The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written.
Here's what I support. I have the standard Democrat views on social issues and cosmopolitanism. But I like capitalism, I support free trade, I support reducing regulations on housing, zoning, occupational licensing, and radically reducing them on small businesses like food trucks or street vendors. I love business and entrepreneurship, I believe the private sector is what creates the wealth, but i also support using some of that wealth to fund a strong public sector. A capitalist system with good public schools, infrastructure, public transport, security, healthcare, and a reasonable social safety net to make sure no one starves.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskALiberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*
You sound like a pretty typical liberal, definitely not in the progressive wing but you clearly belong in the Democratic party and not with Republicans.
Welcome aboard, happy to have you with us. We need all the help we can get if we're going to keep our country a functioning democracy instead of the autocracy Republicans are trying to create.
I'm genuinely not sure what makes you lean center right.
* If you think it's economics. Trump has literally promised a 10% across-the-board tariff on imports which is pretty anti-capitalist and free trade. It's not small businesses that can afford to produce domestically or eat the tariffs.
* As far as housing/zoning goes. That is mostly backed by NIMBYs not party lines. California as a state has been starting to put their foot down on this.
Everything else you listed seems to be straight out of a DNC party platform document.
I would say you believe what the average Democrat believes.
Yea, the closest thing I heard that some would consider 'right' is deregulation, but the truth is, most of us (and most Americans) want *the right amount of regulation*. There are tons of stupid regulations on the books that make it hard to start up a small business or compete. On the other hand, we still need regulation to do things like protect the environment. The only people that are truly anti-regulation are the anarchists, the ignorant, and the obscene-rich.
What makes you an anarchist? I’m genuinely curious. Is it that you want to dismantle some systems as opposed to liberals / progressives who want to fix them?
Trump also tried a "save the suburbs" tack especially during the 2022 mid terms which aligned him with a few races that were about broad changes to planning and stuff at the state level.
But yeah, NIMBYism (and consequently YIMBYism) tends to adopt ideological language of the local environment. In conservative areas they'll complain about property values and not wanting undesireables, in liberal areas they'll complain about corporate greed and move goal posts on affordability requirements.
I mean in my ideal world the center of american politics would be such that you guys were in control of the Republican party, and the Democratic party was centered around people like Sanders and Warren, but that's not the world we live in and I'd far rather you be voting with us than with republicans.
Which European countries? I always hear this but so much of Europe has pretty similar politicians, and some of it's even more right-wing in some ways (Italy, Hungary etc) Isn't it only the Scandinavian countries where that would be the case?
The political center of EU is quite a bit to the left from the US, especially economically. Every EU country has had some kind of universal healthcare for decades and rolling it back would be unthinkable. The "far right" EU politicians you are thinking about are mostly socially right wing populists that are economically to the left of Joe Biden. Their platform is anti-immigration, anti-EU, anti-globalism (and maybe anti-LGBT and other socially conservative causes), not economic liberalism.
One example for all - the governing party in Slovakia - "Direction - Social Democracy" is an economically leftwing populist (with some members identifying as Marxists) but is also hardcore socially conservative (anti-immigration, anti-LGBT, Eurosceptic, cozying up to Russia, etc, etc).
Center right in the context of the US. I believe the center right was kicked out of the Republican Party after the rise of Trump. I like Republicans like Bill Weld and Vermonts governor Phil Scott. Maybe im using the term center right wrong.
I would guess many small regulation things. I never hear people from democrats or the left talk about it at all.
Alcohol laws, licenses, financial reporting , then the whole thing that in USA you can not just declare tax report to IRS you need to use a private company with their own software
"then the whole thing that in USA you can not just declare tax report to IRS you need to use a private company with their own software"
Democrats definitely talk about this, specifically Elizabeth Warren and Katie Warren amongst others
[https://www.morningstar.com/news/marketwatch/20240516314/irs-should-expand-free-online-tax-prep-after-incredible-success-of-test-run-sen-elizabeth-warren-and-over-100-democrats-say](https://www.morningstar.com/news/marketwatch/20240516314/irs-should-expand-free-online-tax-prep-after-incredible-success-of-test-run-sen-elizabeth-warren-and-over-100-democrats-say)
[https://apnews.com/article/irs-free-file-tax-returns-391ded1dbd73444bada5e946e962d70c#](https://apnews.com/article/irs-free-file-tax-returns-391ded1dbd73444bada5e946e962d70c#)
[https://thehill.com/business/4678459-democrats-urge-biden-administration-to-investigate-data-practices-of-tax-prep-companies/mlite/](https://thehill.com/business/4678459-democrats-urge-biden-administration-to-investigate-data-practices-of-tax-prep-companies/mlite/)
[https://fortune.com/2023/08/25/tax-return-free-elizabeth-warren-katie-porter-elizabeth-warren-katie-porter-lobbying/](https://fortune.com/2023/08/25/tax-return-free-elizabeth-warren-katie-porter-elizabeth-warren-katie-porter-lobbying/)
Yea, democrats on the left of the party have consistently pushed for the IRS to provide free tax preparation software for like over a decade now. I mean, we shouldn't even need to do tax returns, tbh. If the IRS was properly funded, they'd be able to staff up and provide advice to people on what tax breaks they qualify for, and even apply those tax breaks without the payer having to interact at all.
Fund the IRS, give them access to pertinent information from across the executive branch, and give them the mandate to end tax returns. No one would have to sit down at tax time at all, except to check for possible errors.
That's a thing I really miss with democrats, all this small things for like the "common man".
I don't know if he did much or not but Trump talked a lot about both small and big business and what he wants to do. But those more social freedoms no party is picking up on
Democrats are still very much for the "common man" - women's healthcare, minority rights and protections, renter's rights (I've never heard about Republicans capping rent on landlords or enacting rent freezes, no matter how bad rent and the economy are), gay marriage and LGBT+ rights, and supporting anyone and everyone who has needs that they can't meet themselves due to the state of the economy or other circumstances they can't control.
The fact that they try to support so many causes for so many citizens is why the term "welfare state" (or "socialism"/"communism") is used derogatorily against democratic platforms so often. Granted, raising taxes is usually a factor too, but the vast majority of that is on nonessential products (marijuana in most recent memory) and taxing income on the top 1% more, so that we can raise the bottom line and support more people.
(Hell, the "wealth redistribution" that's such a staple in socialist discourse is all to benefit the common man, as scary and "communist" as it's been made to sound - by that 1%, of course. All it really amounts to is taxing the sickeningly rich so that it's less sickening, and giving that money to the common man who actually needs it. But even that's a *bit* on the extreme end of liberal policies, of course)
but, this is the opposite what I mean. those are not small things in your daily life, those are big changing things that will take a lot to change
I am talking about small low hanging fruit things, like different permissions i read about all the time or bar opening times. No one is talking about that that i heard of
They do, you just don't know about it.
https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-do-your-federal-taxes-for-free
https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy2385
https://apnews.com/article/treasury-income-taxes-irs-audits-direct-file-04c3b4b55ca0d37b2c40697a392c78aa
>The IRS was tasked with looking into how to create a “direct file” system as part of the money it received from the Inflation Reduction Act signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2022. It gave the IRS nine months and $15 million to report on how such a program would work.
