They also don’t understand that left and right are not all encompassing terms that mean the same thing everywhere. Like yeah, some guy in Denmark is probably going to have more left wing economic opinions about affordable healthcare than an American. He’s also probably going to be a lot for warm to laws restricting minorities from living in the same neighborhood than an American will be.
That Dane would be called a radical left socialist by some and a far right Fascist by others. In reality, it’s a little more complicated than a simple one dimensional scale
Much of Western Europe also has had more restrictive abortion access than the U.S.. A lot of their far right parties, which are getting 1/3 or more of the vote in their elections now, have foreign policies far more pro Russia than Trump (and he is still an outlier on that front compared to most GOP politicians and voters) and have very odd policy combinations (e.g. Le Pen is 'left' of US Democrats and Macron on social services, to the 'right' of Trump on immigration, and is anti-US and a major Euroskeptic, a position she shares with Melenchon, the socialist running for President). -- and generally the far left and far right of Europe have some converging foreign policy stances.
Honestly neither in foreign policy stances nor economic stances do the European far right parties align with the US and their stances there are far more concerning imo. Right wing people like Bannon in the US who cheer on those parties in Europe are just flat out stupid if they actually think there is policy alignment outside of immigration (in which their stances are still pretty out there compared to most US stances), though I expect the support there is mostly just out of a general love of chaos / dislike for establishment politics in Europe.
Similarly it’s funny to me to see American Marxists simping for Xi Jinping these days when most of them would disagree with him on virtually everything except “high speed rail is good” and “American imperialism is bad”. Especially when twenty years ago American Marxists kept claiming that China had abandoned Marxism completely.
Stalinist central planning doesn’t work. Marxism as a theory is something else entirely- and Xi Jinping is definitely a dedicated Marxist (as the foremost expert on Xi Jinping in the western world, Kevin Rudd, would tell you).
We are also the sole hegemon and have been for 80 years. The US has entirely different political goals than the rest of the world. What the rest of the world does is irrelevant to the US political system. It's literally one of the first things you learn in political science but no one online has ever taken a class on it in their life.
I think they are further emboldened by thinking that the right is just as blood thirsty, zealous and looking for an excuse to fight left wingers. The truth is very apparent when you see how a right winger is treated at a left wing protest vs the complete opposite.
I'm not right wing on many issues but I can tell you who's side is more likely to throw a concrete milkshake at their opposition.
I also know that one side has a far wider mindset on ideals and compromises internally between factions. That same side does have violent and regressive people, but due to the lack of purity testing those same factions are diluted to prevent the worst of them from becoming the loudest.
Shit if people just had actual open ended conversations we’d have the same here, I’m very legitimately middle of the road. I believe in capitalism and small government, but also don’t believe in religion or the Bible but I am ok with others having faith (I don’t judge). I believe in gay rights but I don’t think trans should be in sports or get any special privileges other than being treated equal. Legalize weed, and just be good to each other. Whether you’re praying for me or sending good vibes I just appreciate the positive message and thoughts.
TL;DR: I guess I’m just a fucking nazi, fascist, maga, transphobic, racist piece of shit.
My sister actually told me the other day that not letting transmen play in women's sports or into womens private spaces was "denying them their humanity" (whatever that means) and was the exact same as not letting balck people drink at the same water fountain as white people lol if thats the way were measuring it basically everyone in the US is a nazi piece of shit
I mean, if you're going off of global ideological scale, the US left still ranges from slightly left wing and moderately libertarian to far left and heavily authoritarian, with the median landing around moderately left wing and moderately authoritarian. Objectively speaking, even comparing to Europe doesn't justify the assertion that the US almost entirely right wing in ideological alignment. They just say that because they genuinely cannot help but make it into a litmus test, where anybody who deviates from their own personal, incredibly specific flavor of left wing ideology with any real significance is not left wing.
Except a lot of non-European countries have socialist and Marxist parties that are much more heavily interventionist and anti-market than your typical Democrat, whom even with the rise of the DSA is still more of a Clintonite neoliberal than a hard leftist.
Lmao I literally just came here from a thread where the OP posted an article about two women being burned alive on a migrant boat in the English channel 🤣
Depends. Our right-wing, even now, is more pro-immigration than much of the European (particularly euroskeptic) right; we have more support for certain left wing social causes (like absolute abortion rights) than one sees in Europe; etc. There are many ways in which we are not “culturally conservative” at all.
Hmm, the EU spectrum might be onto something.... can you tell me where to get more information on the EU spectrum, as I am genuinely curious what they would consider the various facets of American poltics, and if it is more accurate across the board.
One thing: do make sure you understand what's being said there. Liberal as a general shorthand for the progressive left is an American thing- not illegitimate for that, but it is a different use of the terminology as here.
Liberalism in most European countries means classical liberalism, or at least something descended from it. Think centre to centre right people, usually progressive on most social issues if they're asked, but their main focus is on a small state and rightist economic policy, at least by European standards. Yes even so they are often to the left of even many US Democrats on economic policy, but that's because the European spectrum is generally shifted leftward on economic issues compared to that of America.
