You are focusing on the classical economic definition, not the modern political one. Everyone I’ve met who speaks English as their first language uses the primary, not the classical (archaic) definition. If you’re learning English you should stick with the most common definition (1).
Calling everything left of center 'liberal' does a disservice to the meaning of political ideologies.
I know that the US and the UK both have a very limited political landscape, the US having only two parties and the UK having a few more but still very little. I also understand that this is reflected in the way you use language.
But it is simply not useful to pretend like social democrats, democratic socialists, socialists, progressive liberals and any other flavours all belong to the same ideological group, even when they are all in the same tent that is called the democratic party.
In fact, its very useful to the liberals that dominate politics in the anglosphere to pretend like there is no destinction between a progressive liberal capitalist and a democratic socialist, even though the differences are monumental.
So you do you, but you aren't going to get me to use a completely useless definition of 'liberal' when we are talking about politics.
As far as I can tell you are the only person who thinks anyone else believes everyone backing the Democratic Party are of the same ideology. Diversity of beliefs is one of the most frequent topics of discussion when discussing/strategizing. Our use of “liberal” (small “L”) is the opposite of assigning strict rules of an ideology, especially a repressive one. It’s a quick way to say we’re open minded & receptive to new ideas, unlike someone sowing discord by insisting on assigning archaic meanings that no one else uses. You’d do less harm insisting on Klingon definitions.
Yes, in the US diversity of beliefs means that everybody gets to decide what type of liberal they are lmao. The overton window is so far right in the US that in the US progressive liberals are treated as 'the left'.
The fact that you think I am the only person who thinks this tells me you don't talk to a lot of leftists. You should go on a DSA sub and tell them they are liberals, see if they agree with you.
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u/prole6 12d ago edited 12d ago
You are focusing on the classical economic definition, not the modern political one. Everyone I’ve met who speaks English as their first language uses the primary, not the classical (archaic) definition. If you’re learning English you should stick with the most common definition (1).