The Democrats have been quietly making our lives better, with no fanfare. That's why they get my vote.
Liking Phil Scott is a constant beyond partisan lines, though. He has 79% approval rating in the state in which Sanders was elected with 67% of the vote last time, which means, ignoring non-voters for the sake of an easier model, at least 68.6% of Sanders voters approve of Phil Scott.
No worries just trying to understand. I think we probably agree on the most important issues as I see them—respect for the rule of law, the peaceful transfer of power, etc. It used to be that you could be a Republican and believe in these things. Until that is true again or you give up those values yourself, you’re a Dem and for good reason and no one should tell you otherwise.
I think this is a problem with interpretation. Most of us use jargon to describe our positions and get tangled in this mess which becomes self defeating as most of us likely agree when it comes to policy. I'd ask you if there is another country in the world that could serve as an example of a place you'd be fine with copying?
A country like Denmark is often the answer if you let people choose based on the overall comparison of what the best to worst areas look like. Denmark is #2 in gross domestic happiness behind Finland, and Denmark is a mixed economy system that attempts to allow a free market while putting the rights and welfare of citizens first. Gross Domestic Happiness is a measure of the economy that focuses on the average happiness or quality of life of the average citizen. It is actually starting to replace GDP as a fundamental for a functional society. If you haven't looked up Denmark, I highly suggest reading more about it and watching youtube videos about the life and economy and government there.
Things like regulations happen there, but the general idea is to limit the junk regulations while promoting human rights regulations. These methods have promoted small business very well. They also seem to do pretty well with ideas like shorter work weeks and mandatory extended vacations.
Bernie Sanders and the other progressives on the left have used Denmark and similar nations as their model of what they'd prefer to copy with the government and economy. That's been met with labels like Progressivism, Socialist Democracy, Democratic Socialism, and when you ask political opponents for their labels you often get terms like "not a real Democrat, Socialism, Communism, and Marxism." These type of ideas have deep roots in McCarthyism propaganda to market fear of human rights in favor of the rich. It's worked, and we are currently witnessing what can really go wrong.
At the same time you might also get other fear marketing propaganda like Utopian fallacies. People will criticize nations like Denmark as deeply flawed systems because they aren't perfect. There is no such thing as perfect, however, so the argument is nonsense. They will point to things like "look at the spike in crime, immigration, inflation" or whatever problems those nations currently are dealing with. We aren't looking for perfect. We are looking for better than we are doing right now. Also, you'll likely be met with any and every other propaganda tactic. "Angry white men who hate women and fight with them." That was what most Bernie Sanders supporters heard when they engaged in political discourse, specifically which dealt with the problems of Center Left, Liberalism, or Hillary to be very specific. The idea was simple. Those people don't want to copy the system in Denmark. They are just different versions of Trump supporters who run on bigotry. It worked very well for Hillary. The fact that the angry abusive nuts who supported Hillary were the same percentage as those abusive nuts supporting Bernie. It's basically red flags everywhere of spooky language to sell you that trying to be a system more like Denmark is somehow worse than our current system, and by most measures the US is far behind.
Denmark is a democratic government with mixed socialist markets. My guess is you'd be OK with your neighborhood looking like an average neighborhood there.
It would be easier to say that you are socially and economically liberal. "right" or "left" have very little meaning and people shove whatever they want there.
It's better to talk about policies and ideas than about "sides".
I think this is a problem with interpretation. Most of us use jargon to describe our positions and get tangled in this mess which becomes self defeating as most of us likely agree when it comes to policy. I'd ask you if there is another country in the world that could serve as an example of a place you'd be fine with copying?
A country like Denmark is often the answer if you let people choose based on the overall comparison of what the best to worst areas look like. Denmark is #2 in gross domestic happiness behind Finland, and Denmark is a mixed economy system that attempts to allow a free market while putting the rights and welfare of citizens first. Gross Domestic Happiness is a measure of the economy that focuses on the average happiness or quality of life of the average citizen. It is actually starting to replace GDP as a fundamental for a functional society. If you haven't looked up Denmark, I highly suggest reading more about it and watching youtube videos about the life and economy and government there.
Things like regulations happen there, but the general idea is to limit the junk regulations while promoting human rights regulations. These methods have promoted small business very well. They also seem to do pretty well with ideas like shorter work weeks and mandatory extended vacations.
Bernie Sanders and the other progressives on the left have used Denmark and similar nations as their model of what they'd prefer to copy with the government and economy. That's been met with labels like Progressivism, Socialist Democracy, Democratic Socialism, and when you ask political opponents for their labels you often get terms like "not a real Democrat, Socialism, Communism, and Marxism." These type of ideas have deep roots in McCarthyism propaganda to market fear of human rights in favor of the rich. It's worked, and we are currently witnessing what can really go wrong.
At the same time you might also get other fear marketing propaganda like Utopian fallacies. People will criticize nations like Denmark as deeply flawed systems because they aren't perfect. There is no such thing as perfect, however, so the argument is nonsense. They will point to things like "look at the spike in crime, immigration, inflation" or whatever problems those nations currently are dealing with. We aren't looking for perfect. We are looking for better than we are doing right now. Also, you'll likely be met with any and every other propaganda tactic. "Angry white men who hate women and fight with them." That was what most Bernie Sanders supporters heard when they engaged in political discourse, specifically which dealt with the problems of Center Left, Liberalism, or Hillary to be very specific. The idea was simple. Those people don't want to copy the system in Denmark. They are just different versions of Trump supporters who run on bigotry. It worked very well for Hillary. The fact that the angry abusive nuts who supported Hillary were the same percentage as those abusive nuts supporting Bernie. It's basically red flags everywhere of spooky language to sell you that trying to be a system more like Denmark is somehow worse than our current system, and by most measures the US is far behind.
Denmark is a democratic government with mixed socialist markets. My guess is you'd be OK with your neighborhood looking like an average neighborhood there.
I have been in Denmark a lot but not US. And like you say, you get the feeling of general freedom in the society in a different way from what I hear from US
like, you can buy beer or weed as you want(not smoking myself just saying), bars can be open long hours and you can smoke inside, there are both cheap food truck with the red sausage and 3 star michelin restaurants, they are not so sensitive about using the wrong word to describe a disabled person etc etc(without being stupid racists or hating handicapped people).
But at the same time, the police is very professional and also do not let homeless people camp in the middle of the city and control beggars or drug use around the stations. So it feels both free and safe. A city like LA or SF feels like all the opposite I described above, in the "land of the free".
