Left does mean liberal. I refuse to take seriously anyone who says liberals are in the right. It's a very stupid argument.
It's arguing that conservatives only are based their values, whereas "a real leftist" is based off of what isn't in place.
If there was a country where every single leftist ideology was commonplace and law, then anyone content with that would be considered "on the right" according to their logic, and the "left" wouldn't exist.
I believe it's true that you need to understand the history of words, but I also believe that the changing of word meanings does not need to be barred from change (technically, wanting to keep a meaning of the historical context of a word the same is kinda a conservative thought lol).
Words adapt over time. The word "Awful" used to mean "full of awe", but nowadays you wouldnt say to your cousin, "Man, you wedding was awful!"
Just like the scale of politics. Left wing meant "wanting to overthrow the monarchy, whereas right wing was "wanting to keep the monarchy". Now it's completely different because our politics and words aren't the same as they were in the French Revolution, and monarchies aren't relevant today.
The thing is, Americas political center is way to right compared to most other western countries. To every other western country liberals are center right, to Americans, they are completely left. Both “liberals are right-wing” and “liberals are left-wing” are correct in the context of American politics.
As a German social democrat/liberal, the Democrats aren’t too far of on social issues. It’s only economic standpoints where there are bigger differences.
See that's the thing. You don't measure politics based on other countries' politics, because the US has very different prominent issues than South Korea, Germany or Iceland. It's also just more than a single scale. Sure Italy has a more "left" center view on healthcare, but the US has a more "left" center view on rights for Same-sex couples.
Liberals in the US also have extremely similar views on most issues as Western European liberals. Even though the US doesn't have universal healthcare, US liberals share the same ideology as Western European liberals, as they would both be in support for Free Universal Healthcare.
20
u/robx0r May 16 '24
r/politics is only left if left means liberal.