Kimmel is back on air, and the American liberal establishment has heaved a collective sigh of relief. Not because liberals and their Democratic Party have learned from the incident and used it as an opportunity to galvanise meaningful opposition to Trump’s authoritarian surge, but precisely the opposite – because it allows them to go back to their blissful slumber, ignore reality, cling to cognitive dissonance, denial, ahistorical wishful thinking, and the complicity that is integral to white privilege within a white supremacist order.
In fact, liberals do not even substantially disagree with the core of Trump’s policies. After all, both right-wing and liberal elites are loyal servants of empire, the latter just give it a veneer of humanitarianism.
Both support policies that sustain the oppression of poor and marginalised people: the corporatisation of healthcare and education, labour exploitation, mass incarceration, militarised policing, censorship, corruption through corporate donations, and extractivism and militarism abroad. The liberals have put their spin on all these with talk about human rights, rule of law, and diversity.
Other than the semantics of “liberal” (substitute for Centrist or Democrat to taste), this is very well conceived. These are the same people who tone police and chastise the victims of being too angry, and will through as under the bus to appeal to “the middle of the tent”.
This piece is really a breath of fresh air. If Democrats were so precious about other topics as they are about their late night comedians, we would have not descended that far into fascism. And this is why they are actually complicit.
How was he allowed to publish this on AJ?
Bla bla liberals bad amirite?
Yes, we don’t think capitalists should control the world economy here, and that workers should. Liberals staunchly oppose workers, and defend capitalists “rights” to enslave the world.
I’m beginning to wonder if we shouldn’t have an “Improve Reading Comprehension” and/or “Critical Reading” magazine. I could certainly benefit from it.
I agree with workers controlling the economy. I disagree that liberalism’s goal is to enslave the world or to blindly defend capitalism. The world is complex. No financial system is perfect. We have definitely found out the hard way how capitalism ruins everything. Things have to change. They will eventually. And that change definitely won’t happen by people voting for “status quo” politicians.
liberalism’s goal is to enslave the world or to blindly defend capitalism.
And that change definitely won’t happen by people voting for “status quo” politicians.
Then you need to stop calling yourself a liberal, because you disagree with its core tenets.
I highly recommend reading Losurdo’s Liberalism - A counter-history, if you want a full historical overview of what liberalism is.
Yes, you are correct.
There’s a whole lot more to it than bla bla and it’s right there in the article if you want to try reading it and being honest
yes
I believe there’s a language issue here. This article (and Lemmy in general) uses a more global definition of “Liberal” which is completely different from the meaning the word has in the US. After arriving here (Lemmy) I’ve learned that the meaning it has in the article is a specific political position which is distinct from “leftist” or “progressive” - it’s based more on economic policy than social policy, and basically means something like “maybe slightly left of conservative capitalist” - which I now understand US Democrats pretty much are economically.
Before learning that, this article would have made zero sense, and sounded like it was written by an ally of Trump himself
To add though, even US liberals still 100% agree with their world counterparts, that capitalists should control the world, and that communists / socialists are evil people that should be hunted down.
To be clear, social views, political views, and economic views all shape each other. They aren’t really sliders or scales like people like to think they are.
As for the US, it actually uses the term “liberal” correctly, the US just has thoroughly shut out the left to the point that liberal is the farthest “left” mainstream discourse is traditionally allowed to go.
The word ‘leftist’ entered the American lexicon in the lead-up to Trump’s first term. Before that it was commonly understood as a European word meaning something similar to liberal but more extreme and more locally focused within their respective countries. Now it seems to be still in flux, finding its particular American meaning without any previous word to replace.
Leftist has existed for a lot longer than that, this is absurd. There have been communists and anarchists in the US for centuries, there’s nothing intrinsically European about the term.
“Leftist” in 2000s Italy meant either a) communist or socialist party outside the established Communist parties, also mostly excluded from parliamentary politics…or b) lifestyle progressive in the extended network of ‘a’, also understood as “lite center-left”. There is no way to quantify the “amount of Left” since these two meanings of the word are in opposite directions.
Understanding this in terms of US politics is a lost cause. This is the only correct response so far:
As for the US, it actually uses the term “liberal” correctly, the US just has thoroughly shut out the left to the point that liberal is the farthest “left” mainstream discourse is traditionally allowed to go.
Different culture, different meaning. But if I had to, I would say that “b” above is the one introduced by the American far-right into the political discourse.
it was commonly understood as a European word meaning something similar to liberal but more extreme and more locally focused within their respective countries.
uh what? Also, all the western trots in shambles right now 😆
Yes that shift occurred 10 years ago
[citation needed]
I’ve identified as a Leftist since ~2007. Well before Trump entered the American Zeitgeist…
Good point. I guess I still have not gotten used to the meaning of that word here, and keep thinking people are somehow hating on liberal ideals like equality, etc.
