Which of these do you consider yourself?

[mvd]

Just a friendly thread to see where you stand on the political spectrum. No debate is necessary in this thread. I know progressive can mean many things, but I am calling it progressive left which could include Sanders, AOC and Warren.

I consider myself progressive left - I support single payer health care, the rich paying their fair share in taxes, cutting defense, social spending, and significant measures to combat climate change. I am also socially liberal - I support ways to make society more equal, anti-death penalty, am pro gun control, am pro choice, support LGBTQ rights and support looking at police reform. Finally, I look for peaceful solutions first in conflicts and don’t think the US can solve everything.

So what would you say you are?

76 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	Socialist
	1 (1%)
	Democratic Socialist
	11 (14%)
	Progressive Left
	35 (46%)
	Mainstream liberal
	18 (24%)
	Centrist
	0 (0%)
	Conservative
	0 (0%)
	A combination of these things
	6 (8%)
	Other (there are lots of other labels)
	5 (7%)
	0 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
Show usernames Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll

[applegrove]

1. I empathize. That my thing. Sometimes I empathize for a second with the creepiest

of Republicans and it scares the hell out of me. That makes me a liberal and sometimes progressive. I run an mri on things you could say. Plus I grew up in a liberal family. Voted for the progressive conservatives in my first election because I was naive. Since then it has either been liberal or NDP, who would both be considered centre left in the US, with the NDP more socialist.

[mvd]

2. Yes it's really a complex question..

that could not have enough options in the poll. It’s open to thoughtful answers like yours.

[TygrBright]

3. I'm a Democrat. n/t

[LakeArenal]

4. Exactly....

WORDS RELATED TO DEMOCRATIC

autonomous, constitutional, egalitarian, free, orderly, popular, common, communal, equal, friendly, individualistic, informal, just, libertarian, populist

[mvd]

5. Good answer

Could have put that in the options but most everyone here could choose it.

[LeftInTX]

8. Yes. I can't afford to be picky.

There is really only one Dem, that I truly despise: State Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr.
Thank God, he is retiring.

The rest of the blue dogs don't bother me much

Manchin is predictable. Sinema appears to have mental health issues. Manchin is the best we can get from WV. I think we can do better in AZ.

Sure wish Manchin and Sinems would toss the filibuster for the John Lewis Act just to get it passed. That is the one thing as Democrats that I wish they would do. Everything rides on this.

[DFW]

9. Same here. Beyond that, I don't play the label game. n/t

[Scrivener7]

10. This. Why would we subdivide ourselves?

I doubt there is anyone here who does not agree with all the things the OP says he/she supports. But our inner division labels have been used against us before by bots and by people seeking to divide us, and even by ourselves.

I won't play.

[UTUSN]

46. That's *it*! - if I need to subdivide, an FDR/LBJ/HST

[Tomconroy]

6. I think I'm an FDR-JFK type democrat.

Last edited Sat Nov 27, 2021, 03:56 AM - Edit history (3)

In it for the very long haul.

[Greybnk48]

29. That's how I think of myself too. In line with these two Presidents. n/t

[Amishman]

7. I don't fit very well into categories, as where I am really depends on the issue

I'm not woke and feel increasingly out of step with the direction of our party on racial/social issues, but at the same time the Pubs have their heads up their asses on this. I'm in the middle and alone.

I feel nicely at home when the topic is labor issues and wall street

Immigration is a really tricky one as I believe we do need stricter immigration controls due to what I feel is a seismic shift in the labor market coming in the next ten years due to robotics and automation. (I see low skill jobs being decimated as rising wages and cheaper technology drives employers to automate tens of millions of jobs out of existence)

[Elessar Zappa]

17. Why do you say you aren't "woke"?

All woke means is that you treat all kinds of different people the same and expect the system to treat them the same, regardless of race, gender identity, etc. I assume you agree with that, don’t you?

[Amishman]

18. its a loaded term, allow me to explain a bit better

I believe obsession with race, racial issues, and identity is a social problem; one nearly as disruptive as racial discrimination itself.

