Why the shift to the right?

"left" wing conservatism?

 

People are afraid of what they can’t control.

 

I figured as much... There are still some confusing (to me) uses of the word "left" in the title and body of your post.

The shift is to the right at the moment, and not "Conservative" right... It's going radical right.

Why people in this country, and other countries, want to live under an authoritarian dictatorship, thinking they will "finally have the freedoms" they are wanting, is beyond me. I guess "owning the libs" is more important that actually having freedoms.

Or... They think they will have freedoms, but those same freedoms will be taken away from "those OTHER people".... or...

Maybe they just flunked history in grade school... (NOTE: They are wanting to "selectively" teach history right now with their book banning laws.)

The supreme law of the land is about to be steamrolled into oblivion by these right wing idiots that claim to support the constitution, and they are doing it in plain sight.


Yeah... I use the words "fucking morons" a lot. No offence meant to those who are clinically determined to be actual morons.

 

A shift to the right is what many want.
They want draconian laws, especially if they relate to keeping the unruly mob i.e. those of us who think for ourselves and want a fairer society for all, under control with laws curtailing gathering in large numbers peacefully and being able to strike against unfair employment laws.
They want the government to tell them how they will be better off financially no matter how big a lie it is.
They want to believe their government when they say the police force is doing a good job even though recent court cases have proven many of them to be racist, misogynistic and just down right uninterested in the welfare of the people they are paid to serve.
They want to be flag waving patriots when their country in all honesty doesn't give a fuck about them.
Fucking morons - no more no less!!!!

 

The title of this thread and the second sentence say there is a shift to the left. I just don't see a shift to the left.

As a woman in the US I see an alarming shift to the radical right. I was in my 20's before women were given the right to have an abortion. The radical right is opening the door to take many other hard fought rights for so many others.

 

Zen did correct his mistake

 

Like other notable revolutions, the event needs to be revisited to keep the ideals alive. It seems that the euphoria of peace and love from the 60s has withered because it has not been refreshed. The right rejects our basic humanity and recruits by lies that tell people they will be the winners (at everyone else’s expense). We need to keep the message of peace and love alive.

 

The title of this thread is still a shift to the left, as is the second sentence in his original post.

 

1. One of the major drivers is the Great Replacement theory--the fear that whites are being "replaced" or displaced from their previous position of dominance. This, BTW, isn't just a U.S. phenomenon. It's infected western Europe, as well: Marine le Pen in France, Viktor Orban in Hungary, the Brexit bunch in the U.K are all manifestations of the same phenomenon, along with Canadians like Lauren Southern are part of the same chorus. Immigration is the underlying condition triggering the movement.

2. Gazillionaires out to protect their gazillions by sowing false consciousness among the less well-off, These include, of course, the Koch Brothers who bankrolled the Tea Party, the Mercers who run Breitbart and back Donald Trump, and the Murdochs who control Fox.

3. Putin and his troll farms.who flood Europe and the U.S.with fake news and meddle in U.S. elections. Expect a massive step up in the latter's activities in the forthcoming congressional elections and the 2024 Presidential elections. Getting rid of Biden and re-electing Trump must be Putin's #1 objective since the Ass Kisser In Chief was replaced by somebody who stands up to him.

4..Decline of organized labor. Ronald Reagan can take credit for this one by his showdown with the Air Trafic Controllers. Of course, the "post-industrial" transition to a service economy was also important. Organized Labor helped to educate and moderate the working class, directing its efforts toward lunch pail issues instead of culture war issues.

5. The rise of social media and "narrowcasting & demise of the fairness doctrine. This maybe should have been first on the list. Facebook, twitter, etc, replaced professional journalists and newscasters, Fake News outlets like Fox spewed daily disinformation, and people were able to choose what news they were exposed to The idea that broadcasting should be "fair and balanced" was replaced with narrowcasting to the viewers prejudices.

6..Woke Progressives who play into the hands of the radical right with their emphasis on symbolic battles over pronouns, political correctness, defund the police, the 1619 project and like matters which make easy targets for right-wing propagandists.

