I don’t like that, “leftist”, has become a word used outside conservative circles. It sounds shitty and is as meaningless as, “rightist”.
From a casual outside (the US) observer it just seems like it’s the price that gets paid in a two party state where there are apparently no centrists. Americans give me the impression that it’s either team Red or team Blue. Does anybody ever say: “I like a bit of this… but I also like a bit of that.”?
Yes, there are some who say that. They get agreed with in person, ignored at the local party/voting level, scoffed at by media, screamed at in general on the internet, and scolded on places like lemmy or reddit (if not screamed at). There are policies that I like that for some reason have to be lumped in with policies I detest no matter which party I look at. One party (fucking GOP) is way worse than the other, but try to have a rational discussion with anonymous or outside-of-your-social-circle people, and any criticisms of a party are like blaspheming their god.
try to have a rational discussion with anonymous or outside-of-your-social-circle people, and any criticisms of a party are like blaspheming their god.
That’s because of the nature of anonymous communication. It is literally pointless to try to convince individual people online. They rarely tell you their underlying motivations, and many times reveal that they know nothing about the subject.
Also doesn’t help that the USA political spectrum consists of “right” and “far right” so while they may call it “left” it’s only left compared to the far right.
This is something I wish that more people understood. In almost any other democracy in the world, Bernie Sanders is only slightly left of center. On a global scale, US Democrats are a center-right party and US Republicans are a far-right party. There are no successful left-wing politicians in the United States.
No, the RiNOs were intentionally and specifically hunted to extinction through shame and exclusion. That’s why the name, “Republican in Name Only,” is applied those who don’t embrace the party’s wildest platforms.
Damn. I knew about elephants and donkeys but now I’ve got to read up on rhinos… all jokes aside it looks like polarisation is the problem - which is the two party problem. It must be so frustrating to have views you can’t sensibly talk about objectively with the majority of your peers.
There are plenty of us. The problem is the two party state. Any independent or centrist candidate is going to get drowned out.
I think the cops are useless at best and evil at worst and im pro gun/pro CC, I find that our model of capitalism has failed but I’d rather we revert to the political economic ideas of Henry George rather than Karl Marx. Not that either is possible without violent overhaul most likely. Even just a reframing of capitalism to correct for John Adams era economic fallacies would face nigh impossible resistance from those who have already taken most of the pie.
So yeah, we exist. It’s just that we tend to get crowded out due to not falling in line with either ideology. I’ve been called everything from RINO to fascist.
I understand someone’s economic views would necessarily push them to one side or the other but what I’ve never understood is why gun ownership is so political in the US. From where I am it just seems sad that there’s people in a first world democracy that “need” to be armed just to go out and buy an ice cream. It blows my mind that more isn’t done by all sides (political, manufacturing and citizens) to lower the body count. Any society where members of the public are indiscriminately gunning each other down surely has a big problem. I have zero problems with fire arms - just their application in the US seems a bit fucked. But, like you said about the police, if your biggest gun-toting gang are that trigger happy and indiscriminate then I can’t really blame everyone else packing as a result. Kind of a chicken and egg situation. Hope it works out for you all one day.
