person I knew would've self identified as a liberal and they supported the vast majority of everything you just claimed them to be objectively against.
Maybe young people of that era were just served well enough by "the left" in general that the smaller divisions didn't matter as much.
Today Liberal yoo often means selling you Economic Liberalism under the cover of Social Liberalism. So now we need to know the differences, and have terms like Progressive, Social Democrat, Anarchist, Socialist... The Liberals today are too often cutouts for Capitalism and the free market.
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Over here, the liberals would be the guys hiring the Pinkertons to shoot at the striking employees.
It’s not splitting hairs. Americans are just very confused.
This is worse than splitting hairs, its propaganda designed to split the non-maga vote. Please stop.
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It's splitting hairs because the intended audience thinks they're the same thing.
Imagine calling the suffragettes who put empty houses on fire "Liberals".
Considering this is targeting maga people, it’s good they’re using the terminology they can potentially grasp. The average maga voter doesnt understand the distinction between liberals and actual leftists.
True
To them, liberals marxists, so yeah
Socialists fought for this shit, not Democrats.
We have an issue with definitions and terminologies that get mixed up really frequently to the common layman. I used to think liberal meant "left" before I knew better.
This really is a problem, and is why we have so much discord here. This is not the fault of the people using the accurate language, but they do need to be aware of how many politically descriptive words have different meanings to the average person.
Like you, I misused liberal until recently. I considered it the opposite of conservative, as in the US political parties. I was, therefore, often upset when a comment disparaged liberals. I identified with that label, but I am not a Liberal the way it is often used here.
People using these terms correctly need to have patience, instead of scorn, with those of us who are not (yet) as informed.
The Democrats in power are not really liberals either, they are neoliberals. And they are constitutionally opposed to any real sort of reform, or addressing the root causes of our problems. They will borrow money to spend on addressing some of the problems, but they were chosen to not undo the gains the rich have made, and indeed that the National Security state has made. They will not fix anything,
Liberals are just against government control. It favours maintaining a system of private control rather than reforming it.
Part of the problem is that you can be a social libertarian (the government shouldn't tell me who I can/can't marry) or an economic libertarian (the government shouldn't tax me). Tending to one is mutually exclusive from tending to the other.
These are both spectrums as well not hard and fast rules. For example "I'm a man and I want to marry a man" is quite different from "I'm a man and I want to marry a 12 year old child" and "the government shouldn't tax poor people" (is the economic or social?) is quite different from "the government shouldn't tax anyone".
Given they are spectrums there should be a modicum of both of these ideas but as with anything, extremes are probably going to have extreme downsides.
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If they’re already MAGA, they’ll take this as an argument against liberalism.
Yes, exactly. These are considered negative by some traditionalist women because they erode the family.
"well but my husband doesn't beat me"
NOT EVERYTHING IS ABOUT YOU, SHARON
They're also the reason that marital rape is a crime.
I learned recently that Nebraska was one of the first US states to criminalize marital rape. Crazy how times have changed.
It wasn't even criminalized in the US at all until the 70s!
That was because they were desperate for more women settlers, right? I recall that being why the first state to grant women suffrage did so. I think it was Wyoming.
It makes me really angry how the word "you" is not aligned
The entire line of "You can have a credit card" looks like it was edited in.
Probably got edited over "You can get an abortion" since repubs ruined that again.
"You can pay for your abortion with your credit card"
I think most maga women think it won't happen to them. Poor empathy, low knowledge of history, and general foolishness.
That's way too many words for most MAGA women.
It is not entirely a mystery to think as to why some people would support an idea that is against their interests. Some people have internalised oppression. For some, it is a pathetic attempt of virtue signalling to show the oppressors "they are one of the good ones" and hoping to be spared as desperate act of self-preservation.
if those children were allowed to read or be online they would be very upset
This is likely to get rough though, and not just due the fuel that went into Roe falling.
The generation that dealt with Hitler and the Holocaust is mostly dead now. They served as a hard block on fascism. Yes, it leaked through in places, but their live experience had impact. Now they’re mostly dead and the current memory of society no longer holds those first hand experiences. Look around. Globally, its a problem.
This will happen with the generation of women who remember, first hand, life prior to the 1970s, when they did not have financial freedom under law, among other things. They’re all 70+ now. I think Roe was just the beginning.
I don't disagree with your assessment but if we are collectively dumb enough to subject ourselves to obviously bad ideas simply because we haven't experienced the negative effects of those ideas firsthand then we deserve the consequences of such colossal stupidity.
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They couldn’t handle the freedom.
Why does credit card look different?
Maybe it used to say something about abortion and they decided to exchange it
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