If you’re getting your perspective from billionaire-owned news, (which no fault to you, is most major news-sources) it’s no wonder that you’d think that. By the way, that’s the exact same narrative the “billionaire-bullypulpit” push here in the States, even though it isn’t so.
These politicians and the media have the same lock step lie. They say they’re moving to the right “because their voters are”, but they’re just gaslighting folks as cover for what they were doing anyway; whatever their rich donors tell them.
It really isn’t that right-wing, especially economically, but there’s a lot of factors that make it seem that way. First is that it did go through a large, neoliberal shift in the 80s during the Regan years. When the economy crashed in the early 90s, the Democrats decided that, instead of returning to their New Deal roots, they would also run on neoliberal policies. The Republicans moved further right because of that, especially on social issues, and then the Rachet Effect described in the meme really started to ramp up.
Couple this with a lot of political illiteracy among the public in general, and you get a lot of people who actually don’t know what they believe and default to partisanship. If you poll people if they support gun control, you will get a very negative response, but if you break gun control into individual measures (longer waiting periods, mandatory background checks, magazine capacity limits, etc.) you get much more support. It’s the same on almost every issue; people don’t support a, “big government takeover,” of the healthcare system, but they broadly support Medicare for all. There’s a somewhat famous picture of a guy holding a sign that says something like, “Get Your Government Hands Off My Social Security,” that I think sums up this ignorance pretty well.
This attitude isn’t limited to the right, either. If you asked a Democrat “Who deregulated Wall Street?” they’d probably tell you Regan, Bush, or the other Bush. In actuality, the most significant deregulation, which lead directly to the 2008 financial collapse, was Clinton’s repeal of Glass-Steagal. Liberals think that Obama made significant progress on regulating Wall Street, but what he put in place was nothing compared to the deregulation that proceeded it.
Citizens United and the rise of mega donors also plays a pretty significant role in moving the parties away from policies that the general population want and towards the goals of a few oligarchs, but this reply is already way too long, so TL;DR: the country got pretty right-wing under Regan, both parties became more right-wing as a result, the population has become much more left-leaning since income inequality/cost of living went way up, but the parties are still both right-wing and most people are too ignorant to understand that.
Holy shit, I don’t know when I started misspelling Reagan’s name, but now I feel like I need to go through thousands of replies and figure it out, because this has definitely been going on for months.
Nope, when you poll on individual policies, they’re way to the left of the democrats.
The democrats showcase healthcare bill wasn’t “subsidies for employer-based health insurance, that you have no idea what it’s going to cost and have to buy at a specific time of year by going to one of 50 sites provided by your state at a specific time of year and filling out a bunch of forms or face a tax penalty, with a sliding scale based on income, marriage status, and other factors” because that’s more popular than “free healthcare”.
Same if you ask americans about Biden (and Harris’s) policies of “loan forgiveness for PELL grant recipients up to X dollars depending on age, loan repayment status, income, parent’s income, and whether you were born on a prime-numbered date” vs “free college”
The democrats compromise their bills, not because there’s a bunch of “moderates” who are exactly between democrat and republican who will vote for democrats if they promote garbage versions of progressive bills that don’t actually help anyone, but because they know those versions are less likely to pass and be easier to chip away at, and therefore won’t piss off their billionaire patrons.
So, republicans just piled on the anti-trans hate last election, and democrats responded with either silence or running their own anti-trans hate in their own ads.
Republicans are going to choose republicans, no party stood up for trans people, and the Overton window on trans people moved to the right. democrats not only didn’t say boo, a few of 'em said yay.
Of course the window was gonna shift with no one counteracting the propaganda. The same propaganda you’re boosting.
Pandering only works if you’re delivering more of what your audience wants than your opponent. It yields no votes from right wingers when they can choose fascists and get more of what they want.
But it does alienate people who would otherwise be your natural allies.
Where do you get your opinion of Americans? The answer doesn’t’ matter because every media outlet, including social media, is owned by billionaires. Lemmy being the possible exception, but don’t tell me you get the impression that Americans are right wing from here.
Doesn’t it seem weird how many think pieces about Trump voters there have been in the past decade? I’ve never seen an article about an Anarchist. Not a single article about someone who didn’t vote. Meanwhile, every algorithm takes you to the furthest right content you’ll accept.
I’m mainly basing my opinion on my experiences living in the UK where everyone complains about “right-wing tabloids” but these newspapers enjoy huge sales figures.
I don’t know much about UK politics, but Murdoch was pushing you right even before us.
I think about tabloids as “Propaganda that pays for itself”. What better way to sow distrust in science than wild stories about nonsense? Repeat a lie enough times and people start to believe it.
Tabloids have comparatively high sales because they’re pap aimed at the lowest common denominator. Young people don’t read print papers, so the tabloids make a business of confirming the worst Boomer fears.
No, the majority of white people and the majority of people who voted voted for Trump. That is a big difference. As much as some liberals want to say “Not voting is the same as voting for Trump”, that is not true.
From an outsider’s perspective it seems like the Democrats behave like that because the US electorate is genuinely right-wing and need pandered to.
Our government behaves like that because it formally takes bribes.
If you look at the real issues ~60% want homeless fed and to help people back on their feet, healthcare and school to be affordable to everyone.
~40% want all those things, but they only want them for themselves and their families.
We’re at about 60/40 POS.
