this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2025
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Democrats and Republicans work for the same billionaires. You are about to witness Democrats working against Mamdani like they never have against Republicans.
In a fight between socialism and fascism, liberals will ALWAYS support the fascists.
I really hate statements like this. Not because you are right or wrong, but because your word choices obscure your true meaning when used this briefly.
In the context of this thread, which is clearly US politics, "liberal" has a somewhat different meaning to the majority of the audience than I think you are using. I almost think you are just making rage-bait, but I've seen it so many times that I have to respond to someone.
We have a clear dichotomy of our political parties, since we effectively only have two... some words I might use are 'republican', 'conservative', 'democrat(ic)', 'liberal', 'progressive', 'socialist', 'fascist', 'leftist', 'right-wing'
Because of human language, these may signify different things based on context.
I identify as a "liberal" in my country. I am also a "democrat", as well as a "socialist" and a "leftist". I am anti-trump. I would vote for Mamdani, but I'm not in the area.
When you make absolute statements like "liberals will ALWAYS support the fascists," you ignore the context. Perhaps in the dictionary sense of the words, a liberal will prefer a fascist government where wealth makes power and they get all the benefit of their work over a socialist one where their input helps everyone. That describes a giant swath of business owners for sure, as well as the 'taxes are theft' people. In the US, though, a liberal could mean a person more focused on bodily autonomy, social equality, social safety nets and other more 'socialist' concepts.
Another way to put this is that the political words are a 3D venn diagram. When you put your line of liberal = capitalist against someone who is thinking liberal = democrat, you are going to have friction because, based on context, that word lands in different places. I'm going to ignore any 'all democrats are capitalists' arguments, or complexities around our election systems. See my post history if you want my opinions there.
If anything, I'd recommend that people clearly define their words, such as a liberal vs a liberal. And even then, you can see that both are capitalist by those definitions even though, colloquially, a person may identify as liberal while preferring socialist ideals.
Basically, any absolutes, especially in the realm of political ideology, makes you a Sith (probably). Also basically, anyone firing off a one-liner in a conversation this fraught is a troll (probably).
I believe equally strongly in personal freedoms and individual rights. I think that makes me liberal. Fascism definitely has significantly less of both compared to socialism which is also not what I think of when reading Mamdani's policies.
"Taxation is theft" people are deranged imo, not liberal; pointing their frustration at the wrong part of the system. Are those the people everyone thinks of when the word liberal comes up?
the DNC arnt liberal though, they are center right, Dinos for the most part.
Liberal just means they support capitalism as opposed to socialism or feudalism, it covers everyone from Scandinavian social democrats to Javier Gerardo Milei.
Liberalism: A Counter History is free on Annie's Archive, it goes through the major liberal philosophers, their role in society, and how they handled the contradictions of liberalism.
Those seem like some major contradictions of the concept of liberty. Ty for the book reccomendation.
Contradictions arise in any ideology, theres no platonic liberalism or socialism to compare practices against, just the utility they've had for the societies (or at least those in power) that used them.