Are you sure you are a liberal? Cuz it sounds to me that you’re way to the left of liberals. I could be wrong though. Maybe you are a liberal. Maybe you’re one of that group of people that every single time it comes to supporting the the workers or supporting fascism you’ll support fascism. Cuz that’s what liberals do.
Liberals will always turn against the working class. We have 300 years of human history that backs this lesson up and I have no sympathy for people who have refused to learn from it.
Modern liberalism in the United States emerged with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s and is the prevailing version of liberalism in the country. It is most synonymous with the ideology known as social liberalism in much of the world, combining in the U.S. version elements of cultural liberalism, American progressivism, civil liberty and social equality with support for social justice and a mixed economy
and a bit later in the same article:
Economically, modern liberalism embraces a role for government to protect against market failures, ensure competition and prevent corporate monopolies, and supports labor rights through the strengthening of public- and private-sector labor unions, collective bargaining, unemployment insurance and minimum wage laws.
So I think perhaps you can see how the term means something completely different there. It’s really closer to socdem than classical liberal.
And as a kicker, the US “conservative” party is economically liberal, whereas much of the “liberal” party is not (unfortunately much of the old guard there are more liberal rather than liberal).
TL;DR: Yes, the economic term “liberalism” means “let corpos do whatever the fuck”. In the modern meaning of the word politically, it’s more “all people are created equal and all deserve to be free”.
I’ve seen this argument parroted a few times online. Unfortunately it just does not hold water whatsoever. We have 50, or closer to 60 now, years of liberal policy in America that flies in the face of this argument 100%. We have decades of anti labor, anti-regulation, Pro corporate, pro Wall Street, anti civil liberties and all around liberal policies to show us otherwise.
It’s no coincidence that we are where we are. Because as you alluded to it’s not just one party. Republicans are absolutely liberal, or they were before the last 10 years at least. As were Democrats. That’s the history of American politics basically since the beginning. Two liberal parties. One leaning slightly more conservative and one leaning slightly more Progressive. Or some might put it, the party of the grand bourgeoisie and the party of the petite bourgeoisie. But both fundamentally liberal. America was the first great liberal Revolution and it is something that gas guided us ever since. But it has not changed.
You mentioned the Old Guard of the Democratic party being “classical liberal” instead of your supposed new definition. However that Old Guard has been just the guard for a very long time. I would argue always. It’s not a remnant. It’s a feature. With the new arising of the new Democrats in the '80s. Clinton and Gore and their ilk. What did their rise to power bring about? Massive deregulation. The gutting of Labor. With their Republican allies they instituted an extremely liberal policy that tore apart any Progressive advances that had been made in the previous decades. Though it’s not like Jimmy Carter didn’t put his stamp on it either. Was Obama old guard? I wouldn’t argue so certainly, yet there’s a very good reason why when he tried to implement his liberal free trade policies he had all of the Republicans and about half the Democrats behind him. Certainly his expansion of their surveillance state and protecting big Banks like Wells Fargo were extremely liberal policies of a classical nature.
We could go on and on. The point is It doesn’t hold up. This concept of a new definition of liberal just doesn’t coincide with reality. Because the reality of what the Liberals in America vote for what they support what they legislate is the exact same definition of what liberals world over do. So when people tell you that liberalism is a different word in America understand that that’s a psyop. Because liberals and conservatives in America would love you to think that liberalism is as far left as you can go. They would love you not to have a actual Progressive Party. Which is what the Democratic party pretends to be but it’s actually a liberal party with a few progressives chained up in the bowels of the boat.
Ah the great lie of American politics. That Liberals are somehow different in America than the rest of the world. But it’s funny. When you look at the things that American liberals vote for and support it sure seems like the exact same fucking things they do in the rest of the world doesn’t it?
There is an enormous amount of evidence to disprove the idea that liberals will always support fascism. Fascism explicitly rejected liberal democracy, individual rights, and political pluralism. Liberals were among those persecuted by fascist regimes, and liberal democracies were instrumental in defeating said fascist regimes.
