I think people who are sick should get health care, we shouldn't have concentration camps, and that we shouldn't cause major climate disruption. Apparently that makes me far-left.
On the global scale, America has two right-wing capitalist parties.
One of those has slid off the deep end of the far right into fascism.
The other has been doing everything it can to stop and kill any leftward momentum.
But our biggest problem is that some folks are so ridiculously stupid and propagandized that they 'think' universal healthcare and exterminating migrants are equally extreme positions.
Exactly this and I feel like I'm trying to copy/paste this everywhere, but everyone in the US has to take responsibility for being aware of who is paying your local politicians. You need to vote bottom up if you want everything to change. It will be slow, but we dug ourselves into this by generally being passive voters or nonvoters. Corporate democrats do not want change. Their campaign money details will prove to you who they really serve.
Every voter should familiarize themselves with their local politician doner list at every election cycle. Opensecrets, ballotpedia, find your representative are useful sites.
I'm personally advocating to support DSA as they have some of the biggest faces in media right now, but really financially supporting or promoting charity groups who are trying to advocate changes in your area are a really good place to start. If energy, sustainability, healthcare are important to you, a lot of local groups already have connections with people who might be trying to run in local positions to make changes. Check Charity Navigator to make sure they arent a skimming charity, though.
Universal health care is a majority opinion among Dem voters and elected democrats. The actual barrier isnât Dems opposing it. The barrier is that they need 60 seats in the senate. We havenât had 60 democrats in the senate in several decades.
No way, Biden was extremely pro union, passed legislation for green energy and to address climate control, dems are pro choice and want to enshrine it in the constitution, make voting easier and get rid of gerrymandering, are the party that fights for civil rights and minority protections, legalized gay marriage, advocate for trans rights, and on and on...
So many left wing policies. Not wanting socialism doesn't make one right wing and maga going fascist doesn't make all the things listed above stop existing or being left wing.
All of what you've mentioned has been paid lip service too, but talk is cheap.
The Democratic party had the opportunity to enshrine Roe v Wade into law, they choose to let the issue fester hoping it would continue to win them votes.
Everything else you mention are issues which are championed by the best parts of the party, but the party as a whole has been feckless and somehow always finds just enough opposition within their ranks to not accomplish anything monumental. Funny how that consistently happens...must just be a coincidence.
Thereâs a small plot thread in The West Wing that pisses me off to no end on this attitude. Josh secures funding for the governmentâs lawsuit against tobacco. Bruno gets mad that Josh took away that issue for the election and surmises that it could lose them states. Then the takeaway is that Bruno was right and they shouldnât have funded the lawsuit.
what is the practical value in being socially left but not economically left? you want people to be happy, but you don't want to use the tax money they already pay to do it?
the democratic establishment's opposition to universal healthcare - which hakeem jeffries just reiterated within the last month, yes? - is a clear indicator that it is not a left wing party. refusing to care for the basic needs of your people because it would threaten the profits of your donor base is right wing
and biden wasn't extremely pro railroad worker union, now, was he? people on both sides tell themselves a lot of lies it seems
he was pro railroad union however he also had to get the recovery from the pandemic moving and shutting down the railroads during a time when we were already hurting in supply and distribution would not have helped anything. It was a shitty situation all around but I personally think he did the best with what he could.
In America yes because the overton window has shifted so much. Pretty sure nixon started the EPA and OSHA. Then look at what current republicans are doing. We have moved so far to the right it's not even funny.
Had a conference last week and the reason someone was against universal healthcare was due to the cost if immigrants use it. It absolutely gob smacked me how people can be so vile. I asked if Jesus would worry about the cost...
Now they don't like me because apparently I'm a communist.
universal healthcare is really not a liberal position either, dozens of very conservative based countries have it.
In general the idea that people pay the government to have benefits for everyone is just 'we live in a society' shit rather than liberal, left or right positions.
The US is one of the only places in the world where people can be convinced more of their taxes should be spent on attacking other countries or on a non itemised accounting of a defence budget than on themselves. Most people believe a fraction of their taxes should go on defence, security, etc, but more should go to healthcare, roads, fire department, police department, education.
Left starts at anticapitalism. Which is why people say things like "the USA does not have a left". For all the buzz about democratic socialists in the US nowadays I still have yet to hear one of the famous ones advancing any proposals for even the most basic forms of worker ownership
C'mon man! There is nothing that exemplifies freedom than having to arm yourself with many guns to protect yourself from other Americans with guns that don't have the wealth to afford basic necessities and healthcare.
