If you think that many European countries are more right leaning than the US over the past half-century I woudl have to say 'not true'. — I like sushi

For the most part, Europe is not socialist. Private ownership of the means of production is the rule there. What you're calling socialism is actually just government hand-outs.

I think you are just looking for an argument that doe snot exist. I never cliamed any country in Europes was socialist. I literally just quoted what I said in the context I said it.

I think you are just looking for an argument that doe snot exist. I never cliamed any country in Europes was socialist. I literally just quoted what I said in the context I said it. — I like sushi

How are we supposed to have a conversation if we're in agreement?

How are we to have any reasonable chance of disagreeing if you cannot take what I say as I say it.

If you wan tto show evidence that the US governements ,over the past 50 yrs or so, has been more left leaning than European countries go ahead. Would be interesting to see.

If you wan tto show evidence that the US governements ,over the past 50 yrs or so, has been more left leaning than European countries go ahead. Would be interesting to see. — I like sushi

I didn't say it was more left leaning. My point was that except for maybe France, Europe is not left of the US in any significant way. Europe is a land of private ownership.

I said over the last 50 yrs. Even now it is more or less the case across Europe (particularly I was looking west/north/south).

In the US the democrats have always been centrist (at best) in comparison europe. When has there been a significant (or any) government representatives in positions of governmental power (voted in) in the US who were clearly Leftist? If there were how do those numbers compare to European countries where a constant significant proportion of Left leaning representatives have been voted in.

In terms of welfare state policies there is no real contest. In terms of economic distibrution the same is true enough.

So, no. I strongly stand by my initial claim. The US has been more right leaning compared to Europe for the past 50 yrs or so.

If there were how do those numbers compare to European countries where a constant significant proportion of Left leaning representatives have been voted in. — I like sushi

And yet there's still little in the way of socialism in Europe. That's because the EU controls economic policy, and it's firmly neo-liberal. Again, what you're pointing to as evidence of European leftism is just government handouts in an otherwise liberal domain.

Watch what happens to the handouts as European nations attempt to create their own defense. :confused:

It's not just a questionable effect on the economy. The British grooming scandal wasn't economical. There are real concerns with male immigrants from countries with institutionalized misogyny. — RogueAI

Never underestimate the impact of the economy, as these tensions flare up in economically distressed areas. There's a lot of foreigners in Mayfair and other posh sites in Central London with a lot of foreigners, but .

In a way the grooming scandal was more about the actions of the police and the officials. There's an antidote to this: the police will openly go public with the statistics of who are the criminals, what crimes have immigrants done and simply don't have double standards when it comes to immigrants. The credibility of the police isn't then on the line and this takes way the opportunity of conspiracy theorists to take hold on the public discourse.

What of immigrant groups that claim to possess absolute truth and consider it their prerogative to spread or impose it on the native population? — BitconnectCarlos

What immigrant group are you talking about acting this way? Americans in Latin America or what? I think you confuse those vocal people speaking on the behalf of immigrants, when it comes to Western countries.

Usually migrants do understand the age old truth of "When in Rome, do as the Romans do". Especially when it is religion that makes the people not to behave this way, then there's friction. Yet if the foreigners, just like tourists or foreign investors, do bring money into the economy, they usually are tolerated. If not, then these differences emerge far quicker.

Just think of what would be the attitude towards tourists, if they wouldn't buy souvenirs and use local services. Who would tolerate cheap vagrants just strolling everywhere eating their own food or worse, just begging for food? In India they absolutely hate the Western people who live as hippies with a shoestring budget and are on a "spiritual trip" in the country.

And yet there's still little in the way of socialism in Europe. — frank

You are obsessing about this. I said leaning towards socialism not that there are socialist countries in Europe. No point in discussing further if all you can do is keep repeating the same thign as if I said 'Europe is Socialist and the US is not Socialist'. That is not what I said at all.

Again, what you're pointing to as evidence of European leftism is just government handouts in an otherwise liberal domain. — frank

Incorrect. I actually said the number of officials voted for (based on policies; which is kind of rare in the US as the campiagn system is basically little more than advertising rather than presenting any kind of manifesto) to represent the population and that are therefore in government positions.

Let me surmise:

- Actual left leaning representives voted into office in the government (Europe is hands down the winner here both now and over the last half century).
- No contest in terms of welfare state.
- No contest in terms of economic distribution.

