[left-struck]

I’m not familiar with the political landscape in Europe so it may well be mostly people on the right pushing this, but man I wish we could stop framing everything as left vs right.

That framing is distracting us from the authoritarian vs civil liberties issues, which is a dangerous and immediate threat to our ability to have any significant political influence of any kind.

[k_g_b_]

Conservative politicians and leaders as they label themselves and practically act in today's political landscape are fundamentally on the authoritarian and anti-civil liberties side - there is no distraction. The right is only worse in the extent of authoritarianism and destruction of human rights they're willing to go to and the speed at which they want to achieve it.

If a conservative wants to preserve some status quo, basically all policy they use (and have available as a tool) in a permanently changing and developing world (socially, technologically) is that of restrictions, especially on civil rights, and of authoritarian mechanisms like police power. For weird reasons, conservatives never* want to preserve status quo civil rights like workers rights, freedom of information rights and similar that are anti-authoritatian.

[simonask]

There is no “authoritarian left” anywhere in the West, outside of a few vestigial Communist parties with close to zero influence.

This can change in the future, as it has before, but in 2026, even libertarians only care about personal freedom for a certain class of people.