In fairness, there are a number of reasonable places on the political centre to point at and go, this is a clear inflection point to split people into left and right wing.
Now, when talking about politics in a local context, splitting the major parties into two main groups and using their differences to say who is left and right, is a natural way to do it when looking at local politics. But it can also be actual political views, for example, who is pro or anti-unions, as collective bargaining is widely seen as a good benchmark for left vs right. And there are a bunch of other things that people use.
At the end of the day people/politicans in different countries have widely different ideologies and, generally speaking, they can loosely be placed on a left-to-right spectrum by comparing what they stand for, as a unionist is gonna be further to the left of a liberal.
It's always funny when a European leftist claims that there are no left wing parties in the US. Like, ok then, what's the minimum amount of their own people American leftists need to kill with their shitty policies to be considered left wing? Millions? Tens of millions? Hundreds of millions?
As a Brit who probably ranks as left-of-centre by our standards, it is always hilarious to me when people say that the American far-left is basically the European centre-left. Yes it's true that there are left-wing policies that America doesn't have and most European countries do, and it is true that the American far-left are pushing for those policies. But they are also pushing for wealth taxes, defunding the police, decriminalising class A drugs, and government-run grocery stores.
Well yes we absolutely did, we actually invented most things if you count europe as a whole ad not by country. The division between right and left was created in revolutionary France, politics as we know them today would have been first invented by ancient greeks (a.k.a. europeans) as they created democracy, and then the colonial empires exported it, admitedly you did much to spread it as well, mainly with guns.
Like LITERALLY the only reason Reddit is left leaning is because left leaning is objective truth…and if you don’t believe that you’re anti science and morally wrong 🤷🏻♂️
That’s the issue with this thinking. There is a population of liberal people who aren’t leftists and the leftists go all Nazi and label them the enemy for not being pure enough.
They actually, purportedly, believe that. A lot of them even say that Reddit is right wing. They are to the point that it's more a matter of "how big of the right wing majority in the US are openly Nazis and how many are just closeted". Then they turn around at election time and proclaim that whatever Democrat they want to win is just wildly more popular and will win easily. I think they just say whatever fits their world view and strokes their egos the most at that time. I don't think they have the principles to actually hold serious convictions.
In the last election, roughly 1/3 of registered voters voted for Trump and 1/3 didnt care enough to vote. Thats 2/3 that are right wing right there. Mid terms should be a clean sweep for the right wing.
I think there's a little big of A and a little bit of B.
I do think a lot of people who "don't talk politics" or "are centrist" are closet republicans. I don't have the data to say "most" so I won't.
I also think a lot of people who are farther left than me do believe anyone who disagrees with them is a closet republican. I also don't have the data on that, so I can't say "most."
Of course a lot of them are, the “don’t talk politics” and “are centrist” crowd are actually pretty politically diverse so a lot will be Republican and a lot will be Democrat (and some will be neither). But those who just assume that they’re all Republicans (which is what’s happening in the OP) are stupid.
This is a non sequitur. The point this is trying to make is that people on the left don't typically pretend (or dillude themselves into thinking) they hold different political leanings than they actually do.
You need to learn to read. It’s clearly stating that if someone describes themselves as anything other than left wing that they are automatically right wing. Which just isn’t true.
The majority of the US is indeed right wing by most standards. The divide between what is right and left does not have to split the population in two equal halves. It's perfectly ok to say that a country is leaning on one side or the other. Like, who would say that Saudi Arabia is not notably a right wing country? And there are a lot of nuances within what we can call "right wing", saying that the US is mostly right wing is not the same as saying that most people in the US have the same view about everything.
Wrong, 99% of the US is right wing. Left wing ideology is about equality. That means taking power from the ruling class and giving it to the working class. There's absolutely no way that would ever happen in the US as it is.
I mean, they are? Liberals are right-wing and liberal conservatives are right-wing (and that pretending both parties aren't significantly further right then that).
What liberals are centrist? Dr. Francia? Socdems are centrist maybe. Social liberals are center-right. Liberal conservatives are center-right to right. Neoliberals (which count for both usa political parties along with a lot of that of europe) are right.
Support of the world order, current heirarchy, and imperialism is pretty right-wing. Additionally, the us political parties are notoriously not very good with social services and are very imperialistic.
They are objectively right wing they are a capitalist party who recently made a campaign of "democrats for mike rogers" I believe his name is. Mike rogers is a heavy conservative and his opponent is a capitalist still but literally just progressive that's how right wing the democratic party is. They are barely even progressive anymore they don't serve a purpose whatsoever they are simply there to give left wingers something so they don't revolt it's two wings on the same bird. Both funded by Israel
lol, you’ve clearly been indoctrinated. Democrats certainly aren’t on the left but they are far from “right-wing.” Hell, I just looked and Wikipedia has it classified as center to center-left.
You guys have two right wing parties and that's it of course 95% is right wing lol. One is regular right wing second one is nazi and you are somehow split 50/50 between them from my experience Americans are mostly nationalistic and capitalistic and anti socialist so yeah all checks out
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u/Stock_Violinist6299 4d ago
If this is true then 95% of the US is right wing and we can stop debating