BTW, I think we need to drop references to right wing "conservatives" which was applicable to a previous generation of Republican politicians like Ronald Reagan, Barry Goldwater, Bush '43, and John McCain.The MAGA hat-wearing rightwingers who make up the Retrumplcan base are radicals and reactionaries in every sense of those words--ignorant Know Nothing Nativists who are willing to jettison the most fundamental principles our Founding Fathers stood for in order to advance their authoritarian agenda. Trump said it best: "I love the poorly educated".

 

It's been slowly simmering under the lid for at least a decade now, and I've been observing this same thing happening in Europe as well. At least some of it is just straight up racism. In France there are people who are now genuinely unhappy, that there are so many black and brown faces now walking the streets of Paris. Also, the recent terrorist attacks on European soil committed by ISIS/Daesh did not help matters, it has created very strong anti-Islamic sentiment, and unemployment for example is a bigger problem among African and Middle-Eastern communities, which makes these groups appear as drain on their host societies. In Sweden, most recently during the Easter weekend, there were several violent riots committed by ethnic Arabs, with cars burned and property destroyed in several cities, and the locals are starting to feel that the Arabic groups in particular have now outstayed their welcome, while governments, for fear of being labeled as racists and bigots, refuse to do anything.

This has started to create resentment towards the whole politically correct (PC) movement, as people feel that even legitimate critisism gets sweeped under the rug, because everybody who's in a position of power is afraid of being cancelled and labeled as a bigot if they say anything that goes against the PC ideals. The general sentiment is that Europe, in their naivety, has been too lax with their immigration policies, and the negative effects are now showing.

There are also groups who feel that the battle against climate change is treating them unfairly, as there are still large swathes of the population, whose entire livelihoods depend on and are strongly tied to the old ways of consuming and using energy. They feel that nobody pays any attention to their fears of becoming destitute, if the so called green solutions price everything out of their reach. Food prices are rising. Gasoline is now record expensive everywhere, but at the same time electric cars are still prohibitively expensive for many people to buy. Also, the leftist greens demands to abandon meat consumption and switch to a more plant based diet is seen as ridiculous, because it completely ignores the biological fact that we, as a species, are mixed eaters, and need certain vitamins for example from regular servings of meat to sustain ourselves. Many people fear that they're going to get left behind by the major societal changes happening right now, and this creates anger. They know that they're going to miss out on the wealth that the boomer generation got to enjoy their entire lives, in a time when they were less regulated and had more and better opportunities.

Many simple factory jobs that once were enough to buy a good house and support an entire family are now gone, having being outsourced to Asia, and with nothing to replace them. Lot of people struggle with their daily survival and have nothing to make ends meet. Here in Europe, welfare and social benefits take the edge off of some of that, or else you would've seen large scale rioting already. But because of the rampant inflation, these benefits are seeing their buying power falling behind, with nothing filling the blanks. All the while actual good, well-paying jobs are becoming more scarce. There's a sentiment that the current rulers simply aren't doing enough to protect the interests of their own people.

So now the right wing populists capitalize. They pretend to care in their empty speeches. The average voter, who is usually too much of an uneducated dumbshit, simply rolls with it and supports them in hopes of a change, and seeing the good times come back. And then you have the actual hate groups, who seize the opportunity to vote in the loud bigot, with the hopes that the bigot would gain enough political power to enable their dream society, where they'd be free to simply holocaust all the groups of people, whom they absolutely despise.

So here we are, in this current situation. Make no mistake, gay parades, seemingly out-of-control immigration, stagnating economy, and the endless, guilt-tripping preaching about climate change has made a lot of people very angry, and that has now made them political. They simply don't want any of this into their lives, so they will do anything to erase all of this out of their perfect existence, and to achieve this, they will vote any candidate who simply promises to do just that. What the left did wrong was that they were being much too boisterous and in-your-face about the progress they've made. They should've known better. They should've understood that their opponents will never accept their values and lifestyles, and that this is a group that will not shy away from dirty tricks and straight up violence to get their way. The left should've kept it more low-key. And they most definitely should NOT have declared that they've won already.