If you wish to contest these then go ahead. If you say Europe has no socialist governments once more I am just going to disengage and assume you have no real response to anything I am stating.

And yet there's still little in the way of socialism in Europe. That's because the EU controls economic policy, and it's firmly neo-liberal. Again, what you're pointing to as evidence of European leftism is just government handouts in an otherwise liberal domain. — frank

One note to the discussion that you and @I like sushi are having: the political discourse is obviously quite different between the continents, but the actual government spending is quite the same. Which is quite surprising as the US doesn't have universal health care etc. Even if the US usually denies it and thinks the European countries are the "welfare nanny-states", the similarities are obvious.



Just compare this to let's say German budget in 2020, when the rearmament issue hadn't emerged:

he had our Dear Leader pegged as a narcissist years ago — Ciceronianus

Conflating Trump to Kim Jong Un is just ridiculous. In another twenty years, you will see Trump in the same way Democrats currently see George W. Bush, as who you'd prefer to have over the current guy. Not because the future guy will be genuinely more extreme but just because you have no real long term perspective.

Did you vote for Trump in 2024? — RogueAI

Over Kamala Harris? Over any Democrat? Hell yes I did. I had to hold my nose a little because of some problems with Trump, but as far as I am concerned, if your reality denial is so deep that you can't say what a woman is then you have to be kept out of power over anything anywhere ever, no matter how trivial.

You didn't mention the conspiracy theory lunacy that has taken over much of the Right. Don't you think that's a big problem? — RogueAI

Frankly, no. Ever heard of Snowden, Wikileaks, GameJournoPros, JounoList, Madoff, Epstein, Sam Bankman-Fried, the laptop from Hell or the Twitter Files? Hell, have you ever heard of Watergate?

How many documented credible disclosures does it take for basic pattern recognition to start working for you?

The age of conspiracy theory is over. We are now living in the age of conspiracy fact.

You should know that from the outside BOTH parties in the US are very much Right Wing. — I like sushi

This only means that neither party is explicitly Communist nor socialist in its policies. On the one issue of economics, libertarianism has dominated in both parties for a long time.

But the American Left is very, very far from center on social issues -- and that's what I care about. It gets its leftism not direct from Marx, but from the Frankfurt School & critical theory. Which is, despite not being economic, still very far from anything any reasonable human on Earth could consider centrist.

Over Kamala Harris? Over any Democrat? Hell yes I did. I had to hold my nose a little because of some problems with Trump, but as far as I am concerned, if your reality denial is so deep that you can't say what a woman is then you have to be kept out of power over anything anywhere ever, no matter how trivial. — BenMcLean

This is always strange to me, and before we go further, I want to ask if you think the 2020 election was stolen and if you think Trump tried to steal that election. I'm thinking primarily of his phone call to Raffensperger asking him to find exactly the number of votes Trump needed to win, his pressuring of Mike Pence to not certify the election, and the various fake elector schemes. Do you think any of that constitutes an illegal effort on Trump's part to stay in power.

But the American Left is very, very far from center on social issues -- and that's what I care about. It gets its leftism not direct from Marx, but from the Frankfurt School & critical theory. Which is, despite not being economic, still very far from anything any reasonable human on Earth could consider centrist. — BenMcLean

Yes, Frankfurt school Critical Theory has been trickling down from academia over the past few decades to shape the political views of politicians on the left. Is it centrist? Not if we take a poll of country as a whole. But if we poll residents of the 20 most populous American cities, as happened when the mayors of Chicago and New York were elected, it may be argued that some of its broadest concepts are being integrated into centrist perspectives in urban America. My advice to you is to stay away from the cities, especially the northern and west coast ones. You won’t like it there. Their centrism is not your centrism. I recommend suburban Dallas. Oklahoma City is good, too.

Interesting post.

Couple of points:

1) What if there is no right or left in any meaningful sense?

2) I’m surprised you didn’t give much time to the financial crisis and the Tea Party movement that followed. I think that (and Occupy) accounts for the different “populist” streams we currently see, with Trump riding the wave of one and Bernie the other.

