It is better to conceptualize political allegiance by which ideology they support: socialism, social capitalism, liberal capitalism, or fascist capitalism.
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Left wing and right wing are like political vibes. They only make sense when you have more understanding of what the issues are. What they mean can change over time.
I think it's easier to understand what the individual issues are and why people want them or don't want them. Then you need to figure out what your ideology is and pick what things you want to support to further your political goals.
Political "debates" are useless, but I always like to watch different conceptions from different countries.
When I see USA politics right-wingers have some speeches and actions that left-wingers have in my home country and vise-versa.
Like, leftwingers in my country usually attack a former rightwing president because he supposedly fomented immigration, specially illegal immigration. (Although, here rigwingers also have more hate against the inmigrant, just like US) 1 (sorry for the language, didn't find an english version of it)
Or a former leftwing president that mobilized our army to Haiti to protect their democracy 2
Same with labels: In US "liberal" is a left wing label, in my country is a righ wing one.
Same apply in other countries, like I see Spanish news when "republicans" are the radical ones, usually left-wing, because they oppose monarchy, and the "republican" flag is a left-wing symbol for spaniards.
That's why political labels are pretty useless too. Republican means literal nazi or revolutionary against monarchy depending where you are lol.
Might be relevant here: https://www.podcast.de/episode/619883332/089-the-myth-of-left-and-right-a-conversation-with-prof-hyrum-lewis
English episode of german podcast
Don't ask, don't tell?
Left wing = people I like
Right wing = people I associate with my high school bullies
Some people enjoy walking on the wings of passenger planes. For some reason Americans are really hostile about which wing is better to stand on while in flight.
Ah good for them . I personelly prefer sitting in the centre to balance everything .
You like to sit in the middle of the alley? I prefer a seat personally...
It's actually a pretty good metaphor. People sitting on the left side and the right side of the plane are actually taking a seat whereas people sitting in the aisle are just in the fucking way.
Left wingers want collective ownership of the Means of Production, right wingers want individual ownership of the Means of Production.
What follows from that are generally a bunch of interconnected, intersectional views. Leftists tend to oppose hierarchy, rightists tend to support hierarchy.
In Empire (aka USA) as there is no true opposition, they're the same picture, the same lobbyists and so on
You can just make up a name for whoever you don't like and use it to dehumanize them. "Lib" is a popular stand-in when you don't have even a tenuous grasp of global politics.