111
Why do they say "there's no true Left in the US"?
(lemmy.world)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2024
111 points (84.0% liked)
Ask Lemmy
27062 readers
303 users here now
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Because "there is no true left" is a lot shorter than "while individuals with strong left-wing ideologies exist in the US, the current political power structure leaves them almost full disenfranchised, forcing them to either vote for right-wing parties or forego their vote" is really not very catchy.
I mean, the US is a democratic republic, the whole point is that the most resonating choice for ruler becomes the ruler... that a section of the political sphere wouldn't become the one represented by the ruler is nothing striking and nothing to be ashamed of. Equally there being "no true right" is a common shortener because nobody in office ever advocated (true) Fascism beyond what could be found trending in other political crowds at certain times in history.
Do you actually believe that the political establishment/ruling class of this country has ever "resonated" with the majority of people?
At least in recent times, there is much more evidence to the contrary.
To an extent. They might artificially thrust some people into the game, and the system is clunky, but as far as votes go when votes are offered, they are listened to. If the person in charge was a cheat, it would technically prove my point even more, because it would imply it's not a true game of representation and that those of us who may be considered adherents to "left" streams of thought are on more street corners than the "they're a demographic minority" view might suggest.
The only options people have to vote on are what are offered to them. The problem is, that in the US, you need money to become an option. That money comes mainly from corporations. Corporations won't back a left wing party or politician.
I can name several examples to the contrary. Google is the most successful business in the entire nation, and they've been 100% consecutively in favor of "left" choices, often even promoting logo imagery of people whom a decade ago would be considered radicals. Don't forget corporations in the modern era have sacrificed face to make completely meaningless changes to their marketing that they knew would put them in the path of the opposition to cancel culture (Aunt Jemima, Budweiser, etc.). The idea that corporations don't have at least a little sense of "left" is false.
Nothing Google does or supports is actually a leftist anything. You're making the same mistake all Americans make - buying into the propaganda that left/right is about social permissiveness. It's actually an economic spectrum, and every meaningful company or organization is either far right, or extreme right.
So Marxism isn't left? Alrighty then.
You think Google doodles are advocacy? Yeesh.
Doodles from a very long time ago too lol
Where would you draw the line between a gesture that implies advocacy and a gesture that doesn't?
A gesture is meaningless. Advocacy is action and is intended to generate meaningful change. A corporation does everything for money. The only actual advocacy a corporation like Google is doing is to benefit its bottom line. Y'all look at giant corporate entities who provide some meaningless lip service to a marginalized community and think that means they are on the side of the left? That's some truly delusional pea-brained shit right there. If you'd quit getting your panties in a wad about this dumb-ass culture war crap, you'd realize that class solidarity is the only meaningful way any of us can actually change society for the better, but all the right wing chucklefucks are too busy trying to punish some group or another for some trumped up crusade created by rich dudes to keep y'all busy. Pea-brained shit.
So literally attempting to flip voter turnout... is meaningless? Why do you think I asked where a line was? It's not some deflection.
First off, Democrats are not leftists - this is literally capitalism in action, and supporting a moderate right wing party over an extremist right wing party makes sense for many businesses. Second, those claims all come from an entirely biased source - the Media Research Center is a partisan organization with an axe to grind. Actual studies by researchers don't show the same bias.
All you're doing here is exposing how propagandized you are.
Also, if Democrats were anywhere remotely close to being marxists, I would actually support them. Anyone claiming that Democrats are leftist marxists doesn't legitimately understand any of the words they are using.
Marxists =/= ideological Democrats =/= People in the Democrat party =/= Right wing =/= Objectively defined =/= Capitalism
There were a number of sources there. I wasn't saying Democrats are Marxists (all the things listed above are unlike each other), we were talking about Google's inner mechanisms. For the same reason though, none of the entities mentioned are right wing. The influential ones are arguably more left than Humanists (who aren't associated with America), and you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone well-studied who sees Humanists as right-wing even despite their own monetary connections. But anyone who speaks in wings thinks in a more linear way anyways, especially when they draw the line where capitalism starts/stops supposedly being capitalism, which ignores the three-dimensional range of ways capitalism can befall a political entity.