Remember how popular Sarah Palin was for a large group of people? That amazed me— and even though she lost, that’s where the excitement was. Trump could see this. If anything, Trump is good at reading the room— and it was clear that Bush, the iraq war, and the establishment (represented by Romney and Ryan) were unpopular and were losing. The energy was among the crowd craving WWE type politics.

Regardless, most of this is superficial. Look at the actual policies, and the core element of it hasn’t changed: both parties are factions of the Business Party— that is to say, the ruling class. In its modern form, its business. That’s where the ruling power is. Trump — for however different he is in many ways — hasn’t really strayed from the very policies that have been championed for decades: tax cuts, deregulation, small government, privatization. Same old, same old.

Obviously I wasn't conflating Trump and Kim Jong II, any more than I was conflating Buckley and John Calhoun. Trump and Kim both, however, need and demand sychophancy and obtain it from their minions to an absurd, even embarrassing extent. They're also similar in the enormity of their self-love. Being called "Dear Leader" or something similar would please Trump, I think.

So the comparison, you see, was figurative; mildly humorous and somewhat sardonic. I don't normally have to to explain such things, but judging only from this thread, humor doesn't seem one of your strong points.

Trump — for however different he is in many ways — hasn’t really strayed from the very policies that have been championed for decades: tax cuts, deregulation, small government, privatization. Same old, same old. — Mikie

Careful what you wish for. Be thankful we have a federalist system with many local checks and balances. Without those deep constraints, the direction Trump would take the country would be unrecognizable relative to the standards of a constitutional democracy.

the direction Trump would take the country would be unrecognizable relative to the standards of a constitutional democracy. — Joshs

I’m not sure Trump has a direction.

This is always strange to me, and before we go further, I want to ask if you think the 2020 election was stolen and if you think Trump tried to steal that election. — RogueAI

Q: Was the 2020 election stolen?

A: Technically yes, but crucially, not through mass vote fraud. That is Trump's mistake. An electoral college majority of American voters really did vote for Biden. However, real American elections involve more than just counting slips of paper on election day. The whole 2020 campaign season was heavily manipulated by mass social media censorship, more than any election ever was before and by every major social media company in one exclusively partisan direction -- for Biden. The most obvious smoking gun we have on this is the Hunter Biden laptop story. The October Surprise of 2020 -- the most explosive and entirely true political story of the whole campaign, brought forward by the New York Post, a 200 year old bastion of American journalism founded by Alexander Hamilton -- was systematically suppressed by this totally impenetrable megacorporate monopoly / cabal all acting together in completely aligned and coordinated ideological lock step. That's where the election was stolen -- not on election day, but by depriving the American people en masse of the ability to talk to each other, deliberate about this election and make up their own minds. The gatekeepers of truth utterly failed us during that whole period, putting their own agendas over any sense of objectivity or integrity. And the subsequent buyers remorse during the Biden administration was real.

Maybe Trump's response to this problem has been misguided and disproportionate. But he's not wrong in the basic belief that something fishy was going on -- not just on that one day, but for that whole year.

I see Elon Musk buying X as an attempt to address this problem and it has been making a difference, but one billionaire breaking the monopoly doesn't address the underlying systemic causes of this mass institutional failure. I was once a true believer, but Boomer Conservatism cannot address see or think in systems and that absolutely kills it for me. Long term, policy is going to have to address this large scale civilizational problem that is far bigger than just one election.

Q: Do you think any of that constitutes an illegal effort on Trump's part to stay in power?

A: I don't care about it very much frankly. I think Mr. Trump was acting foolishly but I can also see why he and many around him thought there was something fishy going on. I think Mr. Trump sensed something really crooked was going on in this election -- and it was -- but he misidentified where, probably because he's an old guy who doesn't understand technology. And it is a huge problem that he didn't and apparently still doesn't have enough responsible people around him to push back and stop him from going as far as he has on this whole mass vote fraud thing, no matter what evidence comes out. For him to keep hammering on this and not shut up about it is embarassing, I admit it. Even if he was right, which he isn't, it's a bad political strategy and a distraction from the real villain of 2020 -- BIG TECH!

I actually respect how Mike Pence said no to Trump's alternate electors scheme. Alternate electors, as I understand it, would be a way to address mass vote fraud if it was in fact going on (which it wasn't) and Pence was correct to identify that this was an inappropriate move by Trump, not because it was illegal or even immoral but because it was based on materially false premises.