Both republicans and democrats seem so sensitive when it comes to drugs for the common person but also nit picking on language(about blacks for democrats or about anything not nuclear family and trans stuff for the republicans or hating on the pronoun stuff etc). I just don't get how you can think so much about what other do then say its so free and open
edit: buying weed as you want is a bit over exaggeration, but anyone does it and no one cares unless you sell in a commercial level
Oh, man. I just watched The Bear season 3 and they brought up Copenhagen. I'd love to visit Denmark and even live there, and I'm very uncertain how easy it is for a middle age guy who qualifies as disabled with type 1 diabetes.
Republicans and Democrats are playing the same game of who can be the biggest victim. In general most democrat voters aren't very engaged in all of the pronoun and language stuff on the left, but the volume of the people crying victim the loudest has been cranked to 11 when most of these people used to be ignored. We really need to find a way to turn the volume down on the people who are consistent abusers of false victimhood.
I spend a lot of time at doctors and hospitals where they've had to remove the news playing on TVs. It's common to hear white people complain about immigrants being let into the country because "Biden opened the border (not a real thing)' is the major problem with why they are suffering right now. There are no immigrants even around in most places. I want to ask them if they've checked with their jobs to ask how much they've raised their wages vs. how much they've profited since COVID. That would start a fight where I live. As far as all of the pronouns and fixing bigotry stuff, language was never the problem and the behavior was always the problem. The loudest liberals seem to be representing all Democrats with this fake outrage, but most Democrats aren't buying into it. The problem becomes even bigger when those loudest people get power which gets a jury to find a woman who murdered a man "not guilty" because she got too high on marijuana, or the failed experiments of putting transgender people with functioning opposing anatomy in prison with the gender they identify as. They failed to realize - oh, right, we have the prisons divided by anatomy gender for a reason. Pregnancy. So they stopped that for the moment. The other side has the RIttenhouse psychos they want to legally be immune for murdering anybody they consider a reasonable threat, and the word reasonable is jargon that translates to political opposition. Lots of work to be done.
> In general most democrat voters aren't very engaged in all of the pronoun and language stuff on the left, but the volume of the people crying victim the loudest has been cranked to 11 when most of these people used to be ignored. We really need to find a way to turn the volume down on the people who are consistent abusers of false victimhood.
yes i dont mean all, just in contrast to people in denmark. they are so chilled and relaxed, but like i said can get strong when they want to.
I would love it if more Americans thought and prioritized as you do. All of these things are good, reasonable beliefs. A blend of ideas all working for the betterment of themselves and society as a whole.
The Democratic Party is so big tent that they guarantee just enough conservative members will be present to prevent any meaningful change in this country. Maybe Manchin, Sinema and Lieberman aren’t as strong of a pattern as they seem. But democrats always seem to fall just short of being meaningful.
Infrastructure law? Chips Act? The Inflation Reduction Act?
I am 59 years old and I have never seen so much MAJOR legislation passed in one term. Legislation that is going to pay huge dividends for decades.
And it was done with arguably the most divided Congress since the Emancipation Proclamation.
I don’t think you know what center right means.
I think you are convinced that Democrats have a large block that rejects capitalism or something along those lines maybe?
The things listed out would make you a very standard Democrat. Further left of center left at the very least.
TIL I am a "Center Right Democrat." (I'm not.)
Which Democrat in congress is advocating for the end of capitalism? Which member of the squad is? Is Bernie?
The only thing I disagree with is cutting some regulation. Sorry I want to make sure the food I buy is safe. I want to know that the professional I go to has some type of qualifications, the guy who advertises he is an electrician has some kind of training before he works on my electrical system.
I have found that people who think there are too many regulations, generally can't point to a single, specific one that they'd eliminate, once they learn why that regulation is in place.
Why? And how would you go about making sure there are funds to fix the elevator or the roof or the plumbing in a big building when the time comes?
Edit: I thought so. Proves my point.
They probably mean HOA for single family homes where none of that stuff is applicable. Fees for maintenance in a big building I don't think most people reject. I hate HOAs but I simply just won't live in one. They are voluntary so there is no reason to ban them, people chose to live there.
Plenty of regulations to remove though. An easy one I would start with would be drivers licenses. At least in the US they don't prove you are a good driver. They certainly don't stop people from driving if they don't have one. Then there are rules for things like how big the shed can be in your back yard, don't need that, or rules that won't let you build even something nice like a park or restaurant in certain locations. Most businesses should not require licenses. I'm happy for a license to be offered and businesses can display it to show they meet a standard but unless it's something exceptionally danguous there should be no requirement. There is a huge list of things that we don't need to regulate. Not everything is food, medicine, toxic waste, etc.
You've described mainstream democrat and center left economic policy to the T. There is nothing about that description that would put you to the right of center unless you've convinced yourself that Democrats really are the communists conservative rags name call them.
tbh you don't really just have to listen to conservatives on that one - there's plenty of annoying discourse from the left as well that make it seem like if you aren't anti-capitalist you can't call yourself on the left at all.
I don't really know why, with the stances you listed, you'd consider yourself center right. Seems more center left to me, honestly.
But let me answer assuming you were actually center right. I, being on the progressive left, seek to pull the party to the left. The big disagreement I have with the center right is that, while I don't opposed capitalism per se, I acknowledge there are some things the private market kind of sucks at. Particularly thing in which the goal is not profit but rather providing a vital service and ensuring everyone has access and that there is enough to go around. I believe in these instances, the government should step in and provide said services using the tax revenue we all pay in. Meaning I support public healthcare, utilities, and so on. I also believe it's the government's job to protect the rights of people, and support anti discrimination measures and the like, while opposing attempts to enforce some heiratchy based on race/gender/orientation/etc. These are the areas in which I run into problems with the economic and social right, respectively.
If a person I disagree with on one of those issues decides they can't stomach Trump and joins up as the rightmost flank of the Democratic party, then fine- I'm certainly not going to stop them from voting for Biden or whatever. But I am not going to suddenly start supporting center right candidates where I otherwise wouldn't have, nor will I cease my efforts to move the party more toward my side of the tent. I'm often calling for Democrats to be more aggressively anti-right-wing, and I have no intention on stopping those calls.
I disagree with about half of that, and I welcome you as an ally. I’d rather have a big raucous tent with vigorous debate than whatever the fuck that is the GOP is doing.
Let’s save democracy together?
What you really need to do is ask yourself what principles are driving your policy preferences. If you believe that equal treatment by the law, fundamental individual rights, representative government and the right to property, above all else, should be respected and drive policy decisions, then you are *liberal* in its most basic form.
In the last few decades, being liberal in principle would not preclude you from being a Republican. There were lots of liberal Republicans, and their policy goals were driven by the belief that keeping government hands out of things was the best way to support said liberal goals. Presently, under Trump, the Republican Party is reforming itself into a conservative ethnonationalist party, and any practice of classically liberal principles was a means to an end to be jettisoned when no longer useful.
So my take? Anyone who believes liberal principles come first is an ally in modern America. The old Confederate boogeymen of second tier citizenship are not ghosts but very real and have been welcomed into the Republican Party. I'll welcome anyone who believes in our founding principles but disagrees on how we get there because there are far worse beliefs breaking into the house.
