Why do they say "there's no true Left in the US"?

return2ozma@lemmy.world to Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world – 110 points –
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Easy: even if you vote for Bernie that's still at best center-left. The US just really, really leans right overall: there's center-right (democrats) and far-right (republicans) and that's about it.

You guys are so afraid of socialism no party dares venture the true left.

Americans being afraid of socialism is proof that propaganda works. It's literally for the people.

As does decades of systematically defunding education. The decades of leaded gas/paint by prior generations probably weren't helping...

Joe Biden is now the Nickelback /Big Bang Theory of Presidents.

There's nothing really bad about him, nothing really great, but they've been told to hate on him, so that's what they'll do.

Ill hate his fucking guts as long as I live for his handling of Israel and Gaza

Fair enough.

I think your statement is true in a purely national sense. We've had better but we've had worse. Globally, he's majorly dropped the ball and caused too much suffering to ignore.

Here in Czechia, we had socialism a few decades ago. Pretty much everyone old enough to remember it hates it.

Socialism is not a 'one thing' . It's a concept as a whole. You can have good or bad socialism and everything in between.

The world is far more nuanced than that.

Do you have working examples of good socialism?

I'll give some examples of great implementations of socialism that drives welfare in today's democracies, as I personally believe that socialism can't exist without democracy, as it's one of the core values of the concept, that's it's controlled by the people.

One of socialisms ultimate goals are also equality, which my examples will show.

  • Free education
  • UBI if you get fired
  • UBI for old people
  • UBI for students
  • Free health care (duh)
  • Free dental (normally only till age of 18 today)
  • Basic insurance paid by the government

These are just the big ones that really helps to make sure that very few people are actually poor and are getting desperate because of it.

Also, it's always important to say that socialism and capitalism are NOT mutually exclusive. It's perfectly normal to have all these concepts from socialism in a capitalist country.

I think we can agree that a country with 100% capitalism or socialism is not the best way to go.

Good explanation. Just one nit to pick over word choice: “Capitalism” is not a synonym for “free market”.

Capitalism is a separate ideology that champions (even romanticizes) the acquisition and hoarding of wealth at all costs. It leads to trusts, monopolies, stifling of competition and, eventually, the death of the free market.

In other words: Socialism and free markets are compatible. Socialism and Capitalism are not.

And a good chunk of our parties are now far far right.

Added bonus: it's not just socialism that we're afraid of. We fear tons of things now. We've become a nation of fear and boiling hate under the hood and it's truly toxic.

Yes, I've been working to leave for a few years now. My children shouldn't have to grow up in a culture of barely surviving, anxiety & fearful people scrabbling over scraps left to us by the ultra wealthy.