I mean yeah, here in the US. Overton window’s all fucky over here.
EDIT: I should also probably add that there are probably more nuanced parts of my views that might stick me a little more in the centrist camp, like how the things I mentioned should be implemented, managed, how much reach they should have, whatever. Regardless, I do definitely vibe harder with Social Dems over here than any other ideological stripe.
Shit I label myself a progressive pretty far left as a social democrat myself, which is definitely further left than the mainstream Democratic party who in my view has only marginally shifted center-left in the past few years. Though even in Germany the Social Democratic Party is considered center-left.
Center-left is where I’d primarily place myself, for sure (with the occasional excursion into the center or even center-right, which is why I label myself a “centrist”).
It sucks so badly that there are very real, very present issues that can be debated by sensible people but that debate isn’t happening. Everything has devolved into surface-level culture war horseshit. I think the Right is just mad that they “lost” the culture wars which can be evidenced by who massive corporations - who generally don’t actually give a fuck about social justice - are pandering to. The problem is that they’re just lashing out and taking it out on everyone. Culture war stuff just shuts the conversation down and you never end up going beneath the surface to tackle real topics. You either end up squabbling over petty shit or semantics or you just leave. Nuance and context are just fucking absent, replace by strict black-and-white ideological stances.
I really do believe that conservative thought has a place and function in society. In my eyes, it’s there to temper unchecked change and keep things stable. You will never avoid change outright, but having it happen too quickly or wildly can leave people disillusioned. Unfortunately, if you left it up to some of these people, they’d drag us back to the 1950s… or worse.
Hey man, great comment and there’s a lot I agree with here — for starters, I’ve made the same argument regarding corporations and how they have now began catering to the left in terms of social issues.
I think that conservatism is an inherent part of society that should come based largely (albeit not exclusively) by age. The vast majority of this wealth comes from frankly rich old white fucks. In a functioning, equitable society, their voices would be relatively muted or at least in proportion to their population. But the Boomer and Silent generations were so massive they lopsided society. This made worse by the fact that we continue to elect increasingly older people who are out of touch with modern living and frankly declined in terms of cognitive capacity. But no. Instead, they have massive wealth and megaphones pushing their archaic messages that is even filtering down into younger generations.
So this, combined with the fact that while we have age minimums for representing our country, we don’t have age maximums — both contribute heavily to our current problems and the stranglehold conservatism has had on America. The only reason things have changed remotely is thanks to the internet, honestly.
Right on, I can’t disagree. I’m very much for age limits and possibly term limits to some degree, although I think there are decent arguments for and against the latter. I’m also open to ranked choice voting and it’s cousins, but I need more time to read up about all of that before I can say I have a substantive opinion on the subject.
What you described is exactly the scary lack of ideological balance that I see and am low-key kind of freaked out by. Even if the boomers are starting to decline in number, look at how they were able to whip up just enough of the younger voting-age generations to cause problems. Will that stuff persevere in their absence? I’m under the impression that as time goes on, younger generations tend to hold a more left-leaning streak for longer.
On the other hand, sometimes it almost feels like mainstreamed bigotry and racism and all that trash is kind of gasping it’s last desperate breaths, like it’s ok the cusp of crawling back under rocks and into the shadows. It feels like there’s a lot of thrashing going on in that corner lately. On a societal scale, though, that could take years or even a couple of decades… Plenty of time for another revival to get it back on its feet again.
On the other hand, sometimes it almost feels like mainstreamed bigotry and racism and all that trash is kind of gasping it’s last desperate breaths, like it’s ok the cusp of crawling back under rocks and into the shadows. It feels like there’s a lot of thrashing going on in that corner lately.
Wholly agree as I’ve long said this is the rat backed into a corner and lashing out for the last time — at least, for now. It seems pretty clear that overall the modern far-right conservative ideological movement and its hodgepodge of conspiracy theories and anti/pseudoscience roots, embrace of unregulated capitalism, etc. — is near over. This is the make-or-break for them because they know they’re losing, hard.
I mean yeah, here in the US. Overton window’s all fucky over here.
EDIT: I should also probably add that there are probably more nuanced parts of my views that might stick me a little more in the centrist camp, like how the things I mentioned should be implemented, managed, how much reach they should have, whatever. Regardless, I do definitely vibe harder with Social Dems over here than any other ideological stripe.
Shit I label myself a progressive pretty far left as a social democrat myself, which is definitely further left than the mainstream Democratic party who in my view has only marginally shifted center-left in the past few years. Though even in Germany the Social Democratic Party is considered center-left.
Center-left is where I’d primarily place myself, for sure (with the occasional excursion into the center or even center-right, which is why I label myself a “centrist”).
It sucks so badly that there are very real, very present issues that can be debated by sensible people but that debate isn’t happening. Everything has devolved into surface-level culture war horseshit. I think the Right is just mad that they “lost” the culture wars which can be evidenced by who massive corporations - who generally don’t actually give a fuck about social justice - are pandering to. The problem is that they’re just lashing out and taking it out on everyone. Culture war stuff just shuts the conversation down and you never end up going beneath the surface to tackle real topics. You either end up squabbling over petty shit or semantics or you just leave. Nuance and context are just fucking absent, replace by strict black-and-white ideological stances.
I really do believe that conservative thought has a place and function in society. In my eyes, it’s there to temper unchecked change and keep things stable. You will never avoid change outright, but having it happen too quickly or wildly can leave people disillusioned. Unfortunately, if you left it up to some of these people, they’d drag us back to the 1950s… or worse.
Hey man, great comment and there’s a lot I agree with here — for starters, I’ve made the same argument regarding corporations and how they have now began catering to the left in terms of social issues.
I think that conservatism is an inherent part of society that should come based largely (albeit not exclusively) by age. The vast majority of this wealth comes from frankly rich old white fucks. In a functioning, equitable society, their voices would be relatively muted or at least in proportion to their population. But the Boomer and Silent generations were so massive they lopsided society. This made worse by the fact that we continue to elect increasingly older people who are out of touch with modern living and frankly declined in terms of cognitive capacity. But no. Instead, they have massive wealth and megaphones pushing their archaic messages that is even filtering down into younger generations.
So this, combined with the fact that while we have age minimums for representing our country, we don’t have age maximums — both contribute heavily to our current problems and the stranglehold conservatism has had on America. The only reason things have changed remotely is thanks to the internet, honestly.
Right on, I can’t disagree. I’m very much for age limits and possibly term limits to some degree, although I think there are decent arguments for and against the latter. I’m also open to ranked choice voting and it’s cousins, but I need more time to read up about all of that before I can say I have a substantive opinion on the subject.
What you described is exactly the scary lack of ideological balance that I see and am low-key kind of freaked out by. Even if the boomers are starting to decline in number, look at how they were able to whip up just enough of the younger voting-age generations to cause problems. Will that stuff persevere in their absence? I’m under the impression that as time goes on, younger generations tend to hold a more left-leaning streak for longer.
On the other hand, sometimes it almost feels like mainstreamed bigotry and racism and all that trash is kind of gasping it’s last desperate breaths, like it’s ok the cusp of crawling back under rocks and into the shadows. It feels like there’s a lot of thrashing going on in that corner lately. On a societal scale, though, that could take years or even a couple of decades… Plenty of time for another revival to get it back on its feet again.
Wholly agree as I’ve long said this is the rat backed into a corner and lashing out for the last time — at least, for now. It seems pretty clear that overall the modern far-right conservative ideological movement and its hodgepodge of conspiracy theories and anti/pseudoscience roots, embrace of unregulated capitalism, etc. — is near over. This is the make-or-break for them because they know they’re losing, hard.