It's almost funny how long it takes for you guys to realize. From a European perspective it has always been obvious that a left wing party in the US is still a right wing party compared to European actually left wing parties.
Almost funny, until we remember that thanks to their iperindividualism and right wing mentality we have had constant wars for the last 70 years.
Yes that tends to spoil the fun
We started the Korean war in 1950, America has been doing this since WW2. Probably we can consider the date earlier as well, the Spanish American war was about slurping up colonies, with a small few decades of isolationism in between
I'll never forget when American Republicans went to go meet with European Republicans and the European Republicans were like... "Oh you guys are fucking Nazis."
I don’t know if it’s really taken that long. A lot of politically active Americans have been saying this for going on 40 years now.
The crushing defeat of Mondale in 84 led the party to abandon anything even remotely working class, then Clinton’s “triangulation strategy” in the 90s cemented the Dems as a center / center-right party.
I remember reading articles in 2004 about how the Overton window had shifted so much that Dems were right wing.
You'd need to be very very blinkered to think the US Democrats are leftist.
I know of American's who definitely thought this until they moved outside of the US and were able to see what other countries "left" looks like in comparison. I can imagine it's not easy living under such heavy propaganda all the time.
Literally 90% of americans think this, so im not sure thats true. It seems exceedingly obvious to me and you, but the constant lifelong propaganda and intentionally removing opportunities for people to realize and express this, im not sure its fair to say theyre willfully ignorant
Even in the US it's possible to access independent and fact based media. It's probably harder than in other places but certainly not a major problem. So yes, I would say the ignorance is wilful.
let me shock you left and right are terms determined by a country's individual elections and the terms, as relating to politics, are only about 150 years old. they come from revolutionary france referring to the political parties The Mountain and i forget, i haven't had my coffee yet. it refers to who sits on what side of the aisle in parliament. in statesia, yes, democrats are Left. They sit on the Left Side of the aisle. SHOCKER.
now when you want to think about greater political movements, we start muddying terms. Leftism and who sits on the left side of the aisle? Really easy to get your terms confused. Pretty sure that's intentional. Kind of how you have the communism in the book and the Communist Party and how different those are in practice. It would be pretty easy to use different words to describe them, but mass media has an oversized influence on language so we tend to use the language they use. And who owns the mass media, and what do they want? Thus we use the language with connotations that benefit them.
150 years ago was 1870s, little bit after the French Revolution. The Mountain referred to Robespierre and his compatriots who sat at the top of the assembly. Hence the mountain, up high. As opposed to valley whe the the Girondists sat.
French revolution took a hell of a lot longer than that. I am also bad at math
I hate how liberal has been conflated to mean "left" when it is a political ideology and not just a term. In addition of people going "both sides" thinking he Democrats represent the left...
America prides itself on its rugged individualism. Collectivism is authoritarianism to so many Americans.
Equality as well appears like oppression when you're at the top of the pile.
In America you have two parties, the conservative party and the ultraconservative party
From a European point of view, it's pretty clear the Democratic Party isn't leftist. We have many communist parties on the old continent after all. But there's hope whith elected officials like Zohran Mamdani who styles himself a socialst and implements real socialist policies.
In Political Duopoly systems, like we saw with Trump in the US and with the Brexiters (mainly Boris Johnson) and Tony Blair in the UK, political change is done by one of the factions within the broad ideological umbrellas which the parties in such systems always end up being, taking over the party from the inside.
So, for the US to pivot Left, the so called "Socialist" (though, in reality merelly Social Democrat) faction within the Democratic Party has to take that party over from the inside.
Judging by the powers shown by of the DNC as well as things like unelected "Super voters" as shown during the Democrat Presidential Candidate Primaries with Bernie Sanders, the party statutes are heavilly rigged against that.
From Europe we have always known this.
What keeps shocking me is how much you guys move the reference line, it goes to the right more and more, is crazy.
It sounds so surreal to me when trump and his diperlickers call the democrats "radical leftist". Like, WTF is reality anymore for you guys?
I'm seriously worried we won't get trans rights in this country.
NoOoOo CaMaLa WiLl SaVe Us AlL!11! We MuSt OnLy VoTe HaRdEr!!1!
Regardless of what direction you think of when viewing politics, we live in a capitalistic country; why wouldn't corporations have more rights than people in an economic system named after the money they make? This has been the case since the beginning, they're just being more obvious about it now because they've built up enough power that they feel invincible.