I’d say 60/40 is way off provably more like 80/20
That’s where I want it to be. But I’m worried it’s not
If you’re getting your perspective from billionaire-owned news, (which no fault to you, is most major news-sources) it’s no wonder that you’d think that. By the way, that’s the exact same narrative the “billionaire-bullypulpit” push here in the States, even though it isn’t so.
These politicians and the media have the same lock step lie. They say they’re moving to the right “because their voters are”, but they’re just gaslighting folks as cover for what they were doing anyway; whatever their rich donors tell them.
It really isn’t that right-wing, especially economically, but there’s a lot of factors that make it seem that way. First is that it did go through a large, neoliberal shift in the 80s during the Regan years. When the economy crashed in the early 90s, the Democrats decided that, instead of returning to their New Deal roots, they would also run on neoliberal policies. The Republicans moved further right because of that, especially on social issues, and then the Rachet Effect described in the meme really started to ramp up.
Couple this with a lot of political illiteracy among the public in general, and you get a lot of people who actually don’t know what they believe and default to partisanship. If you poll people if they support gun control, you will get a very negative response, but if you break gun control into individual measures (longer waiting periods, mandatory background checks, magazine capacity limits, etc.) you get much more support. It’s the same on almost every issue; people don’t support a, “big government takeover,” of the healthcare system, but they broadly support Medicare for all. There’s a somewhat famous picture of a guy holding a sign that says something like, “Get Your Government Hands Off My Social Security,” that I think sums up this ignorance pretty well.
This attitude isn’t limited to the right, either. If you asked a Democrat “Who deregulated Wall Street?” they’d probably tell you Regan, Bush, or the other Bush. In actuality, the most significant deregulation, which lead directly to the 2008 financial collapse, was Clinton’s repeal of Glass-Steagal. Liberals think that Obama made significant progress on regulating Wall Street, but what he put in place was nothing compared to the deregulation that proceeded it.
Citizens United and the rise of mega donors also plays a pretty significant role in moving the parties away from policies that the general population want and towards the goals of a few oligarchs, but this reply is already way too long, so TL;DR: the country got pretty right-wing under Regan, both parties became more right-wing as a result, the population has become much more left-leaning since income inequality/cost of living went way up, but the parties are still both right-wing and most people are too ignorant to understand that.
Good comment, but this bugs me:
*Reagan
Regan was Reagan’s chief of staff for his last couple of years in office.
Holy shit, I don’t know when I started misspelling Reagan’s name, but now I feel like I need to go through thousands of replies and figure it out, because this has definitely been going on for months.
Nope, when you poll on individual policies, they’re way to the left of the democrats.
The democrats showcase healthcare bill wasn’t “subsidies for employer-based health insurance, that you have no idea what it’s going to cost and have to buy at a specific time of year by going to one of 50 sites provided by your state at a specific time of year and filling out a bunch of forms or face a tax penalty, with a sliding scale based on income, marriage status, and other factors” because that’s more popular than “free healthcare”.
Same if you ask americans about Biden (and Harris’s) policies of “loan forgiveness for PELL grant recipients up to X dollars depending on age, loan repayment status, income, parent’s income, and whether you were born on a prime-numbered date” vs “free college”
The democrats compromise their bills, not because there’s a bunch of “moderates” who are exactly between democrat and republican who will vote for democrats if they promote garbage versions of progressive bills that don’t actually help anyone, but because they know those versions are less likely to pass and be easier to chip away at, and therefore won’t piss off their billionaire patrons.
deleted by creator
So, republicans just piled on the anti-trans hate last election, and democrats responded with either silence or running their own anti-trans hate in their own ads.
Republicans are going to choose republicans, no party stood up for trans people, and the Overton window on trans people moved to the right. democrats not only didn’t say boo, a few of 'em said yay.
Of course the window was gonna shift with no one counteracting the propaganda. The same propaganda you’re boosting.
Pandering only works if you’re delivering more of what your audience wants than your opponent. It yields no votes from right wingers when they can choose fascists and get more of what they want.
But it does alienate people who would otherwise be your natural allies.
Where do you get your opinion of Americans? The answer doesn’t’ matter because every media outlet, including social media, is owned by billionaires. Lemmy being the possible exception, but don’t tell me you get the impression that Americans are right wing from here.
Doesn’t it seem weird how many think pieces about Trump voters there have been in the past decade? I’ve never seen an article about an Anarchist. Not a single article about someone who didn’t vote. Meanwhile, every algorithm takes you to the furthest right content you’ll accept.
I’m mainly basing my opinion on my experiences living in the UK where everyone complains about “right-wing tabloids” but these newspapers enjoy huge sales figures.
I don’t know much about UK politics, but Murdoch was pushing you right even before us.
I think about tabloids as “Propaganda that pays for itself”. What better way to sow distrust in science than wild stories about nonsense? Repeat a lie enough times and people start to believe it.
Tabloids have comparatively high sales because they’re pap aimed at the lowest common denominator. Young people don’t read print papers, so the tabloids make a business of confirming the worst Boomer fears.
The majority voted for trump, a fascist. Idk.
If you tell me you are a good person, I will require evidence. If you tell me you are a bad person, I will trust your word.
No, the majority of white people and the majority of people who voted voted for Trump. That is a big difference. As much as some liberals want to say “Not voting is the same as voting for Trump”, that is not true.
About 40% of it is.
Stay outside and stop talking