this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2024
111 points (84.0% liked)

Ask Lemmy

26753 readers
1411 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected]. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] -2 points 7 months ago (2 children)

If "they" would provide a definition of "true left" then maybe we can discuss it. Otherwise, it's so impossibly vague, who could possibly answer this question?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Leftism is about being egalitarian. Everyone is equal, power is shared equally, and that equality is protected. There many very different paths and approaches to this conceptually. @[email protected] gave a great overview of some basic specific policies below.

Rightism is about consolidation of power. Since power and wealth are inextricably linked (two sides of the same coin, as it were), the defining feature of Rightism is hoarding of wealth and entrenchment of power.

Looking at our two major parties, their platforms, their policies, and their behavior as organizations, it’s easy to tell that neither meets the definition of Leftist.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

What parties in which countries would you consider true leftist?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

It is not difficult to infer the intent behind what they mean and answer the question, but that would require some effort.
It is much easier to pedantically critique word choice. That requires no effort.

I will help you. When an object X is "true X", that usually means the same base item X, with greater magnitude, so "true X" would be a X-leaning political philosophy with a greater magnitude. So taking left-wing policies for example, it could be paid maternity and paternity leave, worker's rights, a social safety net, yearly vacation days, and such. In this limited example, the united states has none of these policies enforced on a national level. These are policies that would be included in even center-left politics. So it could be said that the united states has no "true left" because the policies enacted most frequently represent mostly right or far-right ideology. Tax cuts for corporations, slashing of retirement funds, removal of protection for the environment, etc.

The use of this "true left" terms in american politics is especially prescient because the liberal party, if removed from the united states and placed into any other political environment, would be a right-wing party. Basically, the liberal party in the united states isn't left-leaning if we look at global standards. It is a center-right or right-wing neoliberalism at best. Thus folks in the united states often say that there is no "true-left" party.

Hope this helps.