Honestly not trolling with this question. Can the Americans explain why some are so concerned with extreme left politics, communism, when your country seems to be moving to the right?
Using this thread as an anecdotal example. I disagree completely with anyone being harrased or forced to do something. But the concern seems to be around communism and none of your popular politicians seem that extreme left.
Just trying to get my head around some of the concern in this thread when that doesn’t seem to be where USA is going. I get that communism doesn’t work but why the worry?
You don’t seem to understand what is going on, the country is not moving to the right, it has become extremely polarized. Both the right and left have gotten more extreme, but the left in particular with the endless rioting and insane political demands.
You never heard of the Democrat party? Biden is more moderate, but there are plenty of socialists and commies in the party like Bernie Sanders, AOC, Ihan Omar, and so on. A few years ago the Democrats were a moderate left party but they kept pushing it further and further.
Also BLM is all into communist ideology, look at their website. They say they want to abolish the nuclear family, this is one of the goals stated in the Communist Manifesto. One of the founders of BLM is on record saying that they are “trained Marxists”.
“We are trained Marxists. We are super-versed on, sort of, ideological theories. And I think that what we really tried to do is build a movement that could be utilized by many, many black folk,”
Thank you. I’ve heard of the democrat party. You only seem to have two political parties so I guess I haven’t missed any others. You mention some politicians as examples but the sound bites I’ve heard from them seem to be moderate left (by UK standards) and still far from communism.
I might have missed a lot as I can only take so much 24/7 trump and brexit clips which are pumped out constantly.
Again narrative. Bernie is probably the closest to a socialist. He even calls himself one (due to being labeled a socialist repeatedly for 20 years). If you look at what he supports he is not a socialist by definition.
Thanks. I’m always interested to see if I’m missing a bit of information or perspective. And I still welcome other input.
Thanks also for clearing up where Chris_ottawa is from, I was never certain, even with the tag.
Personally I’m more concerned with other influences on our democracies than us becoming communists, at the moment. Which is interesting as it may be Communist countries behind some of that influence.
Extreme left in US politics is nowhere near the definition of extreme left in the EU, generally speaking.
I disagree that the country is moving to the right, but I think that is a perception based on who we have in office as president and his rhetoric (not policies).
That said, I don’t feel like there is any use in allowing even the roots of an ideology to take hold before buttressing against it. Nothing is more powerful than an idea once it has taken root, so I am a believer that stamping out ideologies opposed to the nature of this country is better done sooner than later. “Prevention is the best medicine” applies equally to harmful political ideology.
To be clear I’m talking about a philosophical, metaphorical stamping out, not anything state sponsored. Hopefully that was clear.
There is a very highly polarized atmosphere here, unlike any point in our history before (save perhaps the Vietnam era). In large part it is a bi-product of having only 2 viable parties, however there are other unique aspects to this point in our history that play into it. Prior to the last 15 years or so it was very normal to see the parties compromise.
Agree on both points here, although one of the strengths of democracy is also a large weakness: the ability of bad actors to attempt to poison the well amid confusion.
Sort of correct, whatever we knew as the DNC from a couple of decades ago no longer exists. And the Republican party is consistently misunderstanding how far left the democrat party has swung.
It used to be, that both parties agreed on approximately 80% of stuff in general. Like, America is a good place that needs to be protected and preserved, the Constitution is to be protected at all costs, etc. And generally, to the 20% where they disagreed, both parties were still wanting to achieve the same goals, but differed on ways to get there… Perhaps a bit oversimplification, but generally the way it was.
The democrat party has swung radically to the left, now. And people want to blame Trump for that, but the swing actually started under Obama.
Now they support open borders, amnesty for illegal aliens with constitutional guarantees, socialized medicine, critical race theory, critical gender theory, redistribution of wealth, gun confiscation, equality of outcome, etc. I could go on, but yeah, a lot of that shit is strait out of the Communist Manifesto. Feel free to fact check me and look it up. Don’t look at what people say “it” is, look at their policy positions. Look at what they support.
Look right now at where the most draconian, unconstitutional lock downs are in this country. Keep in mind, the states have local autonomous power, these policies do not come from the Federal Government. Look where the violence is and who are the leaders there and what they say about it. Look what’s happening to NYC.
You cannot make this stuff up, this is literal. The places that are functioning the worst are all functioning under democratic rule. And it’s working so bad, they want to bring this nightmare to the federal level. Yeah, too many republicans are wrong about how left the democrat party is, it’s way worse than even republicans say.
Again, look for yourself, don’t take my word for it.
China… It’s the number one threat across the board. And you can see their influence in many institutions. The most obvious example is the NBA and Disney, because they are public.
The NBA will never offer a unkind word about China, no matter how appalling they act.
Disney even thanked the CCP and the Chinese “Labor” camp authorities for special access to the areas where the Uighur Muslims are being tortured and killed and worse…
@pat Thank you. Ive been watching China and how its been building influence for a long time.
You’ve put many points in your post but one of them that sticks out to me is the example of socialised medicine. Many developed countries have socialised medicine, it doesn’t mean you’re on the way to communism. I also find the term very politicised in American discussion. I don’t often see the word socialist in front of other services, such as defense, police, roads etc.
I think saying Democrats support all these things because a couple of most left support it, is like saying Republicans support killing non-Christians because that is what the Republican Matt Shea says he wants.
Critical race and gender theories are not policy.
Republicans support redistribution of wealth (Trump’s tax bill is a for of redistribution as it is a progressive tax policy). How much is what is different between the parties.
I don’t think gun confiscation and equality of outcome are supported. I have seen no bills or proposals that would support the idea that these are popular ideas.
Socialized medicine is already in the US (insurance is socialistic idea). They just want to reform it, and we can agree or disagree on how it is done.
I don’t know enough about open borders or complete amnesty. I doubt a good amount of them support these things the way you describe them. I am open to evidence if you have it.
I don’t think this is good reasoning. Most big cities are ruled by Democrats. Of course rural areas are not having massive protests and riots. By the logic you used, we could say that public transit is at fault, because public transit is present in most of the places that are the most effected by the riots.
And Karl Marx said that the goal of socialism is communism. It’s about gradually moving in that direction, move too fast and there will be too much opposition.
So does the US. Insurance is a socialistic idea. The difference is that private companies control the socialized medicine vs the government. Additionally, in the US, you could not use socialized medicine, but that isn’t what a majority of people do.
You ignored the words after “one”. He is not a socialist by definition. He just let the term his opponents gave him stick. He is a Democratic Socialist. Big difference between the two.
That’s an interesting point. I saw on a JRE pod cast a discussion on the different types of socialised medicine. There’s more models than just the UK NHS. Also in the UK you can pay private, I have before. Sometimes for NHS procedures a doctor will refer you to a clinic of your choosing. My friend had several options for a minor operation.
And China isn’t communist by definition either, but the ruling party still calls themselves communist. It’s more like a totalitarian dictatorship where most people are slaves while the upper class is rolling in money.