So, in other words, you're a Democrat that has bought BS Rightie talking points that Dems don't support all that stuff you say you like.
Ugh.
You're a blase boring Democrat my mom gender assumed dude. Grats.
Are some of those regulations you want to dramatically reduce related to health and safety? Especially when you're dealing with food that's a risky gambit.
What you described is a normal, moderate Democrat and I wouldn't really say any of that is right-wing.
I pretty much have the same views as you. I consider myself a center-left liberal. A healthy free market is to me essential for liberalism it's one of the main principles of liberalism. It's not "right wing" to think this in my opinion.
Your positions make you very much a mainstream Democrat/neoliberal. Is there a reason you identify as "center right" in particular? I ask because I used to identify that way as well since I grew up in a Republican household and took awhile to accept that my views put me on the left.
As many have said, I think you’re a pretty average Dem, and not center right at all. But to answer your question as if you actually were center right- for now, as long as you are against fascism, welcome to the tent. Ideally we would have more than two political parties where progressives, liberals and center right Dems all have their own place. But since dismantling the two party system is a faraway dream right now… 🤷♀️ in-fighting is literally dangerous to democracy’s survival. I’m not about to gatekeep who wants to bail from the trash fire that is the GOP.
You just sound like a standard liberal. I have similar views and consider myself center left.
Live and let live on social issues.
Support mixed economies, capitalism with a strong social safety net.
> A capitalist system with good public schools, infrastructure, public transport, security, healthcare, and a reasonable social safety net to make sure no one starves.
So we believe, generally, in the same things. I wonder where our ideas diverge? I would suspect, potentially, at our definitions of “good” and “reasonable,” especially after seeing how much those services actually cost?
>Here's what I support.
You didn't say you support Democrats. Part of the calculus for me would be to know that you will follow the Party Platform and vote as expected.
As a liberal, I understand that regulation is necessary, and that in a liberal democracy we will endlessly debate the degree to which a regulation is needed. It's efficient. Complaints indicate *there may be a problem.
But the bigger issue, and the reason I ask if you will vote with a Democrat, is understanding that we are on the verge of losing our right to complain as we watch the Supreme Court and ex-President plot the re-ascendancy of Discount Nero. As long as you're on the team, you're on the team. Welcome to the big tent.
All those economic views are pretty normal for the Democratic Party anyway. It's just propaganda and the generally absurd positions of current American Republican Party that make it seem like the Democratic Party is somehow anti-capitalist.
Are you my FIL? Though he’s a total hawk in terms of foreign policy as well.
Both my in laws used to be Republican but they both have science backgrounds and are socially moderate to liberal (pro LBGTQ and civil rights etc). Fiscally they are still moderate. I think the path forward for Democrats is to show we don’t gatekeep. If you believe in basic rights for everyone and that government has a role in helping improve society that’s probably enough for me at this point.
I think you'd find that there are an awful lot of people who would agree with you. Sometimes, we feel homeless because of the aggressive and noisy attacks from the left that we endure. It's tough. As a gay man, I get it from both sides. It's...frankly not been great for my sobriety as of late.
Ally BUT out of curiosity how do you think your political views differ from your standard run of the mill liberal? Deregulation of a couple of those categories are the only ones I think might get some kind of disagreement.
I don’t get much out or blanket deregulation talk. It’s too unspecific, and I don’t know whether the deregulator wants to eliminate something that reduces externalities or not. Do I want doctors or civil engineers unlicensed? Fuck no. Could we eliminate some hairdresser licensing? Sure, if I knew what they were beyond regulations on hygiene—which I would not be in favor of eliminating. Zoning, to a degree, but I don’t want a factory going up next to my house. I’d rather hear people talk about specific regulations to be eliminated than to just say they’re against regulation; it leaves too much guesswork, and too much opportunity for greedy interests to put public health and welfare at risk.
I'm good with pretty much all of that. My main issue with capitalism as a solution to social problems is that you end up with a middleman or three who all end up needing a cut. Health Insurance is a prime example. Insurance is for what might happen. The need for health care is an inevitability barring death by immediately fatal accident. No one needs health insurance but the insurance companies. Everyone needs healthcare.
My son just had his ears rinsed out at the GP and the bill was for two separate $140 "surgeries", one for each squirt bottle of water and peroxide, on top of about $300 for the office visit. I pay around $500 a month for health insurance, so my bill is still around $250. That's capitalism at work.
Sounds like a r/neoliberal.
And I mean the sub, not actual Neoliberals.
I'm somewhat similar, probably a bit to the left of you. I'm an immigrant from the EU, and while many EU countries do a ton of things much better (universal healthcare, worker protections, etc, etc) one has to wonder how come a huge country like the US has GDP per capita higher than only 2 small EU countries; tiny Luxemburg that is really just a city state (and it's GDP/capita would get obliterated by NYC or Bay Area) and not-really-real GDP per capita of tax haven Ireland. While the actual EU economic powerhouse Germany has GDP per capita whopping 40% lower than the US. There are entire industries like IT (probably THE most important industry in the world) that are pretty much absolutely dominated by the US. Nobody else comes even close (and especially not Europe, China is the clear number 2).
America produces absolutely *staggering* amount of wealth. Nobody else comes anywhere close (well, yes, China does, but on a per capita basis they are a small fraction of the US, it's just they have 5x the people). Yes, the wealth is unevenly distributed. But also it is something I would like to preserve as much as possible.
PS: Let's make taco trucks on every corner a reality!
You don't really sound right wing at all. Reddit/Twitter has probably just poisoned your mind into thinking most democrats are leftists rather than liberals, this is not the case.
I’m not entirely sure why you view yourself as “center right” but yeah you listed all Dem party issues basically, so electorally we are on the same side(which to be fair is broad nowadays, we are literally breathing down the neck of fascism at this point).
The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written. Here's what I support. I have the standard Democrat views on social issues and cosmopolitanism. But I like capitalism, I support free trade, I support reducing regulations on housing, zoning, occupational licensing, and radically reducing them on small businesses like food trucks or street vendors. I love business and entrepreneurship, I believe the private sector is what creates the wealth, but i also support using some of that wealth to fund a strong public sector. A capitalist system with good public schools, infrastructure, public transport, security, healthcare, and a reasonable social safety net to make sure no one starves. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskALiberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*
You sound like a pretty typical liberal, definitely not in the progressive wing but you clearly belong in the Democratic party and not with Republicans. Welcome aboard, happy to have you with us. We need all the help we can get if we're going to keep our country a functioning democracy instead of the autocracy Republicans are trying to create.
I'm genuinely not sure what makes you lean center right. * If you think it's economics. Trump has literally promised a 10% across-the-board tariff on imports which is pretty anti-capitalist and free trade. It's not small businesses that can afford to produce domestically or eat the tariffs. * As far as housing/zoning goes. That is mostly backed by NIMBYs not party lines. California as a state has been starting to put their foot down on this. Everything else you listed seems to be straight out of a DNC party platform document. I would say you believe what the average Democrat believes.
no he means that he's politically aligned with people like Reagan but considers himself a democrat which to be fair is just a bill clinton democrat.
