Why do you lean left?

[kim foxx]

Questioning capitalism is the core of the left, although that doesn't seem to be the case everywhere and that was a culture shock for me.

in the US the "left" ended up merging with cultural liberals in the 1970s to form the "new left" which was mostly about lifestyle and black faces in high places. as recently as the 90s there were still new deal democrats in power who pushed class issues above all else but they all died or were put in prison.

today the american "left" is entirely a captive creature of 3 letter agencies, billionaires, and elite universities. you can have any flavor of communism you want, as long as its sponsored by the ford foundation.

 

[⚞⛇⚟]

I think of myself as mostly conservative but browsing Kiwifarms makes me feel liberal.

 

[Hepativore]

in the US the "left" ended up merging with cultural liberals in the 1970s to form the "new left" which was mostly about lifestyle and black faces in high places. as recently as the 90s there were still new deal democrats in power who pushed class issues above all else but they all died or were put in prison.

today the american "left" is entirely a captive creature of 3 letter agencies, billionaires, and elite universities. you can have any flavor of communism you want, as long as its sponsored by the ford foundation.

Actually, I would say that the real "left" no longer has a political party that represents it. Today's modern Democratic Party is actually a center-right neoliberal party. They are very pro-corporate, favor an interventionist foreign policy, and despise labor and the working class just like the Republicans do, except they are "liberal" when it comes to social rights or cultural issues. This is because it does not cost the Silicon Valley or Wall Street donors to the Democratic Party anything to slap a rainbow or trans flag on something from time to time, but if anybody ever stepped out of line with things like breaking monopolies or raising the minimum wage then their corporate donors and party leaders would quickly end the careers of anybody who proposed actual left-leaning policies like that.

 

[Frederica Bernkastel]

like breaking monopolies or raising the minimum wage then their corporate donors and party leaders would quickly end the careers of anybody who proposed actual left-leaning policies like that.

I mean, Republicans have offered to do these things, but were rejected by Democrats. A lot of it isn't even this, but leftists being inflexible maximalists, and unwilling to even accept the littlest of progress out of purity. The leftist unwillingness to work with social conservatives make them pretty useless.
But to be honest, there are bigger problems with the Democrats. Their state policies are really bad to the point of driving up the cost of housing , or making it impossible to enjoy basic things like owning a gun. Their opposition to common sense stuff like nuclear energy, fracking, limiting illegal immigration, stopping prostitution, institutionalizing the homeless, and even just simple zoning reforms to allow people to build shit just doesn't make them attractive. They often just lose even on basic stuff.

 

[Hepativore]

Their opposition to common sense stuff like nuclear energy,

Now this is one thing I never agreed with the "left" on as a whole. "Renewables" simply cannot provide baseload power, and when Germany tried to do just that after phasing out nuclear energy, they ended up being even more dependent on fossil fuels as they started building coal plants nonstop to pick up the slack.

If the left really cares about the environment, they should be all for nuclear energy, and some reactor designs can even breed more fuel or use their process heat to make hydrogen from water. Now, some of the left have started softening on their anti-nuclear energy stance, but there is still a lot of opposition to it on the political left. I think this is because there are a lot of misconceptions about how it works and a lot of people think nuclear energy=nuclear weapons or get their ideas about it from bad sci-fi movies.

 

[Frederica Bernkastel]

Now this is one thing I never agreed with the "left" on as a whole. "Renewables" simply cannot provide baseload power, and when Germany tried to do just that after phasing out nuclear energy, they ended up being even more dependent on fossil fuels as they started building coal plants nonstop to pick up the slack.

The funny thing, they even shoot themselves in foot with stuff like renewables energy like solar because often laws like NEPA, especially state NEPAs, stop them from constructing power lines or even solar farms because they require costly environmental reviews. You have states like Texas and Georgia building wind farms and electrical car stations all over the place because they don't let paperwork get in the way. China doesn't give a fuck either, and they're currently eating our lunch on electricity because of shit like this. Biden, for example, was complaining about the fact infrastructure, from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, simply wasn't getting built quickly enough. And a lot of that was due to red tape in blue states. Republicans have their problems, yes, but Democrats don't have a game plan.

 

[kim foxx]

Their opposition to common sense stuff like nuclear energy,

nuclear power doesn't work in a finance capitalist society. a natural gas peaker plant can generate positive ROI within 5 years while a nuclear power plant costs so much upfront it would take decades. makes sense for the government to build and operate, but we all know how america feels about that.

because often laws like NEPA, especially state NEPAs, stop them from constructing power lines or even solar farms because they require costly environmental reviews.

NEPA is an underrated source of grift for the consultants that rabbi your project through a review. the other side of that is NEPA also allows for hyper-local vetoing of projects because the definition of environment is not just clean air or water but also stuff like not building eyesores or dense structures that might increase the noise level of the neighborhood.