The context given in the title: France had an election and the left union is the biggest group but still doesn’t have a majority. The president is a liberal and seems to favor the Right over the Left
Would you be able to explain the difference between “left” and “liberal” in this context?
I’m not the same person, but I’ll give it a go. It’s confusing in part because liberal often means leftish leaning in the US but not elsewhere.
For example Democrat and liberal are pretty much interchangeable in US political discourse, but that’s not what the word means. Liberalism is more of an economic strategy. In this sense Democrats and Republicans are both liberals. They are all conservative liberals. Does that sound like a contradiction? Only in modern US politics. One party is just more conservative socially and more economically liberal.
Left or Leftist is generally in conflict with liberal ideology, as a leftist believes in strong social safety nets like universal healthcare, universal basic income, etc. Depending on the type of leftist, this could mean things like a planned economy, workers owning the means of production, or even collectivist anarchy. Examples of leftists are Socialists and Communists.
This is why, to a leftist, it’s so damn funny when a republican calls a democrat a radical leftist. No self respecting leftist would be a member of the democratic party.
Sorry for all the US centric shit on a thread about France but I think that’s where the confusion usually comes from.
You’re saying the party socializing healthcare is ideologically opposed to people who want socialized healthcare…?
No self respecting leftist would be a member of the democratic party.
That is such a stupid mindset. In many states you have to be a member of the party to vote in their primary. If you are not voting in any primary then you are letting people that you disagree with decide who will be in the candidate in the election. And considering that not voting is effectively voting for the candidate that you most disagree with, all the leftists that refuse to associate with the democratic party are effectively voting for the people they disagree with.
I think that he is referring to “liberal” more in the sense of being in the political spectrum of economic liberal. Usually I see the difference between the US and EU definition of the term liberal: in the US it is a synonym of the left wing party or leaning, in EU is used for being liberal economic leaning and is different from being left party or left wing
The use of “liberal” has been taken by the right, from the neo-liberal they started with. Now they consider themselves the true liberals. It’s the good ole 1984 newspeak strategy of taking the words out of their original meaning to make them lose their meaning, and their ideas behind.
