this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2024
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The context given in the title: France had an election and the left union is the biggest group but still doesn't have a majority. The president is a liberal and seems to favor the Right over the Left
Would you be able to explain the difference between "left" and "liberal" in this context?
I'm not the same person, but I'll give it a go. It's confusing in part because liberal often means leftish leaning in the US but not elsewhere.
For example Democrat and liberal are pretty much interchangeable in US political discourse, but that's not what the word means. Liberalism is more of an economic strategy. In this sense Democrats and Republicans are both liberals. They are all conservative liberals. Does that sound like a contradiction? Only in modern US politics. One party is just more conservative socially and more economically liberal.
Left or Leftist is generally in conflict with liberal ideology, as a leftist believes in strong social safety nets like universal healthcare, universal basic income, etc. Depending on the type of leftist, this could mean things like a planned economy, workers owning the means of production, or even collectivist anarchy. Examples of leftists are Socialists and Communists.
This is why, to a leftist, it's so damn funny when a republican calls a democrat a radical leftist. No self respecting leftist would be a member of the democratic party.
Sorry for all the US centric shit on a thread about France but I think that's where the confusion usually comes from.
You're saying the party socializing healthcare is ideologically opposed to people who want socialized healthcare...?
He is saying:
Left is Bernie Sanders
the democrats are the center (leaning right)
the republican are the right.
From the rest of the world point of view: US politics is center right VS extreme right.
The large majority of democrats want progressive reform, so that's just wrong. There is a reason Bernie only caucuses with the Democrats.
The large majority of Democratic voters absolutely do. However the large majority of Democratic donors do not and are at odds with the voter base of the Democratic party.
User "Keep on Stalin" wants to villainize US Politicians by association, explicitly not vote history.
What? There is some conflicting information. On polls, the donors do poll more liberal, which you can see in the first link. Yet on actual policies, they are less supportive than voters, which you can see in the second link.
https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfaa001
https://www.demos.org/research/whose-voice-whose-choice-distorting-influence-political-donor-class-our-big-money
Oh I'm sorry, I guess you're changing your argument from Democrats being on the center-rogjt to Democrats being not left enough. Admittedly a much more reasonable argument.
But in order to not admit being wrong you're just shifting the goal post by saying left isn't actually left unless it's as left as your arbitrary placement on the spectrum, which is further than socialized healthcare, higher taxes on the rich, and higher minimum wages. Those are just Centrists.
I apologize for putting you on the spot like that. I'm sure it was very distressing. My bad.
I literally just corrected myself with sources, what do you want dude
My apologies I hadn't realised you changed stances, I thought you were using those sources to argue in favor of your previous point. Notably with how you said theres a disconnect between supporters and policy.
There is a difference between donors and voters, I gave two sources that showed that. The difference was whether it came to general questions about Policy, where donors give more liberal answers, or actual policy, which voters were more in support of than the donors. It's not as clear as I initially thought, but there is still a difference, probably due to the wealth disparity between donors and voters
What party is socializing healthcare?
That is such a stupid mindset. In many states you have to be a member of the party to vote in their primary. If you are not voting in any primary then you are letting people that you disagree with decide who will be in the candidate in the election. And considering that not voting is effectively voting for the candidate that you most disagree with, all the leftists that refuse to associate with the democratic party are effectively voting for the people they disagree with.
That's fair. I'm not against strategic voting.
In most countries you need to be a party member to engage in internal party politics. The idea that the heneral public makes direct choices for private political organizations is, honestly, kind of weird.
But also, which states require you to be an actual card-carrying member to participate in the primary? I was under the impression that most merely required that you register with the electoral office as a party supporter.
Being a "registered X" is very different from being "a member of X". Members get to do things like go to convemtions where party policy is discussed and voted on. Members get to vie for party nomination. They're part of the internal machinery of the party.
Yhey're not just voters with a party banner.
OK, if you want to look at it that way, it's still the same basic argument, refusing to participate in the party just effectively increases the representation of the people you disagree with.
if someone doesn't agree with either party why should they vote? when someone refuses to vote for your party they are simple refusing, this does not mean they are voting for the other side. i really dislike this conflation people make.
here's a fun thought experiment. democrats win this upcoming election, does this mean all the people who didn't vote had actually voted democrats?
Stop thinking about it like you need to vote for someone to represent your views because that's NEVER how it worked. It's a tug of war, everytime you don't vote you're letting your side down.
Just because not everyone pulling with you agrees on where to stop pulling doesn't mean you get to drop the rope.
So third party are okay?
Do your own personal Instant Runoff. If you think that the third party candidate might win maybe vote for them. If they are basically guaranteed to lose, maybe vote for your next choice.
It's your local representative, as in he represents your area and his job is generally to bring more money to your area. They don't represent your political views. For that you need to pull your weight at the election to open up space for views more aligned with yours at the elected body level (example the house or senate for national elections). You might be surprised to hear this but MOST of politics is deciding what money to collect and where to spend it. A TINY percentage is what most people consider "political" stuff. When it comes to that, when you pull your weight you open up space for different views that are better aligned with how you think. It's not about how YOUR representative thinks, it's about how the entire house and Senate think. Your representative will generally be pushed to agree with the overall party position or risk being replaced.
