• GBU_28@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    36
    arrow-down
    5
    ·
    3 months ago

    Meh, though the meme is true, most Americans would say liberals are EVERYONE left of center, and conservatives are EVERYONE right of center.

    • eltrain123@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      24
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      3 months ago

      Yeah, but that ‘center’ is a relative term and people move ‘center’ to fit their opinion. Every American I know thinks they are close to center, but I know people that are far left and far right, as well as people that lean left and right from a mostly central position.

      No one wants to consider themselves radicalized, but there are a lot of people out there that are.

      Most of American politics is right wing. Democrats lean right and Republicans run right. You could change the slant of your statement with a left-bias, instead of the right, by saying everyone left of center is progressive and everyone right of center is regressive.

      • GBU_28@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        3 months ago

        Correct, I invoked an unnamed speaker in my statement.

        Rephrased: each asked American would describe liberal or conservative as capturing the entire spectrum, (left or right respectively) of what they consider center.

        All I mean is that the terms are most commonly used (in America) to capture damn near half of the spectrum.

      • volodya_ilich@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        3 months ago

        No one wants to consider themselves radicalized

        Speak for yourself buddy, proud owner of the “radical leftist” label here.

    • Angry_Autist (he/him)@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      20
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      3 months ago

      What most Americans think of as ‘center’ is way fucking right compared to most of the world.

      Here Bernie Sanders is a radically dangerous communist.

      In other parts of the world he is just considered a bit progressive.

    • njm1314@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      arrow-down
      11
      ·
      3 months ago

      They only say that because they’ve been trained to by conservative media. Just because education is bad doesn’t mean reality is different.

        • Nate Cox@programming.dev
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          8
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          3 months ago

          Yep, many people complaining about semantics here don’t realize that when the US calls something “the left” they aren’t referring to “leftism”, they are referring to a metaphorical graduated chart where democrats are on the left hand and republicans are on the right.

          “The left” on this chart is anyone leaning towards the Democratic Party, where “the right” is anyone leaning towards the Republican Party.

          It’s frustrating that we let this become a dividing topic, because it is pedantic at best.

          • GBU_28@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            7
            arrow-down
            3
            ·
            3 months ago

            And what’s annoying is conservatives certainly bicker, but are generally very unified.

            True leftists seem so hellbent on distancing themselves from “liberals”. All they are doing is sowing division, in what conservatives consider a binary landscape.

            • archomrade [he/him]@midwest.social
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              4
              arrow-down
              3
              ·
              3 months ago

              Close; true leftists are hellbent on disillusioning liberals of the notion that they’re contributing anything by simply voting every 4 years for the democrat du jour.

              The political goals of leftists involve a lot more than simply defeating republican opponents, but that doesn’t seem to matter to the majority of casual democrats. What’s more; leftists have an understanding that reactionary political movements don’t simply go away when you vote them out; they are created by real material conditions that need to be addressed, else they will return the next cycle having gained more momentum.

              Liberals are either comatose leftists who are dragging progress to a halt, or reactionaries in denial who would rather a reactionary movement take over than see the hierarchical structure of their country change, even marginally.

                  • GBU_28@lemm.ee
                    link
                    fedilink
                    English
                    arrow-up
                    4
                    arrow-down
                    1
                    ·
                    3 months ago

                    And there aren’t differences between factions of the conservative end of the spectrum?

                    This is my exact point: the whole left-scented side of the spectrum eats their own. The right doesn’t.

            • seahorse [Ohio]@midwest.socialOPM
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              4
              arrow-down
              7
              ·
              3 months ago

              We’re distancing ourselves from libs because we don’t want the same things for the most part. Besides getting trump out of the picture we’re rather different.

          • archomrade [he/him]@midwest.social
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            3 months ago

            People will casually remark “that’s just they way they’re using the word, no point in arguing” and then never stop to ask why and to what end.

            The reason US politics operates along that dimension is explicitly because of the way their electoral politics work. It’s not simply a matter of it being the common usage, it’s also a core part of what capital L leftists are critiquing when they say ‘liberals are not left wing’. Democrats are dealing in exactly the ideological framework that is the target of leftist opposition, it isn’t sufficient to lump everyone on the democratic side into a single category.