What, you've only just figured this out now??
Then vote for another, if you want, left wing party. That there can be only two parties is a false narrative.
Ever hear of the electoral college?
That only controls the presidency. A significant progressive caucus could force presidents to the bargaining table.
Really its first past the post that is locking out 3rd parties.
Kind of agree, but a movement can eventually, maybe not in the next elections but maybe in ten years change the party to a more progressive direction.
Have you heard of abolishing it?
the Fuck You Electrical College Compact is almost complete, but my state already signed dude
Democracy can't exist when humans are naturally manipulatable and are manipulated by those who understand human psychology and can market ideas to them.
This is the faulty keystone.
There's nothing to even debate.
If people want their humanity back they should probably start living by the knowledge and ideals of dealing with existence that were known and learned naturally separately by multiple cultures. ...like the teachings of religions before religions got industrialized to control humanities direction. These ideals were truths distilled from the chaos of existence and are natural laws.
Also the manipulation is going to get a lot worse with AI combing our data mined to profile us. Which is already happening but the push for more datacenters means better infrastructure to expand the concept into modern policing and social marketing and precision manipulation of the life path of each individual. I don't understand how people don't realize how much of our genuine humanity has been given up over time or how people don't seem to under the push for a modern digital infrastructure that is essentially going to take us completely away from natural genuine humanity. It's happening right in front of us but all the talk about it gets diverted and funneled into marketed debates that keep people from seeing the actual truth of the goal.
We are sold a lie so that others can profit and excel ideas that are not natural, in turn the universe always works against "it" and the struggle to defend the ideas is constant requiring wars and using humanity as a resource or fuel... Instead of just existing and "being" and making heaven on earth by way of understanding natural law and utilizing what the earth is able to create naturally.
We, the participants, are enemies of authentic and genuine humanity.
Some might think what I said above means an absence of science. That is not true, it just means all of us as humanity, need to live by the ancient natural laws before or while we utilize our sciences. If we don't than we will get what are seeing today, fucked up ai usage, heartless entertainment, and cancer foods etc.
It's not even exactly a class war going on now, it's like a spiritual war. You can be an enemy of what's authentic and righteous whether you're poor in the streets or you're the president of America or regardless of your western ideological success within the system. But they will never allow you to understand this fully because they need you to fuel their ideology via marketed division, left and right, rich and poor. It keeps you/us from seeing honest reality. We have all been victims of this for a long time and need to understand even victims of this gained "success". We all need to understand and help each other break through the denial and surrealism of this true reality.
I really liked your comment. Some Hermetic/Natual Law ideas. Have any reading recommendations?
Thanks!
I actually don't, lol. I'm more of a thinker with ADHD that never goes from point a to point b in a straight line.
Maybe check out lectures of KRS1, ideas of Whitney Webbs journalism, and Islam. I don't know much about Islam but I find myself agreeing with people that identify with Islam.
This is just a matter of perspective. The Dems are not right wing but if you are much further to the left then it seems like that to you.
It's like calling random stuff far left and Antifa are terrorists and so on. Congrats for playing that game.
The Dems are not right wing
Yes, except for all the rightwing shit they do. You see, they vote for bombing brown kids in the Middle East in a leftwing manner.
No, but you see, they say they're not, so I guess they're not.
Don't judge them by their actions, judge them by their words.
They're the Democrat Party for crying out loud - surely with that in the name they would never ever do anything that would make people with lots of Money be vastly more powerful that any other random voter.
/s (for avoidance of doubt)
Bombing people is right wing, interesting..
Starting overseas wars for resources or international status is pretty rightwing. This should be obvious from looking at any country with a political spectrum whose leftward side doesn't stop at Reagan.
The dems are literally right wing. They are a pro capitalist, pro corporation, anti worker party.
littleborat is muddying terms. they sit on the left side of our parliament so they're left wing. sure, they do procapitalist, antiworker, antileftist shit all the time and proleftist shit on a very rare occasion, but they're our left wing. that means something very very sad
Oh I get it.
How's the kool-aid tasting?
Third option when?
When fptp goes away. Too bad but people bitching online does nothing about that.
People need to get involved, take over the Democrat party and make it happen. If they can't or won't, then we're all screwed.
the Democrat party
respectfully disagreed: they need to take over their local statesian voting apparatus, democratic or republican, and get it changed to ranked choice. there might be a better one but that's my favorite and as Me, i think i'm right.
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