Reagan set the scene for this in the 70s with broad economic deregulation and crippling of anti trust enforcement. This established a narrative of the self-correcting nature of markets and the negative consequences of any government intervention or regulation.

Only recently in the Biden administration has this narrative met serious challenges, with for example the appointment of Lina Khan and a comeback for anti trust activity.

Worryingly, Trump looks set to rewind anti trust activity against mega corporations like Google, ontop of hiring mega corporation advocates into his cabinet, and likely firing Khan despite her incredible performance.

> Reagan set the scene for this in the 70s

Ronald Reagan was president from 1981 - 1989. He may have been a Republican, but his actual policies were quite left-wing (eg no-fault divorce, amnesty for illegal immigrants).

My bad about the dates. The Chicago school of neoclassical economics came in during the 70s, but Reaganomics was put in place in the 80s.

But to frame Reagan as left-wing is disingenuous. Immigration and divorce were very minor focuses of his policies. He was very much right-wing on healthcare, regulation, crime, welfare, abortion, etc...

I would not go so far as to say Reagan was overall left-wing, but he did some things are are very left-wing and also had a huge impact and weren't minor at all. California has been a blue state since his immigration amnesty, this was not the case before - it was usually solid red. Was Bill Clinton "right wing" because of his free trade politics (eg NAFTA)?

Contemporary left-wing politics do not look like communist Russia when it comes to the economy. The American use of the term "liberal" (or "liberalism") is more useful in that regard, and that includes free trade, and also immigration of foreign labor, something that naive observers might categorise as "neoliberal" or "turbo-capitalist", except that many left-wing governments engaged it in (US, Canada, UK and many more).

Yeah, it may be misleading to characterise individuals as definitively right or left wing. And of course the left/right divide has to be considered in the context of the country's current situation. That said, policies favouring deregulation, privatisation, and laissez faire capitalism are generally seen as right-wing. Both Reagan and Clinton implemented such policies as we've discussed above to the general detriment of the consumer.

It seems to me that your main mistake here is assuming that parties like the US Democratic Party, the UK Labour Party, the Canadian Liberal Party, etc. are left-wing. They aren't. They've been practicing "Third Way" politics for decades now, and there's very little left-wing about their proposals. IMO this is the source of a lot of public discontent with these parties: They don't offer a true alternative, just a diet version of the same policies that largely harm the public.

> Was Bill Clinton "right wing" because of his free trade politics (eg NAFTA)?

Yes! This is the point. Who benefited from Clinton's economic policies? It certainly wasn't the employees of the companies who offshored production because they were incentivized to by NAFTA. By capitulating to the right on economic issues and trying to differentiate only on the basis of social issues, the Democratic Party ceded its strongest argument: That turbo-capitalist (as you put it) economic policy only benefits corporations and the wealthy, and harms labor and the country as a whole. Democrats as a party cannot credibly make that argument anymore, because they're fully complicit. A few politicians carry lonely torches for actual left-wing politics (e.g. Bernie Sanders), but for the most part, there's close to zero power behind left wing ideas today.

I probably don't share your definition of what "left-wing" is, but how would you define it?

Broadly, left-wing politics favors making money and power more diffuse and is suspicious of hierarchy, right-wing politics favors making money and power more concentrated and embraces hierarchy. Politics is, of course, messy and not everything fits neatly into this framework (and people have idiosyncratic opinions sometimes), but that's how I view it in broad strokes. What about you?

> Broadly, left-wing politics favors making money and power more diffuse and is suspicious of hierarchy

How do you "make money more diffuse"? I would agree that the hierarchy thing is broadly correct, and many use this definition, but I find it unsatisfactory, as it does not move me in any way. "Yeah hierarchy is so cool man" said no one ever.

Taking left-wing ideology at face value is a mistake, what is interesting is the underlying psychology. The stated goals and how it plays out in practise are never aligned, thus the "real communism has never been tried" meme. If you are attached to leftism or simply never delved deeper into political philosophy, these definitions might offend you, but they are psychologically correct:

"The bugman pretends to be motivated by compassion, but is instead motivated by a titanic hatred of the well-turned-out and beautiful." [BAP]

"Communism is when ugly deformed freaks make it illegal to be normal then rob and/or kill all successful people out of petty resentment and cruelty. The ideology is all just window dressing." [Mystery Grove]

> I would agree that the hierarchy thing is broadly correct, and many use this definition, but I find it unsatisfactory, as it does not move me in any way. "Yeah hierarchy is so cool man" said no one ever.

And yet, the two quotes you put forth as "psychologically correct" both use hierarchies as assumed priors. In the first, a hierarchy between "the well-turned-out and beautiful" and everyone else, and in the second, a hierarchy between "ugly deformed freaks" and "normal [people]". Do you feel that these are useful distinctions to make when setting public policy?

> Taking left-wing ideology at face value is a mistake

Taking any ideology at face value is a mistake. Words are cheap; it's easy to say one thing and do another, especially when political parties control entire media ecosystems due to the consolidation of media companies that the root comment of this thread was discussing. Is the Chinese Communist Party communist in any meaningful sense? Does it serve to weaken or reinforce hierarchies? Does it seek to empower its constituents, or consolidate power for the benefit of the few?

> How do you "make money more diffuse"?

There are tons of ways to do this, some better, some worse, and I think it's out of scope to go through them all. We do at least have a direct measurement of this one, though, called the Gini coefficient.

