It’s like that astrophysics phenomenon where the spectrum shifts to one side. I guess redshift in this case since their more far right party is the red one.
Now I’m trying to think what would be the equivalent of the “liberal” insult in my country… We hear a lot of you’re the “extreme left”, just as bad as the extreme right. You’re “outside of the republican/democratic frame”. As in you’re too radical too be part of the “polite democratic society”.
The “liberal” insult coming from a right winger would be used in a similar way to what you describe there, but to a leftist “liberal” is also an insult in a very different sense. Leftists basically use liberal as a derogatory for people that aren’t far enough to the left. There’s a lot of nuance to it in the way that the term is used now, but that’s kind of the gist of it.
We call those not far enough to the left “social democrats”. And they’re proud of it generally, since the term implies they’re part of the polite/non radical democracy. So they argue those farther to the left are anti-democratic.
Liberals are certainly pro-capitalist, but a modern leftist wouldnt refer to a fascist or conservative as a liberal. The term is pretty much used to describe people who claim to be left leaning while still advocating for incremental (rather than radical) change, such as the modern American democratic party. It is used as a derogatory because liberals generally speaking don’t have any intention of dismantling the corporate capitalist oligarchy, or implementing true socialist policies.
Even if some self-identified liberals do desire these changes - to a leftist their methods are seen as ineffectual by design, therefore further contributing to the longevity of the broken capitalist system.
I’m a European leftist and I would say that conservatives and liberals have a big overlap. In Germany, the conservative party likes to work with the liberal party best and the social Democrats with the Green party. None of these is really left from my perspective and all of them call themselves Center and are more or less liberal, but the green and obviously the liberals more than the others.
Well said. The whole mainstream media is this way. It’s all economically right, and it goes on a spectrum socially. So, when you look at diagrams like this, it gives you a false sense that there are ideas to consider from centrists to communists. Because from this diagram, CNN is a socialist/communist media platform, but that isn’t true at all.
Maybe they meant libertarian. Right wing people against government intervention on people’s lives, just in favor of little to no regulation on anything. Or liberal left, as opposed to radical left (which usually means Marxist), or maybe centrists, which usually are more liberal. In general it means being more in favor of a less powerful government.
In this context “liberal” is being used as a synonym for communist, because that’s how American right wingers use it, but to a a leftist (socialist, communist, anarchist - the target audience for this meme) liberals, or more accurately neo-liberals, are center right capitalists. So while a right winger might throw all of these as insults at someone left of fascist, a leftist would only take offense to being called a liberal.
What does liberal mean anymore? To most people on the right, it means anyone who cares even a bit about human rights, public safety, true religious liberty, bodily autonomy, or the health of the environment.
If someone on the right calls me a liberal, I wear it like a badge of honor. If someone on the left calls me a liberal, then we're scrapping!
I was recently on the receiving end of this when I implied I might be ambiguously LGBT+. The devout Christian with whom I was conversing disengaged because The Gay could be contagious.
I agree with many of the ideals of communism, but believe the wide use of Soviet symbols and iconography should stop because to many people in Eastern Europe and Asia, they are associated with imperialism, oppression and genocide. One could argue whether the Soviet Union or the Republics within the Warsaw Pact were truly communist, but I won't deny the damage these governments have done to the name and symbolism of communism, and I think that should be taken into account for any socialist who believes harmful symbols of the past should be left in the past.
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