Google and other major corporations will try garner goodwill by supporting ideas that they want people to think of them as. Its the same with pride support and green washing.
If you as an American ( I assume) believe that Google is positioned to the left, l'd say you basically proove the point of there not being a left in the US
Even though Google knows it's facing backlash for said views? It's been a decade and they still flagship "left" streams of thought, posting videos about them on YouTube every two instances, typically with the comments/ratings disabled as a defense mechanism. What is that garnering? On at least three occasions they had a Google doodle of people who outright celebrated terrorism and 9/11 as steps in the right direction. Definitely not typical PR.
Could you share exambles of these? Also could you link to the youtube videos of them promoting left orientated thought and actions?
Consider it done.
Holly f*ck man! Celebrating Karl Marx' birthday (or any other socialist, communist or left orientated personality) does NOT make Google left orientated! It's like I said, them trying to appeal to a wider customer range, just like supporting LGBT+ and environmental activists
You asked for examples and I gave some, did I not? They extend said support to presidential candidates on the same part of the spectrum as the celebrated individuals, is that not "left", or is it only "left" when a certain group at the very end of the spectrum (by whose standards?), who ironically would be necessary in the population for Google to even be incentivized to make those drawings in the first place, is raised up? Maybe it's worth asking at this point, how big is the spectrum? Do you see any other groups with a reputation on that part of the spectrum (e.g. anarchists, green adherents, anti-natalism, etc.) having this discussion? If you lived in a monarchy like many people in the world still do, would the same mode of thinking not posit there is neither "a true left" nor "a true right"?
As mentioned earlier, they will try to appeal to as wide a customer range as possible. As long as it doesn't cost them too many from the opposite side.
I can't even handle that we are sitting here discussing if Google is oriented to the left, simply because they occasionally celebrate individuals from the left! come on!
The whole point of some of what I mentioned (aside from the fact it goes deeper than the last line in your reply just now) was that it goes outside what anyone would do if that described what all of this was about. They are too far down the road of costing them, but being the same Google that is immortalized as the absolute lord of household names in the developed world, it's nothing more than a scratch on them. Go to their official YouTube channels if you don't believe me, tell about the comments sections there. If they were, as many say, "for the people", then they wouldn't be handling the actual people how they are.
I'm not so sure. The US sure is a democratic republic by 18th century standards. But you still retain that system that makes someone win the presidency who doesn't have the absolute majority of votes. And some of the states don't really count in the campaigns since it's obvious if they're blue or red.
I've watched too much George Carlin. I think the system with the two parties is more to give you the illusion of having a choice. Same with the theoretical availability of 'left' individuals.
And I mean we have enough examples of systems suppressing people. A theoretical possibility doesn't help if there's no real choice. And you can keep the masses uneducated and occupied with lots of work so they don't have time to get to power. I think that's some of the dynamics in the USA that keep the system as is. Also, Putin also was elected somewhat democratically. It's just that he got rid of his opposition. And the USA is more or less doing a similar thing. Just that they provide the people with a second choice, some illusion of choice that gives the people something to keep busy arguing about. In practice they both are a slightly different hue of the same color.
So on the paper, it's a democratic system and you'd be correct arguing with me. In practice it's deliberately set up in a way that votes can't change anything of substance.
Even if it's a clunky system, what I meant is it's still an evened out system, equally fluid for everyone even if some of that fluidity manifests more often for some than others. It should also be remembered the US is a nation where the leadership is not the whole of control. To those whose complaint here is that things seem preselected against their wishes (and against mine, I want to stress I'm not implying I disagree with them policy-wise), there is still at least some element of choice before things are narrowed down to the two choices. The US is not using a "loud/might makes right" approach at the moment, just a bumpy process, which sets it apart from Russia for example which is arguably de facto quasi-feudalist.
