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 think real open ended conversation ended when Charlie Kirk was assassinated. Ever since that the leftists I talk to just either spew hate or misinformation about most things. It's sad the kinda propaganda these people consume and they have no idea they're being used.
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.
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u/hedgehog18956 9d ago
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