I don’t have much of a problem either way as I don’t think I’ll be engaging in political discussion on this website past this post but it seems like any sort of non-left wing opinions or posts are immediately trashed on here. That’s fine. There’s clearly a more liberal audience here and that’s okay. I just don’t want Lemmy to become a echo chamber for any side and it seems to be that way when it comes to politics already.

Mostly making this post just to drum up discussion as I’m new here.

Edit: Thanks for the rational replies. I was expecting to get lit up for even mentioning this topic lol.

  • prole@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    I wouldn’t conflate “liberal” with “progressive,” or, “leftist.”

    Very different things.

    • darkmugglet@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      More underrated comment. This country has lost political literacy in what liberal, progressive, conservative, etc meaning. I saw a clip of Darth Cheney talking when he was in the first Bush Admin and he making solidly conservative points, talking about the consent of the governed and legitimacy. You would never see that type of conversation on any of the Sunday morning shows; you just see the culture wars. I was shocked to see this past Meet the Press had J.D. Vance making well reasoned arguments.

      IMO, the labels are short hands that cause people to immediately turn off their brains. Leftist in American Politics is a meaningless slur. And most conservatives don’t realize that the current flavor is actually Neoconservative.

    • mobyduck648@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      Also it varies depending on the variety of English you’re speaking. While we do have a few people who follow the US a bit too closely generally when a British person is talking about ‘liberals’ or ‘liberalism’ they mean something quite different to what an American would be saying with the same terminology which leads to confusion on both sides. In the UK it sometimes means ‘the Liberal Democrat party’ but usually it just means ‘the opposite of authoritarian’, for example someone might say ‘Kier Starmer’s policy on drug reform is illiberal but the Green Party’s is liberal’ and it’s descriptive rather than ideological.

      To be honest conservatism is pretty different on either side of the Atlantic too, or at least it was until both countries succumbed to populism and demagoguery. One-nation conservatism in the UK for example isn’t an intrinsically broken and contradictory ideology in the same way ‘Johnsonism’ is even though being well to the left of it myself I disagree with many of its premises, and while British politics outside of a minority of nutters doesn’t really care what religion you are on the whole it’s a considerable faux pas to let it be seen as directing your policy in office whereas American conservatives play to a very religious base. Blair over here still gets shit to this day for saying God will be his judge on Iraq, presumably forgetting the British electorate are a little less patient to judge than the almighty.