[cmrdporcupine]

That's a very odd definition of "left" floating around down there in the US. What is being called "left" in that context is nothing but neo-liberal centrist politics, and it has wanted to own political discussion in the US in some form or another for over a century. It's right of centre and frankly conservative on fundamental economics issues [i.e. where all the power is held], and could only be called "left" in the domain of cultural issues...

Actual socialist politics are not permitted in US discourse, just stuff around the margins which is not threatening to corporate power (identity politics, maybe some health care reform).

I remain flabbergasted by the increasing number of people who can somehow in the same breath complain about "radical socialists" and "cultural marxists" while at the same time somehow equating those people with "corporate elites" and "silicon valley" -- the two are the enemy of the other.

EDIT: as a person with actual radical socialist politics, I can assure you that both Facebook and the NYT want nothing to do with my views.

[tablespoon]

>> The left wants to own online political discussion in the US, and they are very bothered that the right finds a ready audience when they are allowed to compete.

> That's a very odd definition of "left" floating around down there in the US. What is being called "left" in that context is nothing but neo-liberal centrist politics, and it has wanted to own political discussion in the US in some form or another for over a century.

I don't think that's the "left" the GP was referring to. I think were most likely talking about the "culture war" left.

> I remain flabbergasted by the increasing number of people who can somehow in the same breath complain about "radical socialists" and "cultural marxists" while at the same time somehow equating those people with "corporate elites" and "silicon valley" -- the two are the enemy of the other.

It's because we don't always get to control definitions, even ones we care a lot about (ask me about "crypto" sometime). IMHO, those are both fashionable (in some circles) new terms for the "culture war" left, somewhat inflected by plutocratic interests that harness opposition to it to further their own agenda.

Edit: IMHO, I think a flag-waving socially-conservative socialism could be surprisingly successful in America, if someone could get it off the ground.

[war1025]

> IMHO, I think a flag-waving socially-conservative socialism could be surprisingly successful in America, if someone could get it off the ground.

I think that's basically Trump's base to be honest. Politicians just haven't figured out how to wrangle them into something useful.

[cmrdporcupine]

I think I agree with you (and actually prefer not to use the term "left" myself in general for this reason), but I still think it's worth underscoring the points about the incoherence of the use of these terms. Someone on a hobby group I am on the other day started ranting about how rising fire insurance rates for farmers were "Just another step to push out the middle class and independent owners to make way for big corporate ownership." [ok fine, whatever] and then suffixed it with "The United Socialist States of America" [W the actual F? Makes zero sense].

I see this kind of talk from people with Q & Trump-inflected politics all the time. It's bizarre.

[fleddr]

My perspective from the Netherlands...

The way I see it, the US has two "lefts".

Traditional left/progressive values would include things like affordable healthcare, worker protection, progressive taxation, livable wages, the like. Importantly, for all.

The Democrats don't seem to deliver on any of these basics long achieved in many other western countries, therefore I agree that they are neither left nor progressive.

By comparison, not even our main right wing party (VVD) would be as conservative as the Democrats on the matters above. So locally, we would see the "left" Democrats as near far-right. That's one huge gap.

(as a weird complexity, over here "liberal" means right-wing. In the US it means left-wing. yet since US left-wing is in fact right-wing, I guess it does add up)

The second type of left in the US, I do consider truly left. It's hard to put your finger on it, but it includes identity politics, the "woke", down to even marxists.

Clearly they are on the rise, at least in media and institutes. Yet they are now in an unhappy marriage with the core of the Democrats, which as we established is right-wing. Good luck with that.

For the record, here in the Netherlands we largely reject that type of left.

So I agree with most of what you said, except for the Silicon Valley part. You're going to be super surprised how the biggest supporters of extreme left policy are in fact rich comfortable people.

I'll refer to one of the most mind blowing tweets ever produced (now deleted). A co-founder of Twitter took issue with the founder of Coinbase disallowing political discussion in the workplace, and tweeted:

"When the revolution comes, me-only capitalists like X will be the first to be put against the wall. I'll be happy to provide video narration."

The extremity and cruelty is impressive, but the truly shocking part is that the person tweeting it has a net worth of 300M.

[walkedaway]

> Actual socialist politics are not permitted in US discourse

We have multiple socialists elected to US Congress.

[CRConrad]

Newsflash: No you don't.

[cmrdporcupine]

If you want to call them that, sure.

[triceratops]

Democratic socialism isn't anywhere near the same as the Cuba/Venezuela/USSR type of socialism. Are any politicians of the latter stripe currently in Congress?

Like I get that there's a popular meme that taxes and government services are "socialism". But that's a wildly inaccurate boogeyman conjured up by people who really, really don't want to pay taxes. (No one wants to pay taxes, but most of us accept they're the cost of having a society)

If taxes that fund government services are "socialist" then having a police force is "socialist" too. Do you agree with that? It sounds ridiculous to me but that's where that logic leads.