I just wish Pence hadn't then gone on to keep making a big stink about it for years afterwards. That kind of tarnishes the achievement in my eyes.

I also feel like we need to recognize the world that Trump was acting in. We were dealing with a situation in which the people involved had materially substantiated reasons to distrust the institutions of consensus generation across our whole society. There was a system-wide cascade failure of epistemic credibility, where no one could trust anyone anymore -- one from which we still haven't fully recovered.

1) What if there is no right or left in any meaningful sense? — Mikie

There just is, and this might be a good topic for a new post: to explain why the old category model that originated with the French National Assembly is still very, very applicable to the present day and indeed is more poinient than ever now that the Nick Fuentez types are going explicitly anti-liberal and so are more clasically right wing than the Buckley fusionists were.

I might also make a case for why we need to replace the "Libertarian - Authoritarian" scale on the Political Compass Test with a "Liberty - Security" scale, because the "Libertarian - Authoritarian" naming convention is a dead giveaway that the compass and test itself is designed by and for exclusively libertarians. Nobody calls themselves an "authoritiarian" but concern about security is a human universal, just as at least some concern for liberty is. The Political Compass Test should be a diagnostic tool for ALL political beliefs, not a polemic one to argue for libertarianism.

The problem with the political compass isn't the left vs right axis -- it's the other axis!

2) I’m surprised you didn’t give much time to the financial crisis and the Tea Party movement that followed. I think that (and Occupy) accounts for the different “populist” streams we currently see, with Trump riding the wave of one and Bernie the other. — Mikie

This is very true, but this event only caused immediate political change for the Left. The Right did not have an immediate reaction other than to scramble to fit it into their existing narrative: blame any problem on government overreach, no matter what's really happening. That's what the libertarians did in response to the 2008 financial crisis and, at least for the short term, the other right wing factions let them do it. So, for the Right, it wasn't a catalyst for major political change. But wow, on the Left it sure was! This is, again, something I have difficulty articulating without getting polemic, not being a Leftist myself, but if I was writing the story of the current American Left, instead of the Right, then the 2008 financial crisis and the Occupy movement would be a major transformative event!

Remember how popular Sarah Palin was for a large group of people? — Mikie

Oh, hell yeah. I felt like I wasn't really even voting for McCain -- I was voting for Sarah Palin. She brought all the energy to that campaign and putting her in the forefront of it was smart, because having a woman in charge broke every negative stereotype. That was strategically brilliant. Too bad it didn't actually succeed.

That’s where the ruling power is. Trump — for however different he is in many ways — hasn’t really strayed from the very policies that have been championed for decades: tax cuts, deregulation, small government, privatization. Same old, same old. — Mikie

I know. You're not wrong -- and this is the real problem with Trump. Not that he's a Nazi. Not that he's secretly a Russian asset. Not that he's a pedophile with Jeffrey Epstein. Not any of that stupid crap. That he's precisely all the things he says he is -- a rich New York real estate mogul and reality TV star.

If the Democrats had a young, handsome, non-gay white male version of Bernie Sanders to say that, especially if he had a legit family with kids, then he'd be in the White House right now. Policies wouldn't matter. Appear normal, be JFK, appear genuinely more in touch with the voters than the other guy, that's all.

I'm not afraid to give that advice because I'm pretty sure the Democrats aren't going to do it. Because aesthetically, the person I'm describing is pretty much J. D. Vance.

I’m not sure Trump has a direction — Mikie

It’s the autocrat’s direction. Everything points back to the king. Total one-man control of power.

Do you think America has become an autocracy (with more to come) and that Trump and/or his cronies are here to stay? Either ignoring future elections or suspending them? Or do you think much of the US has a desire for autocracy and will happily vote for it? Or something else?

If Trump doesn't give the stolen election "fight like hell" speech on the morning of Jan 6th, do you think the rioting still happens?

↪Joshs Do you think America has become an autocracy (with more to come) and that Trump and/or his cronies are here to stay? Either ignoring future elections or suspending them? Or do you think much of the US has a desire for autocracy and will happily vote for it? Or something else — Tom Storm

Tbh, I’ve been almost completely ignoring the political news the past 6 months to preserve my sanity. My guess, though, is that the separation between federal, state and local judicial and governmental institutions, not to mention robust civic institutions and a very diverse media landscape, will be enough to restrain Trump from seizing complete control. I think only a minority of the population truly supports autocracy. I don’t think our friend Ben does, but like many, he isn’t able to recognize those instincts in Trump. He thinks he’s just “a rich New York real estate mogul and reality TV star.”