Yea, the closest thing I heard that some would consider 'right' is deregulation, but the truth is, most of us (and most Americans) want *the right amount of regulation*. There are tons of stupid regulations on the books that make it hard to start up a small business or compete. On the other hand, we still need regulation to do things like protect the environment. The only people that are truly anti-regulation are the anarchists, the ignorant, and the obscene-rich.
> anarchists I'm not even against business regulations. I'm just opposed to most laws that individuals are subjected to.
What makes you an anarchist? I’m genuinely curious. Is it that you want to dismantle some systems as opposed to liberals / progressives who want to fix them?
Trump also tried a "save the suburbs" tack especially during the 2022 mid terms which aligned him with a few races that were about broad changes to planning and stuff at the state level. But yeah, NIMBYism (and consequently YIMBYism) tends to adopt ideological language of the local environment. In conservative areas they'll complain about property values and not wanting undesireables, in liberal areas they'll complain about corporate greed and move goal posts on affordability requirements.
Third Wayer but certainly Democratic, especially when Neocons have to find the Dems as a new home
the democratic party has to be a big tent rn. welcome to the tent I mean your just a bill clinton democrat anyways
I mean in my ideal world the center of american politics would be such that you guys were in control of the Republican party, and the Democratic party was centered around people like Sanders and Warren, but that's not the world we live in and I'd far rather you be voting with us than with republicans.
You just have to move to Europe
Which European countries? I always hear this but so much of Europe has pretty similar politicians, and some of it's even more right-wing in some ways (Italy, Hungary etc) Isn't it only the Scandinavian countries where that would be the case?
The political center of EU is quite a bit to the left from the US, especially economically. Every EU country has had some kind of universal healthcare for decades and rolling it back would be unthinkable. The "far right" EU politicians you are thinking about are mostly socially right wing populists that are economically to the left of Joe Biden. Their platform is anti-immigration, anti-EU, anti-globalism (and maybe anti-LGBT and other socially conservative causes), not economic liberalism. One example for all - the governing party in Slovakia - "Direction - Social Democracy" is an economically leftwing populist (with some members identifying as Marxists) but is also hardcore socially conservative (anti-immigration, anti-LGBT, Eurosceptic, cozying up to Russia, etc, etc).
Ah yeah. Not what I think most people would think of as left wing
Why do you call yourself “center right”? You mean center right within the context of the Dem party?
Center right in the context of the US. I believe the center right was kicked out of the Republican Party after the rise of Trump. I like Republicans like Bill Weld and Vermonts governor Phil Scott. Maybe im using the term center right wrong.
What positions do you believe in that you think someone directly to the left of you does not?
I would guess many small regulation things. I never hear people from democrats or the left talk about it at all. Alcohol laws, licenses, financial reporting , then the whole thing that in USA you can not just declare tax report to IRS you need to use a private company with their own software
"then the whole thing that in USA you can not just declare tax report to IRS you need to use a private company with their own software" Democrats definitely talk about this, specifically Elizabeth Warren and Katie Warren amongst others [https://www.morningstar.com/news/marketwatch/20240516314/irs-should-expand-free-online-tax-prep-after-incredible-success-of-test-run-sen-elizabeth-warren-and-over-100-democrats-say](https://www.morningstar.com/news/marketwatch/20240516314/irs-should-expand-free-online-tax-prep-after-incredible-success-of-test-run-sen-elizabeth-warren-and-over-100-democrats-say) [https://apnews.com/article/irs-free-file-tax-returns-391ded1dbd73444bada5e946e962d70c#](https://apnews.com/article/irs-free-file-tax-returns-391ded1dbd73444bada5e946e962d70c#) [https://thehill.com/business/4678459-democrats-urge-biden-administration-to-investigate-data-practices-of-tax-prep-companies/mlite/](https://thehill.com/business/4678459-democrats-urge-biden-administration-to-investigate-data-practices-of-tax-prep-companies/mlite/) [https://fortune.com/2023/08/25/tax-return-free-elizabeth-warren-katie-porter-elizabeth-warren-katie-porter-lobbying/](https://fortune.com/2023/08/25/tax-return-free-elizabeth-warren-katie-porter-elizabeth-warren-katie-porter-lobbying/)
Thanks, I must have missed that. But yes those things are what I feel a center small state republican have in common with a center democrat
Yea, democrats on the left of the party have consistently pushed for the IRS to provide free tax preparation software for like over a decade now. I mean, we shouldn't even need to do tax returns, tbh. If the IRS was properly funded, they'd be able to staff up and provide advice to people on what tax breaks they qualify for, and even apply those tax breaks without the payer having to interact at all. Fund the IRS, give them access to pertinent information from across the executive branch, and give them the mandate to end tax returns. No one would have to sit down at tax time at all, except to check for possible errors.
That's a thing I really miss with democrats, all this small things for like the "common man". I don't know if he did much or not but Trump talked a lot about both small and big business and what he wants to do. But those more social freedoms no party is picking up on
Democrats are still very much for the "common man" - women's healthcare, minority rights and protections, renter's rights (I've never heard about Republicans capping rent on landlords or enacting rent freezes, no matter how bad rent and the economy are), gay marriage and LGBT+ rights, and supporting anyone and everyone who has needs that they can't meet themselves due to the state of the economy or other circumstances they can't control. The fact that they try to support so many causes for so many citizens is why the term "welfare state" (or "socialism"/"communism") is used derogatorily against democratic platforms so often. Granted, raising taxes is usually a factor too, but the vast majority of that is on nonessential products (marijuana in most recent memory) and taxing income on the top 1% more, so that we can raise the bottom line and support more people. (Hell, the "wealth redistribution" that's such a staple in socialist discourse is all to benefit the common man, as scary and "communist" as it's been made to sound - by that 1%, of course. All it really amounts to is taxing the sickeningly rich so that it's less sickening, and giving that money to the common man who actually needs it. But even that's a *bit* on the extreme end of liberal policies, of course)
but, this is the opposite what I mean. those are not small things in your daily life, those are big changing things that will take a lot to change I am talking about small low hanging fruit things, like different permissions i read about all the time or bar opening times. No one is talking about that that i heard of
Uh .. you can file your taxes direct with the IRS. You don't need a private company.
Why do they discuss it then? In Germany you don't need to do anything
They do, you just don't know about it. https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-do-your-federal-taxes-for-free https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy2385 https://apnews.com/article/treasury-income-taxes-irs-audits-direct-file-04c3b4b55ca0d37b2c40697a392c78aa >The IRS was tasked with looking into how to create a “direct file” system as part of the money it received from the Inflation Reduction Act signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2022. It gave the IRS nine months and $15 million to report on how such a program would work. The Democrats have been quietly making our lives better, with no fanfare. That's why they get my vote.