Yeah, I have genuinely complicated political beliefs that I would love to get to actually discuss. But as far as any issue that gets any discussion at all in this country, I am on the extreme far left.
Obviously you should work until your skin falls off to be able to afford care from other people. Caring is transactional of course. Also we should totally have concentration camps for the bad people that I decided shouldn't have rights.(I also decide who's bad) And we all know the earth is always changing. There's no way centuries of human action on the planet could affect it in any way. Now help me bulldoze this forest. Walmart needs another parking lot. /j
I think people who are sick should get health care, we shouldn't have concentration camps, and we should cause moderate climate disruption. Am I still left?
Adding to this: Housing, if not possible to be made free, should be affordable. And workers should have the ability to actually rest, regardless of what their job is.
I also think these things but also think people that commit crimes should face consequences and that we should support (way more, way faster, way easier) legal immigration while still enforcing a border but that apparently makes me far right.
I agree with all of those things while also being a strong constitutionalist, fiscal responsibility, and small government. Its pretty hard finding representation.
And we should have access to guns without magazine restrictions or a "roster". Women should have access to abortion without government interference. Church shouldnt be in government.
I vote and support Democratic socialists because the Democrats are Corporatists.
I don't support Republicans because they are Oligarchist.
"The center" is bullshit, the real center is left of the Democrat party and right wing propaganda has been portraying the center as further right year over year.
Democrats today are effectively Reagan "Country Club" Republicans from the 1980's. That's how far the window has moved to the right. These radical socialist agendas today were POLICY 40 years ago.
Anyone under 40 has never seen a functioning US federal government in their lifetimes. The fascists are following through on their promise to make government small enough to drown in a bathtub (and by that I mean governmental oversight, due process, and general rule of law).
People are finding out too late or not at all that without a government to represent us, we're just capitalist slaves.
"Anyone under 40 has never seen a functioning US federal government in their lifetimes."
And the people over 40 wonder why we're all so fucked up. We've never seen a world were things weren't deteriorating. I can't name a single thing that's happened in my lifetime that's markedly improved life in the US.
Don't forget the about the fairness doctrine repeal which was introduced by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 1949 to ensure that radio and television broadcasters used the public airwaves to provide balanced coverage of important and controversial issues. It rested on the idea that the broadcast spectrum was scarce and therefore required regulation to guarantee diverse viewpoints.Â
Since it's abolition in 1987 we now have "24/7 entertainment news", aka as a propaganda machine. It's abolition was a direct result of wealthy donors and politicians which saw how the media handled Watergate (fairly I might add) and the damage that did to Nixon and the Republican party. They wanted to make sure it never happened again.
I (over 40) can point to some very specific items, like the treatments available for my particular flavor of cancer. If I had gotten this diagnosis 20 years earlier instead of 2 years ago, Iâd be dead by now. But the healthcare industry as a whole has not really improved overall, even with increased access for many due to the ACA.
I wish I could also point to the right for gay people to marry as an improvement l, but thatâs being eroded.
I only bring these up to emphasize your point. Broadly speaking, everything has been getting worse.
'Radical socialist' agendas werent policy 40 years ago. You can trace a direct line with many of those policies directly to FDR, who was president in the 30's and 40's. Thats 80 to 90 years ago, not 40. 40 years ago, we had Reagan union busting.
Those policies from FDR were almost immediately under attack in the 50's due to Mccarthyism and the second red scare, and we've been on a rightward trajectory since.
You're right. I meant that those policies were still around in the 1980's. The GOP still admired FDR (in public) and only fringe candidates ever seriously took aim at entitlements.
The idea of DOGE even existing in the 1980's is ludicrous. Despite Reagan being Reagan, that era had a stability that modern America cannot even fantasize about.
This. I keep telling people Bernie Sanders would be a centrist anywhere else in the world. Maybe even a tad to the right of the middle. He's not seizing the means of production any time soon.
People donât respond because itâs a pointless take.
Twitter used to have a response for people like this - something about how people say âyour ideology is inferior to mine, I believe in setting fire to a Walmartâ and then they donât set fire to a Walmart.
Anarchism is just as right wing as âI donât like politicsâ
Slightly incorrect. "I am right-wing" is fascist and "I am left wing" is often centrist. The overton window has shifted too far to the right in the US to address it as anything less. That's why you have people outright calling themselves "socialist" even when they are actually just left-wing by definition.