If Trump doesn't give the stolen election "fight like hell" speech on the morning of Jan 6th, do you think the rioting still happens? — RogueAI

Look, there was some rioting. Rioting's bad. The people who did that should have been treated the exact same way as the rioters from the George Floyd protests of the previous summer -- the exact same way, to the detail, because they did the exact same thing.

Before January 6th, I would have absolutely said, "Leftist riot. We don't. That proves we're morally superior." Which makes January 6th uniquely embarassing for me as a moment when my side did lose the moral high ground and showed we belonged right down in the same filthy dirt as all those rioters from the previous summer. It did make me ashamed to be a Republican.

HOWEVER, January 6th was not an organized plot to carry out a coup against the United States government. We know this from lots of evidence but more fundamentally, anybody who's going to be honest about right wingers in America knows that these are not the kind of people who are going to try to do anything like that and leave their guns at home. I could believe that some right wing protesters might have tried to take over the government by force, but not if they weren't armed. These are the kind of people who think you should take your guns with you to the grocery store and you're telling me they intended to take over the government without guns!? That simply did not happen. It's not in their character. To be absolutely clear -- they might do it, but absolutely not without bringing their guns. It's not something they would forget, if this was the plan. Anyone who really knows these kinds of people knows they are absolute gun nuts. It's not just a stereotype, I swear.

As for Mr. Trump, his clear intention was to hold a peaceful demonstration outside the Capitol, asking Congress to vote against election certification which is a real decision made by Congress and therefore within what American citizens can demonstrate about both legally and morally if they want to. But I personally wasn't and wouldn't have been out there because I don't believe it would have done any good even if they did have a peaceful protest at that juncture.

The narrative that Trump encouraged a violent attack on Congress is libelous and relies on deceptive edits of his speech, linking remarks from about an hour apart to digitally construct a whole new sentence. That is a really vile lie. What Trump actually said might not have been the wisest or the truest, but he never said that crap. Furthermore, Trump tried to get on TV to tell the crowd to dispurse and go home. Maybe too late, but he did, because a physical invasion of the Capitol building was not anticipated. Maybe it should have been anticipated, but it wasn't. They couldn't see the future and didn't think of it, unfortunately.

Understand, they had a mindset that Republicans just don't riot ... because they're Republicans. It's conventionally just not something Republicans do. It just wasn't thought of by the Trump people as something they even needed to worry about. And I wish that had been true. I mean imagine, a "conservative riot" -- it sounds like a contradiction in terms! I really think part of what happened that day was a failure of imagination.

Some of the Jan6 prisoners got sentences and treatment far in excess of what they actually did. Understand, these people deserved some time in jail. But not years. Not in solitary. It did get really disproportionate, especially when compared to how the George Floyd riots had been handled the previous summer -- a context which was in every single rioter's mind that whole day. Rioting had been normalized as a political tactic and "the hell with the rules if the Democrats don't have to follow them." That is what every single one of them thought. And you should be able to see why a reasonable person could get to thinking that.

Fair enough. My instinct is that separation of powers only work by agreement. They are not magic spells and in the end what the military chooses will probably be the decisive factor.

If the Democrats had a young, handsome, non-gay white male version of Bernie Sanders to say that, especially if he had a legit family with kids, then he'd be in the White House right now. Policies wouldn't matter. Appear normal, be JFK, appear genuinely more in touch with the voters than the other guy, that's all. — BenMcLean

Any Democrat politician has to toe the line on certain policies to win the primaries. No matter how telegenic a person is, they're not going to be the Democrat nominee if they don't check certain boxes: pro-choice, pro-gay rights, pro-environment, pro-gun control, pro-immigration, etc.

↪Joshs Fair enough. My instinct is that separation of powers only work by agreement. They are not magic spells and in the end where the military go will probably be the decisive factor. — Tom Storm

You’re right. Thus far, we have been successful in keeping them out of Chicago.

Best wishes, Joshs.