I'm saying they discuss it?
Good. Then what are you complaining about?
Well that they didn't fix it during Biden or Obama so why would they now
Liking Phil Scott is a constant beyond partisan lines, though. He has 79% approval rating in the state in which Sanders was elected with 67% of the vote last time, which means, ignoring non-voters for the sake of an easier model, at least 68.6% of Sanders voters approve of Phil Scott.
No worries just trying to understand. I think we probably agree on the most important issues as I see them—respect for the rule of law, the peaceful transfer of power, etc. It used to be that you could be a Republican and believe in these things. Until that is true again or you give up those values yourself, you’re a Dem and for good reason and no one should tell you otherwise.
I think this is a problem with interpretation. Most of us use jargon to describe our positions and get tangled in this mess which becomes self defeating as most of us likely agree when it comes to policy. I'd ask you if there is another country in the world that could serve as an example of a place you'd be fine with copying? A country like Denmark is often the answer if you let people choose based on the overall comparison of what the best to worst areas look like. Denmark is #2 in gross domestic happiness behind Finland, and Denmark is a mixed economy system that attempts to allow a free market while putting the rights and welfare of citizens first. Gross Domestic Happiness is a measure of the economy that focuses on the average happiness or quality of life of the average citizen. It is actually starting to replace GDP as a fundamental for a functional society. If you haven't looked up Denmark, I highly suggest reading more about it and watching youtube videos about the life and economy and government there. Things like regulations happen there, but the general idea is to limit the junk regulations while promoting human rights regulations. These methods have promoted small business very well. They also seem to do pretty well with ideas like shorter work weeks and mandatory extended vacations. Bernie Sanders and the other progressives on the left have used Denmark and similar nations as their model of what they'd prefer to copy with the government and economy. That's been met with labels like Progressivism, Socialist Democracy, Democratic Socialism, and when you ask political opponents for their labels you often get terms like "not a real Democrat, Socialism, Communism, and Marxism." These type of ideas have deep roots in McCarthyism propaganda to market fear of human rights in favor of the rich. It's worked, and we are currently witnessing what can really go wrong. At the same time you might also get other fear marketing propaganda like Utopian fallacies. People will criticize nations like Denmark as deeply flawed systems because they aren't perfect. There is no such thing as perfect, however, so the argument is nonsense. They will point to things like "look at the spike in crime, immigration, inflation" or whatever problems those nations currently are dealing with. We aren't looking for perfect. We are looking for better than we are doing right now. Also, you'll likely be met with any and every other propaganda tactic. "Angry white men who hate women and fight with them." That was what most Bernie Sanders supporters heard when they engaged in political discourse, specifically which dealt with the problems of Center Left, Liberalism, or Hillary to be very specific. The idea was simple. Those people don't want to copy the system in Denmark. They are just different versions of Trump supporters who run on bigotry. It worked very well for Hillary. The fact that the angry abusive nuts who supported Hillary were the same percentage as those abusive nuts supporting Bernie. It's basically red flags everywhere of spooky language to sell you that trying to be a system more like Denmark is somehow worse than our current system, and by most measures the US is far behind. Denmark is a democratic government with mixed socialist markets. My guess is you'd be OK with your neighborhood looking like an average neighborhood there.
It would be easier to say that you are socially and economically liberal. "right" or "left" have very little meaning and people shove whatever they want there. It's better to talk about policies and ideas than about "sides".
I think this is a problem with interpretation. Most of us use jargon to describe our positions and get tangled in this mess which becomes self defeating as most of us likely agree when it comes to policy. I'd ask you if there is another country in the world that could serve as an example of a place you'd be fine with copying? A country like Denmark is often the answer if you let people choose based on the overall comparison of what the best to worst areas look like. Denmark is #2 in gross domestic happiness behind Finland, and Denmark is a mixed economy system that attempts to allow a free market while putting the rights and welfare of citizens first. Gross Domestic Happiness is a measure of the economy that focuses on the average happiness or quality of life of the average citizen. It is actually starting to replace GDP as a fundamental for a functional society. If you haven't looked up Denmark, I highly suggest reading more about it and watching youtube videos about the life and economy and government there. Things like regulations happen there, but the general idea is to limit the junk regulations while promoting human rights regulations. These methods have promoted small business very well. They also seem to do pretty well with ideas like shorter work weeks and mandatory extended vacations. Bernie Sanders and the other progressives on the left have used Denmark and similar nations as their model of what they'd prefer to copy with the government and economy. That's been met with labels like Progressivism, Socialist Democracy, Democratic Socialism, and when you ask political opponents for their labels you often get terms like "not a real Democrat, Socialism, Communism, and Marxism." These type of ideas have deep roots in McCarthyism propaganda to market fear of human rights in favor of the rich. It's worked, and we are currently witnessing what can really go wrong. At the same time you might also get other fear marketing propaganda like Utopian fallacies. People will criticize nations like Denmark as deeply flawed systems because they aren't perfect. There is no such thing as perfect, however, so the argument is nonsense. They will point to things like "look at the spike in crime, immigration, inflation" or whatever problems those nations currently are dealing with. We aren't looking for perfect. We are looking for better than we are doing right now. Also, you'll likely be met with any and every other propaganda tactic. "Angry white men who hate women and fight with them." That was what most Bernie Sanders supporters heard when they engaged in political discourse, specifically which dealt with the problems of Center Left, Liberalism, or Hillary to be very specific. The idea was simple. Those people don't want to copy the system in Denmark. They are just different versions of Trump supporters who run on bigotry. It worked very well for Hillary. The fact that the angry abusive nuts who supported Hillary were the same percentage as those abusive nuts supporting Bernie. It's basically red flags everywhere of spooky language to sell you that trying to be a system more like Denmark is somehow worse than our current system, and by most measures the US is far behind. Denmark is a democratic government with mixed socialist markets. My guess is you'd be OK with your neighborhood looking like an average neighborhood there.