I do not prioritize or generally consider race in my decision making, nor do I really think much at all in terms of who I am.

I do not deny that racism exists or that it is increasing; but I believe there are also those who rush or desire to view every issue through a racial lens, which is often incorrect and leads to wrong conclusions.

I also do accept the idea of white privilege, but I think the primary form of it is economic due to the entrenching of the existing class structure and loss of socioeconomic mobility. White privilege is largely not because of the color of their skin, but an opportunity advantage due to predominantly growing up in two parent households in good neighborhoods and good schools. They benefit primarily because their parents and grandparents were 'on top' so to speak when upward mobility withered over the past 50 years.

By saying I'm not woke, I am conveying that I am not onboard with the current popular interpretations of racial issues in these circles, as the previous statement should make clear. I believe our greatest challenge today is not racism, it is economic inequality.

This will be an unpopular opinion here, and I know I will get some people calling me out on it. I will not be responding, and those who will be offended by my comments will be demonstrating the exact attitudes and biases that I mentioned at the start of this explanation.

[Elessar Zappa]

25. Ok, thanks for the explanation.

I don’t see it that way but I respect your opinion.

[Celerity]

30. sigh, this makes me so sad (I am too tired to even get mad over it, it is just wearying)

I also do accept the idea of white privilege

White privilege is largely not because of the color of their skin

Simply not true, as I can attest too for most of my life, in the UK, in the US, and in Sweden

Some tiny, everyday examples:

I am a multiracial, multi-ethnic cis female, and my wife is a blonde haired, blue-eyed Swede, and we both were raised in London.

We can go into (and have done so many many times) a posh store (think Harrods or Harvey Nichols in London posh, or Bergdorf Goodman in NYC or Galeries LaFayette in Paris, or Fred Segal in LA, or La Rinascente in Milan, or NK here in Stockholm) and I can be all kitted out in very high end designer clothes, bag, accessories, and wifey ca be wearing trainers and sweats ro jeans and a tee, perhaps straight from the gym. Guess who, when we separate, has been followed by security FAR more many times? Lower end stores than those, like Nordstrom or Bloomingdales in the US are even worse.

Guess who (especially in the US) is going to draw the attention of the coppers when it's one of us driving our Cayenne alone (or dog forbid, me with a friend or friends who are also non-white)?

Pro tip, it isn't the blonde Swede girl I am married to.

She has never had, and likely never will, white women (especially older ones in the US) reflexively clutch their bags when she walks onto a lift with them. I SO wish I could say the same thing.

And as bad as it can get for me, male persons of colour often have it much worse.


Now, this statement (which includes the 2nd part above) is just so problematic:

White privilege is largely not because of the color of their skin, but an opportunity advantage due to predominantly growing up in two parent households in good neighborhoods and good schools.

That literally implies two things that show systemic racist thinking, and a third that is entirely contradictory.

1. It implies that most, if not all whites have 2 parent households and live in 'good' neighbourhoods with 'good' schools

2. It implies that people of colour do not have that, as you yourself listed those things as foundational to white privilege

3. It is completely self-contradictory as you said:

I also do accept the idea of white privilege

but then go on to define it anyway.




White privilege doesn't mean your life cannot be hard, but it does mean that the colour of your skin is not one of things making it harder.

[Polybius]

24. I thought it also meant that you are ok with banning long time things now found offensive by some

Such as Aunt Jemima or the Native American on Land Of Lakes butter.

[Elessar Zappa]

26. I think those examples

would be called “cancel culture”. Of course I think that’s a ridiculous term also. Both terms were made up by right wingers.

[Boomerproud]

22. You sound very pragmatic on labor/immigration.

We will all be affected by the cheap technological boom that's coming and low skilled workers will be hit the hardest, as you said.

[Hortensis]

11. Mainstream liberals are all progressive left, though. How do I click both?

Most of the most zealous anti-establishment types are presumably calling themselves socialists of either kind these days.