In particular, Hollywood's efforts in the recent years to push the woke ideal has angered many people, because it's seen as propaganda, as belittling their intelligence, and as an intrusion to people's right to make up their own damned minds. Disney in particular has been an egregious example of this, with their forced gender and racial quotas, including swapping races in historical settings, where it doesn't make sense, because it'd be anachronistic.

It's going to be interesting to see, how the current Russo-Ukrainian war will change things. There's the theoretical possibility that it could escalate to nukes, if Vladimir Putin decides to take everybody else down with him. Certainly Europe is now more united than ever, and many people will now have to re-evaluate their choices, as more pressing concerns are at hand. Concerns that are bigger than someone's individual gender identity. With a possible food crisis looming ahead next winter, we could even be facing a struggle for survival.

 

I'm going to try and keep this short, because I've answered questions like this on other boards and all I get is "TL&DR" (and wouldn't be surprised if someone does it as a haha funny later). I've worked in (mostly off) and have written a lot about politics There's been a shift politically in the US.. The center line keeps moving to the right and has for 40 years. I just wish I hadn't woke up at 4am

There hasn't been a viable left-wing in the US since the 1930s. McCarthyism killed progress. FDR was the best we ever had. JFK was our last chance. It's been all downhill and the records don't lie... I HIGHLY recommend you getting a 7-day free trial at newspapers.com and look at things chronologically. Look how a President changes the story of his actions, or the events themselves over time. The inconsistencies. Anything. Read enough, and you'll learn plenty.

I don't like to do this, but there are so many misconceptions on terminology. Inconsistencies between ideology and party. Remember President Nixon said "The last thing I'll ever do is recognize Red China!" --- it was!!! Political correctness turned many off, and moved some to the other side. People are fickle, and sometimes one little thing will influence a decision. Sometimes personality. And now with "social" media, even those who simply grift, will post something they don't believe in for financial reasons, but their 11 million followers don't know this. They like the person, and then will take them on their word, and run with that piece of shit tweet..

"Commie" "left" blah... Next time someone calls you a leftist (because you think the minimum wage should be more than 30 cents/hr), well, first off, ask them to define it. They'll probably get authoritative mixed up with left/right... Some things shouldn't even be partisan (everyone needs good roads, right?), but anyway. Abolishing private property? Mode of production? Classless society? "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." ?...

I believe identify politics is a right-winged trick to NOT talk about class, labor, and instead go on and on about social issues because they know you can't do anything about it. You can't legislate kindness and understanding, so they'll give it lip service 24/7 because they don't have to show anything for it. It's a never-ending thing.. Prejudice.... I live in a majority black city, and I've traveled the world plenty, and have also found expats, and I try to talk to the best cross-section of people (and then the internet).. The more views you hear, the more accurate the thermostat is. Maybe... Anyway, my point is that political correctness is racist in of itself. "I don't need rich white males telling me what I can or cannot handle. And why compare me by the color of my skin? Maybe I don't identify by skin pigment."... Trust me, black people aren't worried about you calling them "African-Americans" or "black" - they're more interested in ..... the same things you are, with a little bit of urban renewal on the side. And unlike some groups, you can't hide your skin. Some hide their sexuality and religion, but my black friends will always be black. One friend told me, "Even if I don't identify as such, they see me as this, so if they attack black people, I take it personally because they're trying to make me mad or hurt my feelings and who knows what else"

Values.. You can't be trendy on human rights issue. I think the closest litmus test is Palestine. For me, there is no "both sides" moral equivalence. Again, look in those old newspapers. Reagan called Mandela a terrorist.. We went from "Ich bin eine Berliner" to "Ich bin eine Contra" in one generation.... Of course, now Mandela is everyone's hero, and he was a great man, but they just did another 180 to be "in".. Financial, legacy, so many reasons. If you talk to anyone older than 65 today, you'll think 99% of the country was against the war in Vietnam. Na, many became against it only because we were losing. But I don't think wars are meant to be won, but to be continuous.
To me, the biggest issue is war. The biggest moral cost, and the biggest financial cost. When Obama took us from two to seven wars, Democrats didn't say shit, because they're chickenshit, and the opposing side likes it (until something goes wrong). I know Fox is the most watched, but Ailes started that "entertainment" model. (Has anyone ever been 'entertained' by FOX or CNN?). The other stations are Democrat (not liberal) with only one bias - financial. If/when Biden were to start proxy wars, sanctions, or actual wars (Iran, Venezuela, etc), the media won't pay attention to it, or water it down, and the millions of voters are influenced by this. Not everyone digs deep about what is happening like many of us.
With Biden, liberals will relax, but the right-wing will respond when it's attack. Look no further than Texas (and other) policies on abortion. Sometimes you just have to take the win and not rub it in, and hope they forget about it, lol, jk., but you shouldn't rub it in. They'll put their efforts to overturn Roe v. Wade