It isn't evened out for everyone. That's like saying "now taxes are a flat 100k each year and it's correct because it sucks for everyone". When a milionaire (a party with a following) wouldn't care, someone who is starting out (and could for instance gain 5% of the vote in this election) would get dumpstered and prevented from gaining more votes next election, since they'd be "on the board" and people would see them
When I say evened out, I mean in indication of the fact there's a difference between having a voice (which everyone has the same amount of), everyone having differing levels of being able to have a voice, and being heard or unheard, as well as a difference between being dismissed on a fair/honest or relatively fair/honest basis (as in they're overshadowed according to fair rules) and being dismissed unfairly as a result of certain people being prioritized by means that would rig the game. "Wealth is a prerequisite to power" isn't the whole story and misrepresents the complexity of the process which in turn would allow more of a chance for everyone than that. Some past members of the government (of all roles, senator, governor, etc.) have been incredibly poor and largely disconnected from any wealth structure.
You wrote all that to say "politicians bad" and haven't related to anything said above. The fact of the matter is - US isn't a democracy. A choice between two parties with "no chance of anyone else winning" isn't a democracy. Especially since both sides are basically the same.
How so?
What do you mean how so. Compare political parties in Europe, or the state of workers rights etc.
How so, as in, well, all of it. You said what I said unrelatably translates to "politicians bad" while saying the US isn't a democracy and that the two party system, which you say is the same on both sides and keeps losing peoples from winning, stunts absolutely every option. Votes keep losing peoples from winning. There was a time when the Republicans were the liberal ones and the Democrats were the conservative ones; that switcheroo doesn't happen in a fixed game, neither do many of the things that seem to be about to happen.
If we're to say the US isn't, to at least some workable extent, a democracy, what would that even make Europe, who haven't even fully stepped outside monarchist systemic principles? Depending on the country, you will find a large swath of nations in Europe (infamously Spain is like this) don't have a glamorous working culture. Note that there is also the "customer aspect" of culture, i.e. if workers get the short end of the stick, consumers may get the long end, or vice versa.
I don't think it's an evened out system. It's that on paper. I think we can agree on that. But the proper question is: Is that paper worth anything, anymore?
And is it evened out? What percentage of their salaries do lower class people pay for taxes and healtcare and the infrastructure? What percentage is it for rich people? Is there lobbyism being the biggest influence on what gets decided in politics? Who can afford that and gets their itches scratched? The big companies or the rural population? And do they even get some audience in the TV news shows, their voices heard?
As another reply said, when I say evened out, I mean in indication of the fact there’s a difference between having a voice (which everyone has the same amount of), everyone having differing levels of being able to have a voice, and being heard or unheard, as well as a difference between being dismissed on a fair/honest or relatively fair/honest basis (as in they’re overshadowed according to fair rules) and being dismissed unfairly as a result of certain people being prioritized by means that would rig the game. Certain things do surpass lobbyists, which I do acknowledge is a large force, but which, if it were the largest influence on politics, I'm sure would in turn surpass any meaning to any discussion on the two party system, another thing which I acknowledge might affect the gears (but not the outcome, if enough people of a certain opinion so willed, which is my point) of the government. There are many avenues around each blockage.
Yeah, what I mean is, sure there are some specific counterexamples far and in between. But if it weren't for the pharma lobby, you'd spend $8.000 on healthcare instead of $14.000 per year. And you'd live 2-3 years longer on average. I think 99.9% of the population would gladly accept that. But it ruins some of the business model of the 0.1% who get to make the decisions. It'll never happen in the USA because it's just on the paper that the people decide. And some of them aren't even educated enough to do so. Same thing with school shootings and other things people regularly complain about.