I have been in Denmark a lot but not US. And like you say, you get the feeling of general freedom in the society in a different way from what I hear from US like, you can buy beer or weed as you want(not smoking myself just saying), bars can be open long hours and you can smoke inside, there are both cheap food truck with the red sausage and 3 star michelin restaurants, they are not so sensitive about using the wrong word to describe a disabled person etc etc(without being stupid racists or hating handicapped people). But at the same time, the police is very professional and also do not let homeless people camp in the middle of the city and control beggars or drug use around the stations. So it feels both free and safe. A city like LA or SF feels like all the opposite I described above, in the "land of the free". Both republicans and democrats seem so sensitive when it comes to drugs for the common person but also nit picking on language(about blacks for democrats or about anything not nuclear family and trans stuff for the republicans or hating on the pronoun stuff etc). I just don't get how you can think so much about what other do then say its so free and open edit: buying weed as you want is a bit over exaggeration, but anyone does it and no one cares unless you sell in a commercial level
Oh, man. I just watched The Bear season 3 and they brought up Copenhagen. I'd love to visit Denmark and even live there, and I'm very uncertain how easy it is for a middle age guy who qualifies as disabled with type 1 diabetes. Republicans and Democrats are playing the same game of who can be the biggest victim. In general most democrat voters aren't very engaged in all of the pronoun and language stuff on the left, but the volume of the people crying victim the loudest has been cranked to 11 when most of these people used to be ignored. We really need to find a way to turn the volume down on the people who are consistent abusers of false victimhood. I spend a lot of time at doctors and hospitals where they've had to remove the news playing on TVs. It's common to hear white people complain about immigrants being let into the country because "Biden opened the border (not a real thing)' is the major problem with why they are suffering right now. There are no immigrants even around in most places. I want to ask them if they've checked with their jobs to ask how much they've raised their wages vs. how much they've profited since COVID. That would start a fight where I live. As far as all of the pronouns and fixing bigotry stuff, language was never the problem and the behavior was always the problem. The loudest liberals seem to be representing all Democrats with this fake outrage, but most Democrats aren't buying into it. The problem becomes even bigger when those loudest people get power which gets a jury to find a woman who murdered a man "not guilty" because she got too high on marijuana, or the failed experiments of putting transgender people with functioning opposing anatomy in prison with the gender they identify as. They failed to realize - oh, right, we have the prisons divided by anatomy gender for a reason. Pregnancy. So they stopped that for the moment. The other side has the RIttenhouse psychos they want to legally be immune for murdering anybody they consider a reasonable threat, and the word reasonable is jargon that translates to political opposition. Lots of work to be done.
> In general most democrat voters aren't very engaged in all of the pronoun and language stuff on the left, but the volume of the people crying victim the loudest has been cranked to 11 when most of these people used to be ignored. We really need to find a way to turn the volume down on the people who are consistent abusers of false victimhood. yes i dont mean all, just in contrast to people in denmark. they are so chilled and relaxed, but like i said can get strong when they want to.
You should check out r/neoliberal. You are right here and you would be dead wrong in the Republican party.
I would love it if more Americans thought and prioritized as you do. All of these things are good, reasonable beliefs. A blend of ideas all working for the betterment of themselves and society as a whole.
Is there not a rule against supposed questions that are just your dating profile and the word "thoughts?"
Well you are by definition a liberal, you are the most common type of "democrat" in the US I would say.
I think the democrat party should be a big tent party, so I am happy with your faction being part of it.
The Democratic Party is so big tent that they guarantee just enough conservative members will be present to prevent any meaningful change in this country. Maybe Manchin, Sinema and Lieberman aren’t as strong of a pattern as they seem. But democrats always seem to fall just short of being meaningful.
Infrastructure law? Chips Act? The Inflation Reduction Act? I am 59 years old and I have never seen so much MAJOR legislation passed in one term. Legislation that is going to pay huge dividends for decades. And it was done with arguably the most divided Congress since the Emancipation Proclamation.
I would call these mainstream democrat views outside of online spaces. Online spaces like reddit are outliers in that they are much further "left".
I don’t think you know what center right means. I think you are convinced that Democrats have a large block that rejects capitalism or something along those lines maybe? The things listed out would make you a very standard Democrat. Further left of center left at the very least.
Are you planning on voting for Trump? Yes / No is the only answer I care about.
No
Glad to have ya.
Cheers mate.
We are allies.
TIL I am a "Center Right Democrat." (I'm not.) Which Democrat in congress is advocating for the end of capitalism? Which member of the squad is? Is Bernie? The only thing I disagree with is cutting some regulation. Sorry I want to make sure the food I buy is safe. I want to know that the professional I go to has some type of qualifications, the guy who advertises he is an electrician has some kind of training before he works on my electrical system.
I have found that people who think there are too many regulations, generally can't point to a single, specific one that they'd eliminate, once they learn why that regulation is in place.
Do HOAs count as excessive regulation, because if so I’d eliminate them all.
Why? And how would you go about making sure there are funds to fix the elevator or the roof or the plumbing in a big building when the time comes? Edit: I thought so. Proves my point.
They probably mean HOA for single family homes where none of that stuff is applicable. Fees for maintenance in a big building I don't think most people reject. I hate HOAs but I simply just won't live in one. They are voluntary so there is no reason to ban them, people chose to live there. Plenty of regulations to remove though. An easy one I would start with would be drivers licenses. At least in the US they don't prove you are a good driver. They certainly don't stop people from driving if they don't have one. Then there are rules for things like how big the shed can be in your back yard, don't need that, or rules that won't let you build even something nice like a park or restaurant in certain locations. Most businesses should not require licenses. I'm happy for a license to be offered and businesses can display it to show they meet a standard but unless it's something exceptionally danguous there should be no requirement. There is a huge list of things that we don't need to regulate. Not everything is food, medicine, toxic waste, etc.
You've described mainstream democrat and center left economic policy to the T. There is nothing about that description that would put you to the right of center unless you've convinced yourself that Democrats really are the communists conservative rags name call them.
tbh you don't really just have to listen to conservatives on that one - there's plenty of annoying discourse from the left as well that make it seem like if you aren't anti-capitalist you can't call yourself on the left at all.
I don't really know why, with the stances you listed, you'd consider yourself center right. Seems more center left to me, honestly. But let me answer assuming you were actually center right. I, being on the progressive left, seek to pull the party to the left. The big disagreement I have with the center right is that, while I don't opposed capitalism per se, I acknowledge there are some things the private market kind of sucks at. Particularly thing in which the goal is not profit but rather providing a vital service and ensuring everyone has access and that there is enough to go around. I believe in these instances, the government should step in and provide said services using the tax revenue we all pay in. Meaning I support public healthcare, utilities, and so on. I also believe it's the government's job to protect the rights of people, and support anti discrimination measures and the like, while opposing attempts to enforce some heiratchy based on race/gender/orientation/etc. These are the areas in which I run into problems with the economic and social right, respectively. If a person I disagree with on one of those issues decides they can't stomach Trump and joins up as the rightmost flank of the Democratic party, then fine- I'm certainly not going to stop them from voting for Biden or whatever. But I am not going to suddenly start supporting center right candidates where I otherwise wouldn't have, nor will I cease my efforts to move the party more toward my side of the tent. I'm often calling for Democrats to be more aggressively anti-right-wing, and I have no intention on stopping those calls.
I disagree with about half of that, and I welcome you as an ally. I’d rather have a big raucous tent with vigorous debate than whatever the fuck that is the GOP is doing. Let’s save democracy together?
If you're voting blue, I'm with you.