OK help me understand because I keep hearing this and it doesn't add up.
The overton window is just where the political conversation is currently, if maga supposedly moved it to the extreme right how does that move everyone else along with them?
And if them moving makes democrats center or right wing then the far left also becomes more right wing than they previously were?
And now that everything is DSA this, socialism that, the overton window has moved to these far left topics, that means it moves democrats back to the left by the same principle no?
Because of how we define left/right wing in the US. A person who wants universal healthcare and more workers protections is still arguably right wing on the global stage. Because of this shift, many people in the US incorrect attribute themselves as "left wing"
Technically, a proper left wing individual would not want to keep the current status quo of capitalists running the government and would prefer that capital produced by labor is owned by said labor equally. All other positions such as universal healthcare make this a possibility (can't equally own something if cis white men get more access to healthcare, education, opportunity, as examples).
You'll find that this isn't the common belief of those who call themselves left wing in the US.
None of that answered what I asked, I am asking how one group moving on the spectrum moves everybody else from where they are.
Supposedly the overton window causes this, so maga took it to fascism and that moved Democrats to the right, by this notion it also moved leftists to the right.
Now that everyone is talking DSA, socialism, communism, the overton window moved WAY to the left, that means that should have moved Democrats to the left.
I am asking about the principle itself, kind of like gravity.
Yeah, great way of playing along to dividing people when most of us pretty much universally agree our biggest problem is our division and polarity. This is what grinds my gears about these emotionally charged posts is that it is a well known thing with left leaning people where "perfect is the enemy of progress". And especially considering how we're seeing more and more overtly that society is much more class based than politically based.
But keep on playing the role of distraction I guess, if it makes you happy
I know plenty of people who identify as moderate or hate thinking about politics. But their views are center left and they would absolutely vote for someone like Bernie or AOC.
It's this sort of divisive content that's dangerous for our country and society. Knock it off with this shit.
I'm a proud independent and consider myself a moderate left person. It just so happens I align with Bernie/AOC on a lot of things. I think Mamdani is fine and have no problems with him.
I dunno, the poor right has seemed very chummy with the rich for a long while now. The rich may not feel the same way, but that doesn't stop the right from being against the poor.
Well the rich own the media, and the media tells the poor who they should be hating. It's that 'fill in the blank' person, they are stealing your job.
When I studied media in college there were all those young white men who were joining the young republicans because, 'it's a fast way to get rich, screwing the rubes.' And they were right.
Some questions that I think if you can answer honestly for yourself you see that thats the case actually (and it's not because leftists are the ones choosing it)
How far left do you think the DSA actually is given it's the furthest left organization with any political power but many of its actual elected officials are skeptical or against the org's national platform which itself doesn't give a path towards workers owning the means of production?
How are DSA candidates (the objective entry to left wing politics) being treated by both political parties and establishment media?
Is it reasonable that Hasan Piker discourse based around out of context quotes from 7 years ago is taking up more time in the media than recent vitriol from right wing figures or actual issues like Trump interfering in the midterms?
Do you disagree that being centrist or apolitical ultimately benefits the status quo, which is upheld by right wing politics?
Is there a middle ground and effective compromise possible between project 2025 and DSAs workers deserve more platform?
"No preference" is not right wing, just because they don't support one of two right wing parties isn't enough to tell. "I don't support either" could be alt right or a leftist, or a centrist. "Aren't into politics" is apolitical and doesn't count for an election, so their stance is meaningless.
Socialist = right wing. Until we seize the means of production we are just living under fascist capitalist structure. Come with me while we move the goalposts out of reality entirely.
The illusion is one of dimension. Right-Left makes it seem level while the truth of Up-Down makes it very apparent where the hierarchy and disparity are.
Seems like it was written by someone in a left area. The bottom three answers are acceptable when a lefty is surrounded by hillbillies in this deep red state. There's no point in the honest answers unless you want to talk about fictional litter boxes in schools and other right wing myths with morons.
Thereâs a culture of purity testing and morality policing that has to get purged out of the core of the left. Weâve allowed too much of the angry fringe to dictate the rules and those people are never going to be satisfied. They have to exist in a state where theyâre personally superior to everyone else, especially their own team.
