this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2024
90 points (76.8% liked)
Asklemmy
43945 readers
758 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- [email protected]: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
You're right. The only people who use the term "leftist" are conservatives, or people who have studied European politics, because it doesn't actually define anything in American politics. There is no "leftist" party and there are no "leftist" political groups. "Liberalism" is far more common because it describes an amenable approach to social issues, but also a laisez-faire approach to economic and foreign policy issues. I get not wanting to be called a liberal, or worse a neoliberal, but we do not have a proper labour party, or a communist party, or anything else even remotely resembling the "left." It would be nice if we did, but the far right has done an excellent job of demonizing the very idea of it.
That's what I was referring to, which is why I assumed you might be a European, where such parties and ideologies exist out in the open.
I meant no offense.
It was the as a pejorative part that was significant to me, not use of the term itself. If someone is calling me a leftist with a sneer - that person is a conservative.
No offense taken, but I did wonder because of your seeming assumption that it would be pejorative. (Also please note I'm not OP)
I disagree that those two things are requirements for leftist to have a meaning. I'm also quite sure we have many leftist political groups, even if they have little political power.
The term is only used in a pejorative sense because the only people who use it are conservatives who use it as an insult.
I'm a unicorn I guess.