It’s been years and I don’t think I’ll ever learn what a “liberal” is in US language. Afaict it’s got nothing to do with being a liberal, it’s just a slur used if someone is left or right of your position.
That’s because there’s not one single definition, especially on Lemmy.
To most people in the US, it’s anyone politically left of center. Primarily Democrats.
To leftists, a liberal is anyone who espouses capitalism. Republicans are liberals because they fucking love capitalism. Democrats are liberals because they believe that, despite its faults, capitalism is the best system and that it can be improved with reform and regulation. Since Lemmy abounds in leftists, you will see this usage a lot.
Finally, to conservatives, liberal is a slur. It’s the OG woke. It means anyone we don’t like. Conservative politicians even call each other liberals, especially during primary season.
I would argue that both liberalism and leftism are spectrums and parts of them overlap, so it’s not like one ≠ other. After all, any participation in democratic process means going reforms and regulations way, even if the endpoint is abolishing capitalism, which would be a logical goal for democratic socialism, for example.
In US language, “liberal” is used pejoratively by people who call themselves conservative but are actually against conservatism to describe people who are not liberals, but are instead less conservative than the actual liberals, who are found primarily in the conservative wing of the Democratic Party.
From my understanding a lot of the issue positions that a liberal and a leftist are shared. They want similar changes. Where they disagree is in how to bring about those changes. Liberal wants to use the systems in place to gradually shift, leftists are more radical and wanting quick change through various means. Centrist is what a lot of the Democrats are now, still wanting much of the liberal stance, continuing to not only want to use traditional means to get it, but also caving in often or using the excuse of working across the aisle with their counterparts as why much doesn’t get done. I don’t know if there’s anything between leftist and liberal, maybe progressive?
It is also a slur, much like boomer and millennial have become, not meaning anything beyond “different than me”.
Liberalism is a political philosophy that classically strifes for as much freedom for the invidual as possible without limiting other’s freedoms, separation of church and state, small governments, and free markets without government interference. In theory it can both be left or right in politics, but in my experience they’re globally more right leaning (probably due to the small government and free market ideas, which can ultimately lead to ladder pulling tendencies). It is only called leftism in the US because the conservatives are even more to the right, globally US liberals would be seen as right-wing with some exceptions.
It’s been years and I don’t think I’ll ever learn what a “liberal” is in US language. Afaict it’s got nothing to do with being a liberal, it’s just a slur used if someone is left or right of your position.
It’s just a word the conservatives throw around because they think it’s a slur or something.
It’s kinda like how “liberals” just call anything facist they don’t like without knowing what it is.
As a “liberal” myself who spent nearly 10 years in China, they have no God damn clue what a fascist country actually looks like.
liberal = neoliberal.
it makes much more sense that way.
On Lemmy it seems to equate to neoliberal.
That’s because there’s not one single definition, especially on Lemmy.
To most people in the US, it’s anyone politically left of center. Primarily Democrats.
To leftists, a liberal is anyone who espouses capitalism. Republicans are liberals because they fucking love capitalism. Democrats are liberals because they believe that, despite its faults, capitalism is the best system and that it can be improved with reform and regulation. Since Lemmy abounds in leftists, you will see this usage a lot.
Finally, to conservatives, liberal is a slur. It’s the OG woke. It means anyone we don’t like. Conservative politicians even call each other liberals, especially during primary season.
This is accurate.
I would argue that both liberalism and leftism are spectrums and parts of them overlap, so it’s not like one ≠ other. After all, any participation in democratic process means going reforms and regulations way, even if the endpoint is abolishing capitalism, which would be a logical goal for democratic socialism, for example.
Socially progressive capitalists. The right thinks they’re too socialist, and the left thinks they’re too capitalist.
In US language, “liberal” is used pejoratively by people who call themselves conservative but are actually against conservatism to describe people who are not liberals, but are instead less conservative than the actual liberals, who are found primarily in the conservative wing of the Democratic Party.
Hope that clears it up.
In US language liberal just means “not explicitly conservative”. It is frequently used as a slur, correct.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_liberalism_in_the_United_States?wprov=sfla1
From my understanding a lot of the issue positions that a liberal and a leftist are shared. They want similar changes. Where they disagree is in how to bring about those changes. Liberal wants to use the systems in place to gradually shift, leftists are more radical and wanting quick change through various means. Centrist is what a lot of the Democrats are now, still wanting much of the liberal stance, continuing to not only want to use traditional means to get it, but also caving in often or using the excuse of working across the aisle with their counterparts as why much doesn’t get done. I don’t know if there’s anything between leftist and liberal, maybe progressive?
It is also a slur, much like boomer and millennial have become, not meaning anything beyond “different than me”.
Liberalism is a political philosophy that classically strifes for as much freedom for the invidual as possible without limiting other’s freedoms, separation of church and state, small governments, and free markets without government interference. In theory it can both be left or right in politics, but in my experience they’re globally more right leaning (probably due to the small government and free market ideas, which can ultimately lead to ladder pulling tendencies). It is only called leftism in the US because the conservatives are even more to the right, globally US liberals would be seen as right-wing with some exceptions.
This is the answer.