Progressive left suggests stronger left, like Nancy Pelosi and all those in congress usually leading big progressive advances. I'll click that, but want to say progressives are completely different from the kind of anti-establishment types who would throw progressivism under the bus because their leaders/faction said so, or just because Democrats (establishment) were doing it and they were having a sad. The big passion of progressives is progress meeting the rights and needs of the people.

Btw, both socialist and Democratic Socialist are types of socialist systems (NOT capitalist systems supporting some socialist services as in Europe), so the socialist choice really needs further definition. It's kind of important to know what socialism is and isn't because supporters of revolutions sometimes get what they support and don't get what they imagined they were.

[Karma13612]

12. Same as you...

We could be twins, philosophically speaking of course!

[Ron Green]

13. The Left-Right spectrum is a fool's game,

and I don’t think we should play it.

The entertainment business that is the media uses it to reduce important issues in our public life to a kind of team sports contest, whereby the fight against other people has become what matters.

And “Centrism” does not solve this problem.

[Stuart G]

21. History of the...Left - Right spectrum. Where did it come from? French Revolution..

...Those on the right side of the Estates General were for strongly in favor of the king
....Those on the left side of the Estates General..(the legislative body in France)..were in favor of ideas from
.......the U.S. Revolution...

......Those in the middle were some of this, and some of that. Farther right, more favor.. for the king.....
...... Farther left, more in favor of the ideas of total change like U, S. ..

.................................no I don't know where I learned that...maybe from a H.S. Teacher....Mr. Cobb..(if I recall)

[Poiuyt]

14. I'd like to see a definition of terms

For example: what's the difference between Democratic Socialist, Progressive Left, and Mainstream Liberal?

[mvd]

20. Under my thinking..

Democratic Socialist and progressive left are very similar. It is mostly how you want to label in this case.

I consider President Biden and VP Kamala Harris mainstream liberal, though at times they have seemed more left.

[Celerity]

34. Absolutely not.

Democratic Socialist and progressive left are very similar.

There are no actual federally elected democratic socialists, just a small number who (by far my main issue with them) falsely self-label as such when they are simply just bog standard social democrats.

They do not believe in a core tenet of actual socialism, which is the state expropriation of the means of production. When you ask any of them to define what democratic socialism is to them, they always just give a very similar definition of what is called the Nordic model (I live in Sweden) of social democracy. No major western industrialised nation is a socialist country.

The elected US members of either chamber of Congress who falsely self-label as dem socs do nothing but hurt themselves and the party in reactionary, dumbed down America, where most people instantly conflate socialism with communism. It is the height of hubris to think they can undo centuries of accepted academic and commonly accepted mainstream culture used definitions.

[mvd]

35. I wasn't really contradicting most of that

Except for the hurting themselves part. The GQP will call any Democrat socialist. I just don’t like hiding from names. I picked progressive left not because I am afraid of being labeled Democratic Socialist but because many I like in Congress use that. Sanders is the exception.

[Celerity]

36. Not many, only a handful self-label as such. AOC and Bernie are the two most well known.

It is a completely self-inflicted wound. It so frustrates me as I allows the RW to point and say 'Look, you ARE socialists!' due to their false self-labelling. And of course, in the reactionary room temp IQ environs of the American body politic, socialist instantly equals communist. Then the entire party gets falsely broadbrushed.

It is like watching an element of a slow moving trainwreck.

I rarely disagree with AOC, but on this front I profoundly do. I also would IF she actually started to become a socialist, as I do not, and never will, believe in a full on implementation of socialism.

I am a big proponent of the Nordic Model's interlocking of a vibrant AND highly regulated capitalist sector, which then works synergistically with an expansive social welfare state to lift up society in general, and to strive for wealth equality at a high baseline wealth level. That system has been in place here (Sweden, and also the other Nordics) for ages, and it also allows for individual initiative to be more than amply rewarded.

[mvd]

38. Well I just can't agree about the self inflicted wound

I don’t think full socialism will work either (we do need a degree to counteract the greed and cruelty of capitalism), but personally I am not afraid of the Democratic Socialist label.

I also like how the Nordic countries do things. Hopefully they haven’t slipped recently.