Tariffs were HATED by the Republicans, who thought the market could solve every problem. As soon as Trump imposed tariffs, suddenly they like them? His supporters certainly seem to. I'm sure some would prefer to stay silent to avoid being socially ostracized. It's the problem with every other group, which I think is the true enemy. Nothing wrong with alliances for certain issues, but I believe you trade your individuality when you join a group. As groups change, the people suddenly change? Now, Democrats hate tariffs? The two Democratic senators thanked Trump, saying they've been needing them for years, but it didn't make news.
Biden wrote The Crime Bill, Trump signed Criminal Justice Reform.. We know Biden's long right-winged record, especially when it comes to the important stuff.

So now people think, "Oh, we have inflation because of Whatever-The-Democrats Did"... They'll associate one thing to another. Causation and correlation... We don't even know how much money is hidden. The billionaires make their money from "unskilled" workers. Amazing how those "unskills" contribute to billions of dollars in profit. Workers of the world - Unite... and QUIT! It seems like they CAN afford to pay McDonalds workers $28/hr... during a pandemic nonetheless!

People have to stop being hypocritical, worried about being socially ostracized from a Political chat room (oh my gosh this happens so much.. especially when you talk to them in private - that disparity!) or wherever. Speak YOUR truth and don't worry about the rest. The person you need to please is yourself. You can fool others, but you'll know when you aren't doing the right thing. No joke. In this chat room (about a week ago) someone listed gay marriage as an Obama accomplishment. 20 minutes before the (conservative) SC legalized it, Obama (and Clinton and Biden) all said, "I believe marriage is between a man and a woman".. 20 minutes AFTER the ruling, you saw rainbow colors over the white house. How cynical. And again, more distortion of the truth.

Losing the working-class vote is another reason the country moves right... "Single-payer is the way" and then 20 minutes later, "For those who are unvaccinated, they should pay DOUBLE".. Which is it? Don't hate policy because you hate the image of someone you think it would help... I don't think the government reflects the people at all. They just look at simple stats and say whatever will motivate you into doing their deeds.

Always criticize those who rule over you. It's better for America. If they are worthy, they can withstand a little bit of criticism. It will make them better, too. But people have to be willing to stick their necks out and spread the good word, so to speak. There's always a tide of fascism (usually money interests), so there needs to be constant pushback with the numbers (since they have all the money), but another inconvenient truth I found was that the richest group in the world would probably be self-described Socialists. And they were so materialistic - Europe, Asia, Australia, and North America. Do you think they are going to self-destruct voluntarily and get rid of the major tax loopholes? No. They'll have bumper stickers. Lots of trendy hash-tags. Lots of re-tweets.

Democrats in 2004 - "We love Assange for telling the truth!"
Democrats in 2016 - "We hate Assange for telling the truth!"

I think art (movies, humor, and to a lesser extent, music) is the most impactful. People don't necessarily act upon information. Remember The Church Committee? They disclosed so many horrible things our government did, but they essentially had to do it to restore faith in the system after Watergate, which again, was chickenshit compared to Nixon bombing Laos. Pelosi didn't impeach W. Bush, but that phone call to Zelensky killed millions because he had no WMDs or no ties to 9/11. Oh yeah. Sarcasm (or it turns into anger)..

But you need to be angry at the system to change it. Unfortunately, I saw many people saying the same shit as I did, but the second someone gave them an offer to sell-out, they became The Establishment. The oppressed become the oppressor.

 

this is Elon musks interpretation which illustrates the left doing all the shifting

 

What a crock!