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Conservatives will be the end of modern industrial society as we know it. And once things get bad enough I have absolutely no doubt they will blame everything that goes wrong on “leftists” (ie. anyone left of the Strasserites), right-wing terrorism will escalate and half the people will actually either outright support them or at least accept it
Only thing you can really do is to get involved in stopping them. If you’re in the US, that means looking up close house and senate races. Pick one or two close to you, and then support Democrats running in them with both volunteer time and money.
Leave a bit on the table for supporting Biden as well
I’m Finnish so I’m lucky in the sense that we have more than two options when picking a political party, and eg. I vote for a democratic socialist party called the Left Alliance.
On the unfortunate flipside half the country is very conservative compared to the rest of the Nordics, and our new government – who got in power by lying ceaselessly about the previous lefist government (first of its kind in almost 20 years if not more) and what exactly led to eg. our healthcare system collapsing (pro tip: it wasn’t leftists, but our “fiscal” conservatives cutting funding) – has literal neo-Nazis, and the ones who aren’t outright Nazis are so right wing that you wouldn’t really know the difference. So bigotry is now the norm (up to and including MPs and ministers having publicly fantasized about murdering leftists, immigrants and/or gay people) and our new Minister of the Environment is a climate change denialist.
Conservative is a misnomer, really. They don’t want to conserve anything. They are trying as hard as they can to wreck it all.
So, not only are these psychotic maniacs unwilling to take even the most conservative actions to stem the tide of global climate change, but they are gleefully seeking to bring about the end of humanity as soon as possible.
American conservatives and fundamentalists are heavily invested into an “End of Days” mythos – not only are they not avoiding it, they are eagerly trying to accelerate the apocalypse
Too late, fortunately - the wheels of commerce are already in motion, by 2025 the mass market charger + EV rollout will be in full swing (and, itself, sending a lot of money towards grid + generation improvements) and beyond the power of Republicans to stop.
Not to mention, of course, that Republicans in states with a lot of clean energy jobs - and there are a ton of those - are going to be under tremendous pressure to oppose anything that would take them away, even if they voted against them originally.
Those jobs aren’t stopping them yet — it takes not just having people with jobs, but having the political donor class dependent on decarbonization.
Holy shit.
Sure they do - they want to conserve the social hierarchy. They want social classes, and nobles/a pyramid of individuals in charge, and they get sold the lie that this is the natural order and that they won’t be at the bottom
Liberals push for a system that will handle all people and situations under the same rules, which sounds like equality (but isn’t necessarily).
The right is preservation of the status quo, while the left seeks to change things.
This is far from the only sets of axises, and you can apply it to any specific area, such as economics, personal rights, foreign policy, etc
And that’s why the 2 party system is terrible - neoliberals are liberal right, our conservatives are increasingly conservative. Both sides seek to keep the status quo and support increasing financial inequality, but make a big production over the fight for our personal rights.
Ancaps and minarchists are right-wing, but not for any status quo. Both are usually more liberal in terms of personal rights and economics than most left-wingers. Also usually just as pacifist, if that’s what you mean by foreign policy.
(Literal fascists would also like to see certain radical changes, though in their mythology these would be called the return to good old order of things.)
And that’s why the 2 party system is terrible
It’s terrible because it neuters any kind of real political diversity. Ideas converge into two bland parties, intended to be as similar in actual policy as possible so to not lose the competition for the general mass of voters.
I don’t think they really fit right wing - that means preserving the status quo. You could argue they’re conservative, but really they’re closer to anti-liberal, which is not the same as conservative - both liberal and conservative become authoritarian as you progress, and those are very anti-authoritarian
Ah, you use the American meaning of “liberal”, “right” and “left”, I guess. In this case that’s about same as what I said.
I don’t think I do
In your understanding what would left, right, liberal, and conservative mean?
Well, “liberal” would mean the same as “libertarian”, for starters, only the latter word was invented due to the meaning of the former becoming fuzzy (say, somehow meaning people advocating for central regulation, which doesn’t have much to do with “liberty”).
“Right” initially would mean tradition, privilege, social hierarchy, military etc.
“Left” initially would mean change, equality, social mobility, peace etc.
Now, closer to the end of the XIX century “left” became associated with social-democracy and various labor regulations by the state, emancipation and internationalism, and “right” with market liberalism, traditionalism and isolationism\chauvinism, and also notably “left” as in favor of bigger state intervention, while “right” in favor of individualism.
Anyway, your use of the word “liberal” was what surprised me the most, ancaps are more liberal than just anybody else, they are the extreme.
Huh, liberal is the difference here, but the definition I’m using isn’t commonly used in the US, up until college we’re taught left=liberal=democrat, and even then basic humanities courses might barely mention the difference
Your definition makes more sense based on the root of the word, but my more recent understanding is that liberal trends towards maximizing freedom (eg, your right to swing your fist ends at my nose). That jives pretty well with libertarians - their ideology is a mix of this idea of liberalism but with the structure cranked down until it approaches anarchy
To push back a little on another front though, anarchy isn’t about freedom, it’s a lack of having anyone above you. It’s group rule in a way very different than democracy - there’s no person or system above you, instead all that is replaced by social norms.
It’s no rulers, not no rules - it could be extremely high or very low freedom depending on the specifics (and real world examples tend to have more rigid social norms, so this isn’t just pedantics)