[Celerity]

39. It is hubristic to think you can simply 're-brand' a toxic (toxic in a reactionary nation-state like

the US) label, and also a false label (as the label's definitions are NOT met) simply at the whim and wish of some small group (the extremely problematic DSA at the core of this) cosplaying out a DYI pseudo version of Das Kapital mixed with a community college level student's review of Pepper's Eco-Socialism.

It serves no good purpose whatsoever. It is false academically, it is false in the common parlance of everyday life, and it gives the domestic enemies of American democracy a war hammer with which to assault and grievously wound the Democratic Party, the only major political institution of systemic import standing in the breach, attempting to stop a white nationalist christofascist theocracy from arising.

Just self-identify (and correctly so, I might add) as adherents and advocates for social democracy and be done with it.


you said

I don’t think full socialism will work either

So WHY insist on the label Democratic Socialist????

That is literally a self-inflicted political wound (and a false label as well) for all of the reasons I have laid out.

[mvd]

40. Because Democratic Socialism is not socialism

That is the real reason. I just don’t get caught up in semantics about labels. For example, social democracy can be considered a form of Democratic Socialism. It’s true that DS started out with collective ownership, but the term has evolved.

I still feel we agree more than we disagree.

[Celerity]

43. that is simply false, democratic socialism is a form of socialism

Democratic socialism means having a socialist economy in which the means of production are socially and/or collectively owned or controlled, in parallel with a democratically elected system of government.

You (and AOC, Bernie, etc) are conflating Nordic Model social democracy with democratic socialism, for no good reason and, I might add, no good outcome to occur from the insistence upon the label.

[mvd]

44. It's not false

It is widely held to be more inclusive now.

[Celerity]

45. No, I can assure you it is not widely held, and that is again, typical American hubristic thinking.

You cannot just snap your fingers and undo 2 plus centuries of academic and real world (at the common zeitgeist level) definitions and consequences of labels based upon those definitions. It is a waste of time and a waste of political capital.

The DSA itself is very much divided between social democrats, actual socialists, and outright Marxists and Trotskyite communists.

It is also damaging to the US Democratic Party by needlessly giving the RW a club to beat us over the head with.

I suggest you go study, to see real world manifestations and outcomes, the interactions over the past 80 years or so between the Social Democrats and the actual socialists (and communists when they were in the same umbrella political groups and parties) in Sweden. I myself have posted somewhat in depth on that subject here in the past.

[Elessar Zappa]

15. I chose progressive left.

I would’ve chosen mainstream liberal except I’m for a single payer healthcare system whereas I believe mainstream liberals prefer a mixed system of government and private insurance.

[Wingus Dingus]

16. Mainstream liberal with a little centrism.

[TheBlackAdder]

19. Most Centrists now seem to be Ike Republicans.

[tavernier]

23. Monarchist.

But since I haven’t yet been crowned Queen of the world, I’ll go with Democrat.

[hunter]

27. Radical Evolutionary Biologist and some kind of humanst.

I'm somewhat iffy on the humanist stuff.

[moondust]

28. What's in a name? 🙃

The Liberal Democratic Party of Russia is a right-wing populist political party in Russia...
~
...It has been described as adhering to statism and authoritarianism, and has also been described as fascist...

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

[DFW]

31. Whereas...

After the Berlin Wall fell, and the ruling Stalinist party in East Germany had to compete for votes like everyone else, they changed their name to the « Party of Democratic Socialism. » Their political stance was pretty much unchanged, and they were mostly unapologetic about the murders at the Berlin Wall and on the Death Strip while they were in power.

What, indeed, is on a name?

[GoneOffShore]

32. That was an easy choice - Democratic Socialist. And I embrace the label.

[Klaralven]

33. It depends on the issue

[boston bean]

37. I am a democrat.

The party itself stands for all of the things you mention. Although differing degrees. I don’t see the need to split ourselves up like this.

[orleans]

41. i took this quiz

and it said i was progressive left

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/quiz/political-typology/

[GoodRaisin]

42. Yellow Dog Democrat. nt

[jml510]

47. A pragmatic liberal. nt