…is left of the president on health care
She’s taken more liberal positions on health care
“More liberal” means “less leftist.” You don’t get to have it both ways, article writer!
That’s a shitty play on words I assume. Socially liberal is typical leftist, economically liberal is usually right wing. So, left of the president on healthcare is good if it’s socially speaking, bad if it’s in the economic sense.
If it were intentional that’d be one thing, but the author isn’t contrasting economic and social policy (health care is just economic) so I’m pretty sure he’s just confused.
They’re just using the words in the United States context because they’re talking about United States politics. This dumb “liberal isn’t left” semantic argument isn’t a US thing. It’s not using the word wrong if they and their audience use a word differently than you’d like.
“Liberal” is opposed to “Authoritarian” and just means a person who favors democracy and personal freedom. Or it should, but in America our fascist conservative party has convinced people that “liberal” is a slur and also means “progressive,” which is the actual opposite of conservative. But liberals aren’t always progressive, which is why actual American leftists, who are progressives, use the term “liberal” to derisively refer to centrists. American centrists are politically conservative but hold some socially progressive values.
The wake-up occurs when you realize that politically/economically conservative policies lead to and support socially conservative ones. One can’t actually be socially progressive but economically conservative, it’s an incoherent ideology. Americans are raised to be good at double-think and distracting ourselves so we’re able to cope with the contradiction.
The large emphasis on protection of property from the government in classical liberalism directly led to the slave trade getting as bad as it did. And still contributes to free market ideology and corporate right to make a profit on anything. There’s definitely more to liberalism than taking down monarchies.
I think the gen pop doesn’t appreciate the distinction between liberal and left.
No, this seems a useful point to make. The rightward unforgivable sin that liberals make is their commitment to capitalism. It’s like vegetarians and vegans would seem to be bedfellows but vegans can not forgive vegetarians for not going the full rational distance.
The terms “left” and “right” are meaningless anyway and should be aboloshied. It just entrenches thoughtless “us versus them” tribalism instead of making politics about actual policies and issues and how people are affected.
Mainstream America defines liberal as left and conservative as right. They are absolutely not familiar with neo liberalism, classic liberalism, or liberalism as a 1700’s era political philosophical conversation.
To be fair, the idea that “the left” can’t be liberal is itself pretty complicated.
Look, the American press struggles with these abstract political concepts. The words like liberalism, socialism, etc have lost all meaning.
But to some it up, her position in the 2019 primaries was somewhere in between Biden’s and Sander’s position. Basically a Medicare advantage for all (with straight public option included and available to all but private insurers not excluded just strictly regulated). I’m interested in what she comes out actually proposing now that she’s most likely the candidate.
Look, the main stream American press struggles with these abstract political concepts. The words like liberalism, socialism, etc have lost all meaning.
What you mean is that the Republicans have spent decades on Red Scare bullshit trying to conflate Democrats with commies, and the media has been complicit in it.
Yeah that’s pretty much it, I agree with you.
Harris’s healthcare plans were less liberal in the economic sense of the word, as it’d involve more government control. But they were more progressive or socialist (like Medicare, social security, etc all of which are somewhat socialist as the name social security implies). Not quite as much as Sander’s though, who was pushing a true single payer system. More than just a public option though. I am really interested how much she sticks with the current plans or stakes out her own policies. Somewhat encouraged that many dems from the progressive caucus quickly endorsed her.
“Liberal” has a very different connotation in the context of US politics than it does pretty much anywhere else.
I agree that that’s confusing and dumb. But this is America, so “confusing and dumb” is very often par for the course.
The same person that claims she supported Medicare for all until we were in the middle of a pandemic is to the left of President on healthcare?
It’s not difficult to be to the left of the guy who vowed to veto M4A if it got to his desk.
I like how the only thing positive thing the news can say about Kamala is she isn’t 80 years old.
It’s the tragedy of our times that advocating for basic human rights is somehow “leftist”
No, that’s pretty accurate
Conservatives are the people selling myths like the morality of enlightened self interest, and liberals are the ones trying to make the current system fair
Leftists are the ones saying “holy fuck, come on guys, this is clearly insane. We grow way more than enough food for everyone, can we please start from deciding no one will starve and work backwards from there?”