Also seeing Trump et al. hating on “libs” (meaning people who want equality and accept people of color/lgbt, etc) makes this a really nice mess.
Equality isn’t really a liberal idea. Liberalism is primarily about individualism and free flow of capital, people here tend to be leftists that support socialism and are against capitalism.
That’s your definition. I understand it’s a common definition here. But even the first chapter of wikipedia has a much wider definition of liberalism. If you are hating on capitalism or moderates, why not say so?
Literally from wikipedia: Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, the right to private property, and equality before the law.
I support socialism and hate capitalism, but I still don’t consider liberalism to be "all bad.
The extent to which the “virtues” of liberalism exist is that which facilitates the free flow of capital. Capitalists sell to workers the idea that capitalism sees everyone as equal, but that’s in contrast to feudalism. Technically, anyone with the money can be a capitalist, but in practice those with money keep it and grow it while those without sell their labor-power to survive. Liberalism is a superstructural element of capitalism, it cannot be truly severed from it.
Care to explain why liberalism is so tightly nit with capitalism in your opinion? I cannot see a good reason.
I hate late-stage capitalism as much as the next guy, obviously.
Liberalism emerged as the ideological justification for capitalism, the two are intrinsically linked. The basic principles of liberalism are insividualism and free flow of capital. People have used liberalism to justify more progressive social views, but those social views are better represented by ideologies like Marxism-Leninism.
Liberals == moderates, not followers of human rights
Same people as King described 50 years ago
I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice
That I totally understand. Fuck moderates.
Those moderates include AOC, Sanders, Omar, Jayapal etc
So basically fuck the US, I guess? I’m not from there, so I have no dog in that race, but for me it sounds like AOC/Sanders/etc would be very good for at least US citizens.
I have not heard of any true “leftist” politicians in the US.
I mean, four amputated limbs may be better than being robbed and buried alive, I guess.
This has reinforced my beliefs that half of all political disputes online is word definitions
Nah, that half is just people who still watch cable news propaganda and are clueless to actual reality
It’s telling you got offended by this truth lmao
Out with all right wingers
just another American-centric .worlder, not worth the effort.
Yes! America bad! Everyone who does not hate those evil americans is a shitlib, not worth talking to.
This is one of the key problems of the world right now. People bashing arbitrary groups of people in their own bubbles. I was hoping for something more from this article, but got the same old shit. Same is ofc often true on the other side of the fence.
Btw not american, and without “america centric world view”.
not worth talking to.
You’re certainly presenting a compelling argument for that.
How so?
Lol
As an American. Dude, we’ve got Nazis marching through our cities. America definitely bad. Please send help.
I feel you. Not looking good.
I’m not offended. The article is just same old bashing with no substance :D liberals are bad, more news at 9.
They are bad because I say so. I think they believe this, and that and that also means they be bad.
Its all just useless garbage. Could be replaced with AI slop. Might already be slop.
You didn’t even read the article
No u
You are like a little baby
Thanks, you too
No u
Both sides of the aisle want to slaughter women and children in Southwest Asia and elsewhere, only one side is honest about their intentions.
So, you did not read it
Oh, I did :D maybe you did not?
I did twice, let’s discuss it. Can you pick a paragraph that particularly upsets you and explain why it’s wrong ?
I read it again just for the sake of discussion. Again, I am not upset. :D There is just not a lot to talk about.
Only takeaway I got from this is that liberals suck according to the author. Cool, I guess they do. Or at least the very wide and constantly changing group being referred as “liberals” sucks.
So you didn’t read the article
Quit lying and go read the article dipshit
Lack of specifics
Weird way to admit you’re illiterate if I’m being real. There’s no way you come away with this opinion as it being insubstantial unless you 1) didn’t read it or 2) did read it but was unable or unwilling to comprehend it.
Wow, rude
This place is very compassionate for people with US reading comprehension. There’s no shame in admitting “I don’t understand,” but there is in, “therefore it’s wrong.”
Compassion is not a word I would use for most interactions here. :D People are very stuck in their own interpretations of certain words, and not a single person has been able to point out what they think is good or accurate about the article. “Lol you cannot read retard” is the most common answer.
I got that many people have a different understand of the word “liberal”. The article also seems to group a bunch of people under that umbrella and that makes little sense to me.
It’s not really that I don’t understand, I just disagree with the generalization that “all liberals bad”. I do get that that does not fit thr general narrative in this social circle. But I tend to think that this kind of bashing articles are not really useful, and discussing with people who have different opinions is good to broaden one’s understanding of the world.
You came in arrogant and self assured. Insults are regrettable, and the interaction could have been better handled, and you might have bothered respectfully asking for resources, bothering to read and taking time to digest, and asking for clarity or rebuttals to your presumptions. Instead, when informed you are incorrect, you doubled, tripled and quadrupled down.
If the shoe fits…
?
Cry about it
?
Don’t play stupid
Yes??
Yes
Ok!
