[dqv]

Really we need a venn diagram with like 10 different circles to describe the distinction between what is meant by liberal and what is meant by left here.

Liberal, in this case, when contrasted against the left usually describes the politics of the neoliberal and neoconservative (and often a mixture of the two) wing of the Democrat Party. In other words, liberals are considered a sort of right wing - pro-market/pro-capitalism - of the Democrat party. On the other hand, you have the “real left” which represents anti-capitalist and pro-labor ideals (this is a smaller faction and it’s more of a gradient that leans toward democratic socialism than full abolishment of capitalism). There are certain cases where (parts of) the neoliberal and left wing align - for example the various identity issues. That’s the “progressive” part of the party.

But yes this is all very confusing because we have only recently developed language in US politics to describe these differences and they have not really hit mainstream political discussion. That and we have one mega party that represents many different views.

[Ericson2314]

> we have only recently developed language in US politics to describe these differences and they have not really hit mainstream political discussion.

Well, we are just rediscovering the language used in the rest of the world the whole time, as we fix one side of the Overton window while the other side of it stretches like crazy.

[robin21]

What would you say are the three biggest policy differences between right and left or democrat and republicans?

[dqv]

Policy differences are kind of hard to track and it gets abstract. Are we talking about the superficial policy differences (i.e. the ones we see in CSPAN performances) or those that represent the the interests of the corporate backers of each party? Sometimes the performative stuff aligns with the backers’ interests (e.g. democrats and immigration).

At the end of the day I’m mostly checked out from US politics. There is how I think things ought to be and reality. Reconciling the two will probably take many more years of reflection.

Mostly my interest in politics at this point is the internecine conflicts that arise in the various subcultures of political thought online.

[robin21]

I ask because I can’t remember the last time I heard of a policy disagreement debating the merits of two approaches to the same problem. Both sides don’t even see the same problems.

Will be interesting to see what policies Biden goes for I guess.