US political labels

[Michael]

One thing that has been really bugging me for a long time and the problem seems to be getting much worse now. The American leftwing can't face up to their own policies and always have to 'hide' behind other labels. In the process, they just keep corrupting/destroying every label they try to hide behind.

For all intents and purposes, the far-left of US politics are social democrats. That is to say, they are socialists that are willing to comprimise with democracy. That's their ideology. They have held ideologically consistent view for over half a century now.

For the first three decades, they called themselves "liberals" and in the process, pretty much destroyed that illustrious label. American conservatives are entirely correct to attack "liberalism" as being identical to "socialism" because the American leftwing has made it so.

So now, after wearing out that fake label, the American leftwing is now trying to call themselves "progressives" (still can't admit that their socialist ideas are in fact, socialism). Of course, these leftwingers don't seem to care that "progressivism" is an old ideology that has roots in the eugenics movement as well as in Depression era populism.

Well, if that isn't enough, I've now started to see these same democratic socialists pretending to call themselves "realists" on foreign policy issues. Apparently the American leftwing's support for the Iraq War under the "liberal humanitarian-internationalist" theory is something they want to forget about and pretend never happened. Only the "realists" managed to see the Iraq War for what it was from day one. So that's the label the deluded leftwing socialists are now claiming to follow.

Given the American leftwing's track record, I predict that "realism" is the next political label to become disfunctional due to partisan attack. The rightwing doesn't care what the leftwing calls itself. They are going to attack it. The leftwing needs to learn to defend their democratic socialism in their own terms and stop trying to hide behind other more successful political viewpoints.

The more I see this problem, the more I'm starting to view the American leftwing as equally dangerous to the American rightwing as a major threat to liberty. There is no future for American politics if liberalism and realism (the ONLY two succeessful movements and the backbone of what built America in the first place) are destroyed. The American leftwing has been working long and hard to do just that. They've pretty much killed liberalism in America. How long before the lefties kill 'realism' too?

Once that is done, there's nothing left on the ideological landscape except fascism from the right and socialism from the left. And that will be the end of America as we know it.

Truthspeak is alive and well in America. Words never mean what they appear. Usually the opposite. US Conservatives are never actually 'conservative'. US liberalism does not contain any actual liberalism. Progressives are not progressive, but actually reactionary regressives. Realists are idealists. Idealists are realists. Neoconservatives are actually militantly idealist liberals. Hard to follow without a program to keep the terms straight.

[drgoodtrips]

I don't have much experience with terminology in other countries, but is this unique to America, or do you see it in other places?

[Michael]

And since I'm on the topic, I might add that both parties (Republicans and Democrats) are intellectually bankrupt.

Both parties have long since abandoned the one true ideology (classical liberalism) that they were founded upon and forms the basis of the successes that the parties have had in the 20th century.

If both parties want to abandon classical liberalism, that's their perogative. But they owe it to the people to admit this. People voting for either party expecting to get some classical liberal policies will alwasy be very disappointed.

The Republicans are as bad as the Democrats here. They like to pretend they are 'conservative' which is a joke since nothing they support is remotely 'conservative' according to ideology. They just pander to the rich, the religious and the xenophobic to attempt to build a ruling coalition. They have no ideology at all and don't even pretend otherwise.

It sure would be nice to have some politicians that stand on a principle. Any principle at all would be impressive - instead of just triangulating coalitions of electoral support (and pandering appropriately).

[Michael]

I don't have much experience with terminology in other countries, but is this unique to America, or do you see it in other places?
As far as I can tell, this particular issue is 100% American only. Other western nations don't seem to have ideological culture wars over fake political labels.

Indeed, in Europe, their rightwing are indeed, 'classical liberals' and are labeled as such, while their leftwing are 'democratic socialists' and are labeled as such. There is no games-playing, hiding behind other labels or voter confusion. The voters there seem to know which party is which since the members of the party aren't afraid to state what their party stands for. Same as in Canada where the political parties are all quite clear about where they stand (both the Liberals, Conservatives and BQ parties are classically liberal, while the NDP are democratic socialists).

The key point is that the Canadian and European leftwingers know they are democratic socialists, support democratic socialism and aren't afraid to admit it. Likewise with the Canadian and European rightwingers - they know they are classical liberals, support classical liberal policies and aren't afraid to admit it. (I'm not talking about the 'extreme' European rightwing which is just racist/xenophobic/fascist, while the 'extreme' European leftwing is Leninist-communist).