Nah, liberals are awful in many different ways. Fractally, even. For example, liberals regularly side with fascists against anti-fascists. Liberals diffuse righteous proletarian anger into milquetoast electoral politics. Liberals clutch their pearls at the slightest whiff of change. Liberals don’t fucking listen, and are smug to everyone else about their ignorance. Liberals are just as bigoted as conservatives but are too cowardly to be open about it (do not take this as a defense of open bigots like conservatives; it simply makes them an easier enemy to identify). Liberals are just as openly imperialist and settler-colonial as their conservative counterparts. Liberals are capitalist, and any deviations from laissez faire are attempts to save an inherently unstable capitalist system. Both times Trump won, it was because the liberals ran the most rank neoliberal shitheel they could possibly cram down the electorate’s throats, i.e. we are in Trump 2.0 because of the Democrats. And that almost fucking happened again with Biden, like Biden barely won relative to the monumental daily public fuckups by the Trump admin, including his ass-backwards response to COVID-19 (from which Biden did not materially depart!) (Not that Biden or Obama were any better on 99.9% of issues; e.g., the Gaza genocide started under Genocide Joe, and Obama is responsible for the deaths of at least hundreds of thousands of civilians during the War On Terror.) I could go on and on and on.
Frankly,
liberals are fucking monsters from my anarchist eyes. So are conservatives, I know I have to keep saying that because apparently the evilness of
was always invented just now in the minds of liberals, but oh my God, liberals truly are a monstrous breed too.
And I know we were all liberals at one point, it’s the monoculture in and other Western countries…all the more reason why socialists of all stripes need to be empathetic to liberals looking for change, but firm in opposition to liberalism.
Liberals are capitalists, and have joined forces with fascists many times to violently protect capitalism from communists. The fact is, fascism would pose very little danger without liberal enablers. The way root-dwelling cyanobacteria allow plants to grow bigger.
Liberal in modern western political discourse has little to do with capitalism anymore and more about your stance on social issues like LGBT rights, racial equality or healthcare. Half of lemmy pretends not to understand it for some reason but it’s been like that for a few decades.
It’s the result of conservatives using “libtard” and “communist” interchangeably for everyone to the left of Reagan while by the old definition they’re actually liberals.
While I usually find myself agreeing that linguistic prescriptivism is useless (it is), that generally applies less to terms that have technical or academic meaning, and just lumping progressive and liberal into meaning the same thing completely takes away our ability to discuss one of two dominant political ideologies in the united states
People regularly conflating things doesnt mean we should all just conflate things because thats what they now mean, thats a horrible way to apply the idea of linguistic descriptivism 😅
People on lemmy use the term liberal to mean liberal and not progressive because half the conversations here are completely impossible sans language for the dominant “progressive” political ideology in the US that embraces capitalism and superficially supports minority interests.
Positions do matter, the fact that both conservatives and liberals are economically liberal does not mean liberalism has ceased to exist as a philosophy in the US.
I think that as more people lose faith in capitalist reform and are pushed left, there’s potential for semantic drift, which is important to address. So just to clear up any miscommunication, liberalism is everything short of “we gotta get rid of capitalism”. Once you go over that line, you’re not a liberal anymore
Liberals are pro capitalism (sometimes with minor treats or reforms for their ingroup). Democrats, Republicans, Social Democrats, Greens etc. all liberals.
Capitalism is the problem, not conservatives alone. Liberals support capitalism and thus the problem.
Right? It’s a choice of being stabbed in the front or in the back.
Then stick to the problem, maybe? Where it says Liberals it should say Capitalists.
Nah, liberals are awful in many different ways. Fractally, even. For example, liberals regularly side with fascists against anti-fascists. Liberals diffuse righteous proletarian anger into milquetoast electoral politics. Liberals clutch their pearls at the slightest whiff of change. Liberals don’t fucking listen, and are smug to everyone else about their ignorance. Liberals are just as bigoted as conservatives but are too cowardly to be open about it (do not take this as a defense of open bigots like conservatives; it simply makes them an easier enemy to identify). Liberals are just as openly imperialist and settler-colonial as their conservative counterparts. Liberals are capitalist, and any deviations from laissez faire are attempts to save an inherently unstable capitalist system. Both times Trump won, it was because the liberals ran the most rank neoliberal shitheel they could possibly cram down the electorate’s throats, i.e. we are in Trump 2.0 because of the Democrats. And that almost fucking happened again with Biden, like Biden barely won relative to the monumental daily public fuckups by the Trump admin, including his ass-backwards response to COVID-19 (from which Biden did not materially depart!) (Not that Biden or Obama were any better on 99.9% of issues; e.g., the Gaza genocide started under Genocide Joe, and Obama is responsible for the deaths of at least hundreds of thousands of civilians during the War On Terror.) I could go on and on and on.
Frankly,
liberals are fucking monsters from my anarchist eyes. So are conservatives, I know I have to keep saying that because apparently the evilness of 
was always invented just now in the minds of liberals, but oh my God, liberals truly are a monstrous breed too.
And I know we were all liberals at one point, it’s the monoculture in
and other Western countries…all the more reason why socialists of all stripes need to be empathetic to liberals looking for change, but firm in opposition to liberalism.
Liberals are supporters of capitalism. Capitalists are owners of capital.
Liberals are capitalists, and have joined forces with fascists many times to violently protect capitalism from communists. The fact is, fascism would pose very little danger without liberal enablers. The way root-dwelling cyanobacteria allow plants to grow bigger.
Some are, some are not.
There are anticapitalist liberals…?
No, but there are confused Westerners who only understand “Liberal” to mean “the more progressive half of my country’s Liberal parties”.
Liberal in modern western political discourse has little to do with capitalism anymore and more about your stance on social issues like LGBT rights, racial equality or healthcare. Half of lemmy pretends not to understand it for some reason but it’s been like that for a few decades.
It’s the result of conservatives using “libtard” and “communist” interchangeably for everyone to the left of Reagan while by the old definition they’re actually liberals.
Languages evolve. Prescriptivism is useless.
What you are describing is the Culture War 😘
While I usually find myself agreeing that linguistic prescriptivism is useless (it is), that generally applies less to terms that have technical or academic meaning, and just lumping progressive and liberal into meaning the same thing completely takes away our ability to discuss one of two dominant political ideologies in the united states
People regularly conflating things doesnt mean we should all just conflate things because thats what they now mean, thats a horrible way to apply the idea of linguistic descriptivism 😅
People on lemmy use the term liberal to mean liberal and not progressive because half the conversations here are completely impossible sans language for the dominant “progressive” political ideology in the US that embraces capitalism and superficially supports minority interests.
American once again not realising that there are other countries on Earth.
Positions do matter, the fact that both conservatives and liberals are economically liberal does not mean liberalism has ceased to exist as a philosophy in the US.
American centric much.
So, not anti capitalist.
The word understander has logged on
I think that as more people lose faith in capitalist reform and are pushed left, there’s potential for semantic drift, which is important to address. So just to clear up any miscommunication, liberalism is everything short of “we gotta get rid of capitalism”. Once you go over that line, you’re not a liberal anymore
true, some are bonapartists
Liberals are pro capitalism (sometimes with minor treats or reforms for their ingroup). Democrats, Republicans, Social Democrats, Greens etc. all liberals.