Never understood the lengths some Lemmy users go to describe liberalism in these ways. It’s just as bad when people do the same thing towards ideologies such as communism
Are you sure you are a liberal? Cuz it sounds to me that you’re way to the left of liberals. I could be wrong though. Maybe you are a liberal. Maybe you’re one of that group of people that every single time it comes to supporting the the workers or supporting fascism you’ll support fascism. Cuz that’s what liberals do.
Liberals will always turn against the working class. We have 300 years of human history that backs this lesson up and I have no sympathy for people who have refused to learn from it.
Liberal has a completely different meaning in the US and has for about the last century. Wikipedia article on social liberalism in general and here’s one on modern liberalism in the US, but if you don’t want to read all that, here’s an excerpt:
and a bit later in the same article:
So I think perhaps you can see how the term means something completely different there. It’s really closer to socdem than classical liberal.
And as a kicker, the US “conservative” party is economically liberal, whereas much of the “liberal” party is not (unfortunately much of the old guard there are more liberal rather than liberal).
TL;DR: Yes, the economic term “liberalism” means “let corpos do whatever the fuck”. In the modern meaning of the word politically, it’s more “all people are created equal and all deserve to be free”.
I’ve seen this argument parroted a few times online. Unfortunately it just does not hold water whatsoever. We have 50, or closer to 60 now, years of liberal policy in America that flies in the face of this argument 100%. We have decades of anti labor, anti-regulation, Pro corporate, pro Wall Street, anti civil liberties and all around liberal policies to show us otherwise.
It’s no coincidence that we are where we are. Because as you alluded to it’s not just one party. Republicans are absolutely liberal, or they were before the last 10 years at least. As were Democrats. That’s the history of American politics basically since the beginning. Two liberal parties. One leaning slightly more conservative and one leaning slightly more Progressive. Or some might put it, the party of the grand bourgeoisie and the party of the petite bourgeoisie. But both fundamentally liberal. America was the first great liberal Revolution and it is something that gas guided us ever since. But it has not changed.
You mentioned the Old Guard of the Democratic party being “classical liberal” instead of your supposed new definition. However that Old Guard has been just the guard for a very long time. I would argue always. It’s not a remnant. It’s a feature. With the new arising of the new Democrats in the '80s. Clinton and Gore and their ilk. What did their rise to power bring about? Massive deregulation. The gutting of Labor. With their Republican allies they instituted an extremely liberal policy that tore apart any Progressive advances that had been made in the previous decades. Though it’s not like Jimmy Carter didn’t put his stamp on it either. Was Obama old guard? I wouldn’t argue so certainly, yet there’s a very good reason why when he tried to implement his liberal free trade policies he had all of the Republicans and about half the Democrats behind him. Certainly his expansion of their surveillance state and protecting big Banks like Wells Fargo were extremely liberal policies of a classical nature.
We could go on and on. The point is It doesn’t hold up. This concept of a new definition of liberal just doesn’t coincide with reality. Because the reality of what the Liberals in America vote for what they support what they legislate is the exact same definition of what liberals world over do. So when people tell you that liberalism is a different word in America understand that that’s a psyop. Because liberals and conservatives in America would love you to think that liberalism is as far left as you can go. They would love you not to have a actual Progressive Party. Which is what the Democratic party pretends to be but it’s actually a liberal party with a few progressives chained up in the bowels of the boat.
Ah the great lie of American politics. That Liberals are somehow different in America than the rest of the world. But it’s funny. When you look at the things that American liberals vote for and support it sure seems like the exact same fucking things they do in the rest of the world doesn’t it?
There is an enormous amount of evidence to disprove the idea that liberals will always support fascism. Fascism explicitly rejected liberal democracy, individual rights, and political pluralism. Liberals were among those persecuted by fascist regimes, and liberal democracies were instrumental in defeating said fascist regimes.
Never understood the lengths some Lemmy users go to describe liberalism in these ways. It’s just as bad when people do the same thing towards ideologies such as communism