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You are missing bias.

Elons "graph" only shows the left moving away, like they were running away from the globalists lovin satanist-migrants. Or maybe just climate scientists?

This entire "blaming wokeism" is just identity tribalism form the other side. How come you fail to realize ...

>Elons "graph" only shows the left moving away,

Which has been objectively measured.

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2014/06/12/political-po...

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-polarization-of-politic...

>This entire "blaming wokeism" is just identity tribalism form the other side. How come you fail to realize ...

I never blamed wokeism.

Well, the big reason I'm skeptical is that the group of people who don't like "wokeism" seem to have pretty diverse identities. It's hard for me to see many similarities between irreligious business magnate Elon Musk, vaguely Catholic political blogger Andrew Sullivan, and my full time Baptist preacher cousin-in-law - I'm not sure I could identify any other policy question they all agree on.

I think, you are contrasting your peers to a propagandistic caricature.

Or how easy can you fit in that image "moderate" leftists like bernie sanders or noam chomsky?

What is the difference between woke and left?

I don't want to necessarily defend "woke" as a term, but if you pinned me down, I'd say the difference between woke and left is that Noam Chomsky isn't woke. He thinks free speech is very important and signed onto a famous letter on the topic of "cancel culture" and why it's bad. I don't think he has or would identify as anti-woke, but the general phenomenon of ideological capture in mass communications is something he's always talked about and opposed at length.

So you agree with me, that left and woke is not the same thing.

Whats odd thou is, (1) there is no clear definition of wokeism, like its an arbitrary stereotype used by demagogues and (2), that woke is often displayed on the other side of right/conservative. This makes it a strong indicator of propaganda. A surface, people can project their negative emotions to, which is another red flag in terms of populism. Even you used it indirectly, to refer to your peers "not liking woke", which is why i asked.

I am not defending wokeism too. One core value of the left is equality and solidarity. When you define wokeism as some LGBTQ-stuff, it would be just a subset of these values. So being woke does not make you left.

This is my answer to, what is the difference between woke and left.

On one level, sure, I'm definitely with you. The term "woke" is vague, subject to toxic stereotyping, and it'd be nice if people didn't use it.

But I don't think we can overlook the pressures that push people towards it. The problem is that a lot of movements that get grouped under "woke" self-identify with vacuously positive labels that can't be negated. If I go around telling people "anti-racism is bad", they're going to think I mean "racism is good", and they're not going to believe me when I clarify that I'm referring to specific policy ideas promoted in books such as Ibram X. Kendi's famous How to Be an Antiracist. Unless you're talking to people who are so politically engaged you can name-drop specific authors to start with, I'm not sure what term other than "woke" you could use.

I was about to write "The Problem we both have is mislabeling" but then i realized that we dont have the same problem.

From my perspective, conservatives/rights often stand out with blatant and harmful falsehoods. Even in your last post is a central self contradiction.

>movements that get grouped under "woke" self-identify with vacuously positive labels that can't be negated

>If I go around telling people "anti-racism is bad", they're going to think I mean "racism is good"

Looks like your "anti-racism is bad" statement is not meant to be negated. I think, what you meant is "racism is bad but what you are doing is too", which, from my perspective, is not equivalent to "anti-racism is bad". Your mistake here is, that you use their "racism"-label and invert it, to make it suit you. By doing so, you reduce the conversation to labels and discard similarities between you (which is actually the most harmful part).

A slight difference in phrasing is deciding if i agree or disagree with you. Is it my fault or yours?

"Anti-racism is bad" is meant to be negated. It would be totally reasonable for someone to respond by saying "well, I actually think anti-racism is good, and here's why".

There's a risk of labels getting in the way, no doubt. But there's a lot of things that seem straightforwardly impossible to reason about without labels. How could we discuss what the abstract principles of race relations in the US should be without identifying and naming the major strains of thought on that topic?

Black people were discriminated in the US from the beginning. This discrimination continued long after civil rights reforms in public and private institutions.