If we all pulled our weight the elections would look like this. How many more progressives and leftists enter the ticket in this world? How many Bernie Sanders, AOCs and Ilhan Omars? Or whatever your political views are (scared to ask honestly)...
Pull your weight today, or drop the rope and be unrepresented for another round of elections.
You edited your comment from "so who represents me" to "third party okay". Third party is like attaching a new rope and pulling to the side. You're not doing much. Maybe better than nothing, but often not.
seems as if the United States electoral system has become systematized where using ones democratic right to not vote or vote third party is now an attack. in the UK where i am based we had a push to spoil ballot papers, this was a democratic protest against an unchanging system which many see as failing them. this election spoke for itself with the lowest voter turn out since 1918. how have we gone the Orwellion rout of framing democracy in such an undemocratic way.
either way good luck in your election i hope the Democrats neither the orange man gets in.
You're playing yourself.
It's almost universal in the west that the higher the voter turnout the more left the government. Just look at France, first round, typical low turnout: far right won. Second round hight turnout massive: leftist win.
Spoiling the ballot is just not voting. When I was young, I used to think that you could make a point by not voting, or by spoiling the ballot. By waiting until the perfect representative showed up. Then I saw elections where the winning party got 43% of the votes with 40% voter turnout. Then I realised that 17% of people just forced us into another garbage right wing government and that spoiling ballots wasn't even reported in the news AT ALL.
Vote EVERY TIME. It's a tug of war, the harder you pull the more the whole thing shifts to your side. Look at the right in the US, this situation was impossible a decade ago, but they kept voting and the window kept shifting. And now it's fucked up.
Don't let your side down just because some of the people pulling don't agree with you on where we should stop. Pull your weight, we can't accept fascism.
Like I said, we had the lowest voter turnout since 1918. We've been under a Conservative government for 17 years, and now we have a Labour government that's sticking to the same austerity measures—removing rent caps on social housing, increasing utility prices. Essentially, nothing has changed, and in some ways, things are getting worse.
I'm not a liberal so there isn't much rope for me to pull.
I want real change, so I organize with a socialist party. I've gone door-to-door with TUSC candidates in the run up to the general election, spoken at counter-demonstrations, shown up at pickets, and helped set up community outreach throughout my local area. Just last month, I attended an international meeting in Germany, so it’s not like I’m some ill-informed internet loony. I'm more than happy for people to vote how they like, and I wouldn’t discourage anyone from doing so, but I also won’t use vapid slogans like “not voting is a vote for Trump.”
How can it be any other way? The fewer little vote the more likely Trump is to win. In the American system not voting IS a vote for Trump.
I'm sorry change is too slow for you. The first round of liberal/leftist victory is often crap. They barely win, or they don't have his leftist candidates. Every election with a massive turnout on the left opens up space for leftist representatives. I think I've said this before. Change is slow. Right now the window is WAY over to the right. We have to bring it back by voting in droves until we're represented. It's simple math, but we keep losing because we don't get what we want right away.
If a new socialist party can work in the UK then more pretty to you. I know some European countries have 20 parties with elected representatives and the most any party can hope for is 20%. But in countries with two parties you have to change them from the inside. Each situation is s different battleground and we have to optimise our strategy. And we don't win by attacking eachother for starting simple facts because they're not true everywhere.
Consider two scenarios: one where you vote, one where you do not, all else is the same. In the scenario where you vote, the candidate that you vote for, that you least disagree with, has a higher percentage of votes than in the other scenario. In the scenario where you don't vote the candidates that you wouldn't have voted for, the ones you most disagree with, have a higher percentage of votes than in the other scenario.
Not voting is effectively voting for the people you most disagree with.
That's a different argument than what I was making. "Not voting is effectively approval of whoever wins." related but not the same.
I never said don't vote for them. In fact in the US right now at the national level the only choice is to vote Democrat even if you hate them. It's harm reduction.
liberalism is a belief in free association / marketplace of ideas and is centrist on a global scale. the usa is generally right-leaning so the two major parties are the liberals (centrists) and the right wing
Think of liberals as centrists
The use of "liberal" has been taken by the right, from the neo-liberal they started with. Now they consider themselves the true liberals. It's the good ole 1984 newspeak strategy of taking the words out of their original meaning to make them lose their meaning, and their ideas behind.
I think that he is referring to "liberal" more in the sense of being in the political spectrum of economic liberal. Usually I see the difference between the US and EU definition of the term liberal: in the US it is a synonym of the left wing party or leaning, in EU is used for being liberal economic leaning and is different from being left party or left wing
Two french parties called "Renaissance Party (RE)" and "The Republicans (LR)" self identify as Liberal Policies as in parties of Personal Freedoms. RE is center and LR is Center-Right on the political spectrum.