Poll: When you use the unqualified terms “liberal” in a political conversation, what do you usually mean?
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Replying to @vgr
I deliberately stopped using it in any political context a few years ago when it became clear that the definition of the word had become a moving target that would always be relocated to "whatever the most expedient sneer I need right now is"
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Replying to @danlistensto @vgr
replacement vocab: socially liberal = pluralistic economically liberal = market economics liberal democracy = popular sovereignty, or just democracy (no adjective) liberal (describing a political party) = center-left, centrist, social democrat, etc.
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Replying to @danlistensto @vgr
I've never, ever heard a social democrat party called liberal before, except when it's a foaming-at-the-mouth slur from someone who literally can't tell a Marxist from a Nazi. (I usually find it means centrist (i.e. neoliberal) when people are self-describing.)
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Replying to @Triquetrea @vgr
keep in mind I live in USistan and our Overton window is comically rightward shifted so a center-right social democrat party (a la Merkel in Germany) would code as a center-left "liberal" party here
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Replying to @danlistensto @vgr
Not sure hyphenating "center" to "left" or "right" adds any meaningful granularity, but yes, I was criticizing that about the US a minute ago. Yeah, it's crazy. And doesn't reflect actual political opinion in the US even a little bit.
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Replying to @Triquetrea @vgr
oh it really does in context of US politics. non-center left has no political offices but increasing cultural influence and is really actually trending towards Maoism at the moment. non-center right has some representation in the Republican party but is a minority.
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Replying to @danlistensto @vgr
Yeah, no, I'd consider the default republican position far right in any respectable country (i.e. not the US!) The Dems are also rather right-wing. Bernie Sanders may be the only centrist in actual office. Well, the only well-known one...
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Replying to @Triquetrea @vgr
I agree completely. That is an accurate assessment by international standards. American politics is wackadoodle. When I say the Republicans were "center-right" 15 years ago I mean that they had not yet completed their gerrymander lockdown of congress.
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it's not a 2 party system though. we have a single party with two factions. the party is corporatist, militarist, imperialist, monetarist (they really run wild with this one), and consumerist. as you say Sanders is the only mainstream famous politician who isn't in the party
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