Yeah but that’s kinda the point. Liberalism is also right-wing compared to leftists, and even on it’s own is pretty firmly center to slighly right of center. Left of center only really happens at social democracies, and they’re still not super far left. Obviously someone in the middle of the Democrats and Republicans will also be right-wing, since neither party is actually left of center and the Republicans are currently so far right.
So basically basically Republicans are super harmful to a ton of people and meeting in the the middle of democrats and republicans is still bad, and compromising on certain issues by doing that sort of meet in the middle approach still hurts people right? Don’t want to put words in your mouth or anything like that.
Anarchists or other very left-wing people have basically the same opinion on liberalism. It’s a very middle of the road ideology that’s favors incremental progress but doesn’t really make real change on its own, that normally has to be fought for outside the system. The Democrats are less immediately harmful to people, but neither party really does anything big enough to truly help people in a meaningful way and things have been slowly getting worse over time. And just like there are a bunch of policies you wouldn’t want to meet in the middle of, there are a bunch of things liberalism supports that are meeting in the middle of something very harmful.
I think the other big thing is the prevalence of the idea that voting for a representative is the most important thing you can do that also wears on people. Whether or not Trump or Harris won, over half the US states are unsafe for trans people, especially kids. Sure things are obviously worse with Trump, but either way for a lot of trans people things have been bad and getting worse for a long time. Same with food insecurity, housing costs, immigration, etc. All of these issues wouldn’t have meaningfully improved much with the tiny concessions that Democrats offered, and most would continue getting largely ignored until a Republican takes office and can be blamed.
I’m not saying the parties are the same, one moves us in this negative direction much faster which I why I’ve basically voted D every time I could, but voting is at most the minimum you should do. Building aid networks and horizontal power and networks to protect queer people or immigrants are all things that need to happen no matter who is in power because either way compromises and the slow advance of capitalism continues to hurt more and more people.
None of this is a person attack against you or anything either, but the way you don’t like Republicans for being too far right or centrists for being too middle of the road with fascism/the Republican party are the same basic reasons leftists dislike liberalism.
This is a genuine question, not some sorta gotcha or anything. What’s your opinion on the “enlightened centrist” style of centrists in the US? The sort of people that say things like “both the Democrats and Republicans are too extreme.”
I hate how quick world is to mass downvote, accuse of being a russian troll, or just straight up remove comments from people who express any sort of actual left-wing opinion. Reading through that whole comment thread there was nothing you said that came across as trolling. Its kinda exhausting how many people take any criticism of the democratic party as being support for Trump, or believe voting is the most important and only way to change anything. I get closer to just blocking world entirely every day tbh.
Are you trying to remove it from a photo or a video? For me at least it seems like it shows up on images but not videos.
I think we both might have misinterpreted each other a bit then. I didn’t really mean a person who said the parties were the same, but someone who says they’re extreme in opposite directions and I think you misunderstood it as the opposite, so I should have clarified a bit.
But regardless, sure, socially stuff like trans acceptance is generally improving, but that’s not really a result of Democrats or their policies, that’s a result of LGBTQ people fighting against hate and society at large becoming more accepting. No policy is responsible for increasing social acceptance, it’s the other way around. Like another user said as well, it’s only socially progressive policies that tend to recieve that treatment too, never big economic reforms. Plus that support only lasts as long as its thought politically favorable, as evidenced by the fact that in the wake of Kamala losing the DNC has been trying to push a narrative that it’s because the party is too socially progressive. The alternative is the DNC admitting that neoliberalism is unpopular, so throwing a minority under the bus is much preferable.
Economically, things haven’t been getting better for a long time. Food insecurity is extremely high right now, same with rent/housing, the climate is fucked, going go a hosptial can put you in debt for life, and corporations keep amassing more and more money and power. That process speeds up under Republicans sure, but it hasn’t been improving much for anyone but the already wealthy under Dems either.
But either way, even if the Democrats wanted to change things the system makes that basically impossible. Trying to change a system only by participating in it is just kinda a flawed idea in the first place, but that’s how liberalism does things.