Max thread depth reached, so continuing here.

> And yet, the two quotes you put forth as "psychologically correct" both use hierarchies as assumed priors.

This is correct, but I would rather call it "accepting reality", not "motivating factor".

> Do you feel that these are useful distinctions to make when setting public policy?

Without a doubt: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Gdz4G24WIAA6TEd?format=png&name=...

> Taking any ideology at face value is a mistake. Words are cheap; it's easy to say one thing and do another, especially when political parties control entire media ecosystems due to the consolidation of media companies that the root comment of this thread was discussing. Is the Chinese Communist Party communist in any meaningful sense? Does it serve to weaken or reinforce hierarchies? Does it seek to empower its constituents, or consolidate power for the benefit of the few?

I agree. This is why studying history is important.

> [...] Gini coefficient

So, equality. How did that work out for checks notes every single time it was tried, ever.

> "Yeah hierarchy is so cool man" said no one ever.

Perhaps not in those exact words. I'd argue that an implicit desire for hierarchy pervades a lot of right-wing thought. E.g. wanting a strong leader, a harsh penalty system, and traditional paternalistic social stratification.

Raegan had left-wing policies? Are you trying to reinterpret history to suit your views? Look at this page [1], how are austerity and capital gain tax cuts left-wing again?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaganomics

George Soros is jewish and holds some culturally progressive views, which makes him a prime target for the right's hate [1], but economically he is absolutely a neoliberalist, seeking global free trade.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros_conspiracy_theori...

> George Soros

> holds some culturally progressive views

This made me laugh.

Your attempt at implying anti-semitism is misguided (putting it generous), since Bill Ackmann, David Sacks or, gasp, Curtis Yarvin and Costin Alamariu are all prominent jewish figures of the right-center.

Also I do not think you have any idea what "neoliberal" actually means.

I don't have to imply anti-semitism, he is very regularly pointed to as an example of the so-called "jewish question" many MAGA-types believe in, refer to the previous page I linked. From this very page:

> Also in 2023, Tesla, Inc./SpaceX CEO and owner of social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter) Elon Musk compared George Soros to Jewish Marvel Comics supervillain Magneto and accused him of wanting "to erode the very fabric of civilization" because he "hates humanity". He later alleged that the Soros organization wants "nothing less than the destruction of western civilization” in reply to a X user speculating about a “George Soros led invasion” of Europe by North African immigrants.

I saw from one of your other comments that you believe Raegan's policies were left-wing, so whatever you think neoliberalism is, I think my definition is closer to the truth. Soros is still very much pro markets, pro free trade. This is not a value judgement, simply something you can read on his wikipedia page.

We can agree that there are unfortunately a lot of not very bright "rw" types that engage in dumb anti-semitism. Not every criticism of Soros is that.

There are also a lot of simple-minded lefties engaging in anti-semitism, for obvious reasons.

You're doing a whataboutism. Neonazis are voting for Trump, that's a fact. Anti-semitism on the left is nowhere near as mainstream as it is on the right.

Regarding Soros, he is the target of a unique amount of hate, much more than other billionaires, when he is far from the worst of them. And it's coming from the right, from the aforementioned reasons.

Are you trying to say with a straight face that a law introduced by a Republican and passed by the first Republican-controlled legislature in 40 years is "de-regulation under Bill Clinton"? And then, surprise, George Soros pops into the mix without any mention of Romney-connected Bain Capital owning part of iHeart/Clear Channel which is an order of magnitude bigger?

Seems intellectually disingenuous to me.

I would add Sinclair to the stack:

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

I see we both hate Mitt Romney, thats a start.

Politics is starting to turn more and more into a football match.

And if you don't want to play along with the 'winner-takes-all' dynamic, then by consequence you'll lose anyway.

Politics as the heart of deliberative democracy seems already like a long lost ideal, or maybe that is too romantic a thought and it never really was like this to begin with? Maybe I am just getting old.

In the past elections were, at least on occassion, won by massive landslides, before then the 'other side' ending up back in power.

This is only possible if people, at scale, were voting based on merit, rather than tribalism.

Nowadays either side could run a literal vegetable and get near half the vote.

It was always a strong reality in places where politics are a over simplistic two sided view "Left" vs "Right".

This botched view can only lead to the herd mentality of "if you're not like us, you're wrong", which in the US or South Korea has slowly turned to "if you're note like us, you're dangerous".

Democracy needs a personal implication into complex concepts that can't be answered with yes or no and many people lack the will to understand those concepts. Whoever comes forward and says "I'll handle this complex issue this way" will be the new messiah.

This now seems like the downside of bringing huge knowledge to the masses with the internet. Now that everyone knows everything, they don't want anything to do with it.

Maybe it's also linked to a current trend that you're supposed to have an opinion about everything happening. If you say that you're with the "magenta" party, everybody knows "your opinion" without the need of forging one yourself.

You are onto something here. If this topic interests you, there are worse places than https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/.

The writing style can be challenging at times, but it will answer some of your questions.

You have no idea who I hate. To me Mitt Romney is on the same footing as George Soros or the Easter bunny. I've never met them. They are notions that live in my head based on things I've heard and read about them in the media. I might dislike the idea of them or what they've supposedly done but to hate them would be absurd.

To say that mutual hatred of Santa Claus-level figures is a starting point for discourse says a lot about your attitude. Please review the HN commenting guidelines.