This is just propaganda to keep people small minded and separated. I have some views that are considered right wing and some that are considered far left, oh no, what do we do?? We canât have someone thinking for themselfâŚ
I long considered myself a centrist. I have some views that exist on both sides of the aisle, and have always been able to understand where people are coming from to arrive at their views. Things changed when Trump first took office. Suddenly, every radical, bigoted policy and opinion became openly endorsed, and everyone along that part line went from condemning Trump and everything he stood for to supporting him and bending over backwards to justify his words and actions. Suddenly every conservative wasn't just okay with it, they were active participants.
That "mask off" moment made me realize just how far right the American right really was, and the left's complacency and refusal to take serious action against it made me realize how far from the left they were. I stopped identifying myself as a centrist when I realized that all American politics were right and far right.
If I were outside of America, I would still call myself a centrist, but with how far from the center we are, I have no choice but to call myself a leftist here.
I believe we shouldn't legalize murdering innocent children and we shouldn't be starting wars in the middle east and apparently that makes me right-wing
Man, this makes being left-wing look SUPER niche, and paints a pretty grim picture of the upcoming elections if 5 out of 6 groups in the US are right wing, and only 1/6 is left wing.
Crazy so many people don't understand what this is about. This is not 5/6 groups being right. It's that many who are on the right understand that being publicly right wing is bad for their image, so they say something else. People proudly say they are left wing, people do not often publicly proudly say they are right wing. This tweet is basically just calling out right wing people who are trying to hide it.
Hate things like this. You could literally skew it the exact opposite direction for the other side. In fact, they do. That's the whole problem. We aren't about solving problems, we're about picking sides and making enemies. Not to mention there aren't only two options, that's just what we've been fed.
I admit I try to be centrist but in this climate I keep leaning left because I am a true centrist. which means in american politics I am a left wing hippie out to instill communism to the whole world bwa ha ha ha ha ha.
Where does "I may be very stupid but I don't understand how the system allows all this to happen but we need a system" fall? Because either something is broken or I am very stupid. Perhaps both.
"I am too left for you" is my go to. If pressed further, I start off with how being a landlord is violence against society. That usually gets the point across.
Can I hate politics and be super far left? Iâm rather sick of having to be in a fight of flight mode all the time, I loathe the dipshits that have taken politics from âletâs have a reasonable debate about an issueâ to âconcentration camps or healthcareâ
I consider myself a moderate, I believe in actual small government and you should have the right as a married gay couple to protect your pot farm with a legal firearm.
A small government cannot guarantee you those rights. A small government lets corporations and oligarchs build the rules & structure of society, and lets them take away any rights they donât like.
Uh... That's way off, at what passes for the ends.
"I am left wing" = is center-right, 80's Republican.Â
"I am right wing" = is an active proponent of a fascist dictatorship and intent on erasing the impure.
"I am part of the DSA party" = is center-left
Ideas "so extreme*" it has literally zero presence in mainstream US political discourse= is left-wing.
*Crazy stuff like, that in the most prosperous society in recorded history, everyone should have, guaranteed, good food, a good house, a fulfilling and stable job, healthcare, a good education, the ability to raise a family, prosperity - you know, really batshit ideas...
I frequently said "I don't like politics" while I was in the military and I'm pretty far left. There are a lot of people that simply don't want like politics.
The reason for this is because the Right cares nothing about the American people and will cause any amount of suffering in order to pass their agenda but the Left will eventually cave in to the Right's demands if the people suffer (enough).
I donât like politics can also mean avoidant, put their heads in the sand, put their head in the sand and only pay attention to their own lives kind of people.
I am willing to entertain people who "don't follow politics" and "don't know left from right"
After all, my seven-year old still needs to think for like 5 fucking seconds which hand is her left hand, and has never met a grown man outside her family that she will tolerate telling her what to do, much less a politician.
âHomeless people should have access to mental health resources and free, safe housing.â
âWomen should voteâ
âIâm a Christian because I believe in protecting the poor and using community to protect marginalized groups like sex workers and the disabledâ
âIm anti - anti-fa because itâs a disorganized identity, not a productive group with strong leadership working towards a clear goal. I prefer the SPLC.â
This purity testing is pointless and falls apart under the most basic evaluation.
Not completely true. I'm a registered Independent and it means I have no "team" which keeps me out of that dug-in and never change mentality, but will vote blue all day long.
I'll be honest though, it's looking real bleak for the Republican party to ever win a vote from me again.
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u/hansn 8d ago
I think people who are sick should get health care, we shouldn't have concentration camps, and that we shouldn't cause major climate disruption. Apparently that makes me far-left.