The policies they support, the way of their behavior, the function of their political philosophy is all different. This is a new era of something so detached from its definition that it should be considered and renamed a different thing.

  • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
    8·
    3 hours ago

    If you’re not from the US, unqualified “liberal” in the US started to refer to “social liberal” back around FDR.

    This has been a source of irritation to some; CATO, which I’d call moderate right-libertarian, complains that they should get the title and self-describes as “classic liberal”. Meanwhile, in, say, Germany, an unqualified “liberal” tends to refer to the latter, so you get confusion when people accustomed to the two uses meet.

    An unqualified “libertarian” in the US usually refers to right-libertarianism, whereas in some places, it would historically have referred to left-libertariansm; that can also be a source of confusion.

    Some parties in Europe on the left side of the spectrum self-describe as “socialist” when they don’t really advocate for socialist policies any more, but rather for things like a larger welfare state. I’d call them “social democratic”; this branding is a legacy of older forms of those parties, when they did advocate for socialist policy.

      • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
        4·
        3 hours ago

        FDR is Franklin D. Roosevelt, a US President in the early 20th century.

        CATO is an organization that pushes for small-government, market-oriented policy. They’d be, economically, on the right side of the US political spectrum, whereas typically, an American using the term “liberal” would be talking about a social liberal, somone who would be, economically, on the left side of the US political spectrum, would favor a larger government.

        EDIT: Also, to add to the fun, the US uses “political colors” that are something like the opposite of what is the common convention in Europe.

        In the US, historically, there was no association between color and political position. However, in the, I believe 2000 election, a convention became adopted, started off some arbitrary choice by a TV station, where the Democrats (the more-left of the Big Two parties) were the “blue” party, and the Republicans (the more-right of the Big Two Parties) were the “red” party.

        However, in Europe, the convention is for blue to be associated with center-right parties, and red to be associated with left parties.

        EDIT2: Yes, 2000 election.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_states_and_blue_states

        By 1996, color schemes were relatively mixed, as CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC, and The New York Times referred to Democratic states with the color blue and Republican ones as red, while Time and The Washington Post used the opposite scheme.[15][16][17]

        In the days after the 2000 election, the outcome of which was unknown for some time after election day, major media outlets began conforming to the same color scheme because the electoral map was continually in view, and conformity made for easy and instant viewer comprehension. On election night that year, there was no coordinated effort to code Democratic states blue and Republican states red; the association gradually emerged. Partly as a result of this eventual and near-universal color-coding, the terms “red states” and “blue states” entered popular use in the weeks after the 2000 presidential election. After the results were final with the Republican George W. Bush winning, journalists stuck with the color scheme, as The Atlantic’s December 2001 cover story by David Brooks entitled, “One Nation, Slightly Divisible”, illustrated.[18][original research?]

        You’ll tend to notice that in recent years, Democratic presididential candidates will wear a blue tie, Republicans red. Might also be true below that level; I haven’t looked. And, of course, Trump’s MAGA hat branding is red.

      • Lumidaub@feddit.orgEnglish
        12·
        3 hours ago

        Franklin D. Roosevelt (possibly the last decent president they had, is my impression). Can’t help you with CATO.