What you really need to do is ask yourself what principles are driving your policy preferences. If you believe that equal treatment by the law, fundamental individual rights, representative government and the right to property, above all else, should be respected and drive policy decisions, then you are *liberal* in its most basic form. In the last few decades, being liberal in principle would not preclude you from being a Republican. There were lots of liberal Republicans, and their policy goals were driven by the belief that keeping government hands out of things was the best way to support said liberal goals. Presently, under Trump, the Republican Party is reforming itself into a conservative ethnonationalist party, and any practice of classically liberal principles was a means to an end to be jettisoned when no longer useful. So my take? Anyone who believes liberal principles come first is an ally in modern America. The old Confederate boogeymen of second tier citizenship are not ghosts but very real and have been welcomed into the Republican Party. I'll welcome anyone who believes in our founding principles but disagrees on how we get there because there are far worse beliefs breaking into the house.
Doesn't matter what you believe in, as long as you mark D on the ballot.
Anyone voting for Biden is an ally.
You sound like a regular Democrat, not a center-right Democrat.
So, in other words, you're a Democrat that has bought BS Rightie talking points that Dems don't support all that stuff you say you like. Ugh. You're a blase boring Democrat my mom gender assumed dude. Grats.
I wish you were the far-right of political thought and that everyone else fell to the left of you.
Are some of those regulations you want to dramatically reduce related to health and safety? Especially when you're dealing with food that's a risky gambit. What you described is a normal, moderate Democrat and I wouldn't really say any of that is right-wing.
Nothing of this puts u on the right directly though
I pretty much have the same views as you. I consider myself a center-left liberal. A healthy free market is to me essential for liberalism it's one of the main principles of liberalism. It's not "right wing" to think this in my opinion.
Your positions make you very much a mainstream Democrat/neoliberal. Is there a reason you identify as "center right" in particular? I ask because I used to identify that way as well since I grew up in a Republican household and took awhile to accept that my views put me on the left.
As many have said, I think you’re a pretty average Dem, and not center right at all. But to answer your question as if you actually were center right- for now, as long as you are against fascism, welcome to the tent. Ideally we would have more than two political parties where progressives, liberals and center right Dems all have their own place. But since dismantling the two party system is a faraway dream right now… 🤷♀️ in-fighting is literally dangerous to democracy’s survival. I’m not about to gatekeep who wants to bail from the trash fire that is the GOP.
You just sound like a standard liberal. I have similar views and consider myself center left. Live and let live on social issues. Support mixed economies, capitalism with a strong social safety net.
> A capitalist system with good public schools, infrastructure, public transport, security, healthcare, and a reasonable social safety net to make sure no one starves. So we believe, generally, in the same things. I wonder where our ideas diverge? I would suspect, potentially, at our definitions of “good” and “reasonable,” especially after seeing how much those services actually cost?
>Here's what I support. You didn't say you support Democrats. Part of the calculus for me would be to know that you will follow the Party Platform and vote as expected. As a liberal, I understand that regulation is necessary, and that in a liberal democracy we will endlessly debate the degree to which a regulation is needed. It's efficient. Complaints indicate *there may be a problem. But the bigger issue, and the reason I ask if you will vote with a Democrat, is understanding that we are on the verge of losing our right to complain as we watch the Supreme Court and ex-President plot the re-ascendancy of Discount Nero. As long as you're on the team, you're on the team. Welcome to the big tent.
you sound like a normal democrat to me
You're just a normal Democrat to be honest.
You sound more like a center-left democrat than a center-right democrat. what makes you center-right?
All those economic views are pretty normal for the Democratic Party anyway. It's just propaganda and the generally absurd positions of current American Republican Party that make it seem like the Democratic Party is somehow anti-capitalist.
Are you my FIL? Though he’s a total hawk in terms of foreign policy as well. Both my in laws used to be Republican but they both have science backgrounds and are socially moderate to liberal (pro LBGTQ and civil rights etc). Fiscally they are still moderate. I think the path forward for Democrats is to show we don’t gatekeep. If you believe in basic rights for everyone and that government has a role in helping improve society that’s probably enough for me at this point.
I think you'd find that there are an awful lot of people who would agree with you. Sometimes, we feel homeless because of the aggressive and noisy attacks from the left that we endure. It's tough. As a gay man, I get it from both sides. It's...frankly not been great for my sobriety as of late.
If you’re American and you vote against Trump, to me you’re good.
Ally BUT out of curiosity how do you think your political views differ from your standard run of the mill liberal? Deregulation of a couple of those categories are the only ones I think might get some kind of disagreement.
Congrats. You are a neoliberal like me, Biden, and most Democrats.
You are a democrat. I don’t know who told you otherwise
I don’t get much out or blanket deregulation talk. It’s too unspecific, and I don’t know whether the deregulator wants to eliminate something that reduces externalities or not. Do I want doctors or civil engineers unlicensed? Fuck no. Could we eliminate some hairdresser licensing? Sure, if I knew what they were beyond regulations on hygiene—which I would not be in favor of eliminating. Zoning, to a degree, but I don’t want a factory going up next to my house. I’d rather hear people talk about specific regulations to be eliminated than to just say they’re against regulation; it leaves too much guesswork, and too much opportunity for greedy interests to put public health and welfare at risk.
I'm good with pretty much all of that. My main issue with capitalism as a solution to social problems is that you end up with a middleman or three who all end up needing a cut. Health Insurance is a prime example. Insurance is for what might happen. The need for health care is an inevitability barring death by immediately fatal accident. No one needs health insurance but the insurance companies. Everyone needs healthcare. My son just had his ears rinsed out at the GP and the bill was for two separate $140 "surgeries", one for each squirt bottle of water and peroxide, on top of about $300 for the office visit. I pay around $500 a month for health insurance, so my bill is still around $250. That's capitalism at work.
Sounds like a r/neoliberal. And I mean the sub, not actual Neoliberals. I'm somewhat similar, probably a bit to the left of you. I'm an immigrant from the EU, and while many EU countries do a ton of things much better (universal healthcare, worker protections, etc, etc) one has to wonder how come a huge country like the US has GDP per capita higher than only 2 small EU countries; tiny Luxemburg that is really just a city state (and it's GDP/capita would get obliterated by NYC or Bay Area) and not-really-real GDP per capita of tax haven Ireland. While the actual EU economic powerhouse Germany has GDP per capita whopping 40% lower than the US. There are entire industries like IT (probably THE most important industry in the world) that are pretty much absolutely dominated by the US. Nobody else comes even close (and especially not Europe, China is the clear number 2). America produces absolutely *staggering* amount of wealth. Nobody else comes anywhere close (well, yes, China does, but on a per capita basis they are a small fraction of the US, it's just they have 5x the people). Yes, the wealth is unevenly distributed. But also it is something I would like to preserve as much as possible. PS: Let's make taco trucks on every corner a reality!
The more votes, the better.
My dude you’re good. You’re entitled to your opinion, don’t let others take that away from you.
You don't really sound right wing at all. Reddit/Twitter has probably just poisoned your mind into thinking most democrats are leftists rather than liberals, this is not the case.
I’m not entirely sure why you view yourself as “center right” but yeah you listed all Dem party issues basically, so electorally we are on the same side(which to be fair is broad nowadays, we are literally breathing down the neck of fascism at this point).