Even if you could magically eliminate racism in every human brain on earth with a snap of your fingers, the socio-econimic factors, inherited from the beginning would continue to be disadvantageous for blacks. So the racism back then, even when not present in minds today, would persist. This is called systemic racism, because we discriminate indirectly, not by skin color but by education, vocabulary, human capital in general. And on top, racism will of course prevail in minds.

From that, you can easily advocate for some sort of compensation, some kind of counter discrimination, anti-racism.

I find that term troublesome too, because you actually asking for support for all poor people, not just blacks, but i would never call it a ideological label and bad, because i can see the reason behind it. Using it as a label and associating it with (group) identity is unfortunate but not my mistake.

"woke" has a clear definition and origin in black activism. Like a lot of concepts from black activism, it became co-opted by well meaning white liberals, encompassing many other forms of progressive activism and eventually became more about virtue signalling than productive activism, much less black allyship.

Then, like so many other progressive and left-activist terms, it got co-opted again and inverted by the right into a general pejorative, indicating nothing other than mockery and caricature of the left. But it definitely came from somewhere and it at least used to mean something.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke

It's fundamentally a difference about the economy and the value of material change vs. cultural change. The left proper wants liberation for all oppressed groups, including the largest, the working class. Leftists recognize that groups that are more marginalized under capitalism/imperialism (national/ethnic minorities, etc.) will benefit disproportionately, but want a rising tide for everyone (except the bourgeoisie). That is to say, leftists have a commitment to intersectionality and the liberation of those with marginalized identities, but the fundamental, sine-qua-non thing that makes one a leftist is anti-capitalism.

The woke "left" is different; it's largely a phenomenon of the petit bourgeoisie, and is not opposed to capitalism, or oppression more generally; the woke instead want representative members of generally marginalized groups to be proportionally represented in the existing power structures, without any significant change to those power structures. The reason the woke come off as so strident and belligerent is that membership in the professional-managerial class (PMC) is increasingly precarious, and US educational/cultural institutions overproduce people with the qualifications for entry into/maintenance of that class position, relative to the dwindling size of that class.

> What is the difference between woke and left?

'left' to me has always been associated with class politics and 'woke' with identity politics.

> Blaming social media is not legitimate in my opinion; social media will be what fixes this. The fix to the USA falling apart is free and open discussions between the camps. This is what Elon is planning to do with twitter.

I’m skeptical that he can fundamentally change the incentives that make social media amplify extremist views over moderate views. “The other side is terrible” will always get more engagement than “we should work together”, even with validated identities.

>I’m skeptical that he can fundamentally change the incentives that make social media amplify extremist views over moderate views.

I'm skeptical that someone who unironically uses the phrase "woke mindvirus" has any such intent. There's a reason right-wing accounts are flooding the platform now and everyone else is running for the hills, and it isn't because Elon makes both sides equally welcome or unwelcome. He's clearly picked a side.

I'd really encourage you to take a step back and think about how deeply the attitude of extreme-vs-extreme conflict pervades this comment. You say "everyone else is running for the hills", but I don't think you'd claim that 100% or even 25% of left-wing Twitter users have left the platform today. Is it true that the "wokeness" debate is such a big issue you can't use a social media platform run by someone who doesn't agree with your stance, or have the incentives of social media tricked you into seeing it as a totalizing conflict where nobody can agree to disagree?

>You say "everyone else is running for the hills", but I don't think you'd claim that 100% or even 25% of left-wing Twitter users have left the platform today.

Sorry, I forgot where I was posting for a second. It was an idiom, not an attempt at a mathematical proof.

The point is that only one side suddenly feels unwelcome and the other suddenly feels very welcome.

>Is it true that the "wokeness" debate is such a big issue you can't use a social media platform run by someone who doesn't agree with your stance,

No. I just don't look forward to the flood of edgelord Nazi shitposters, bots and harassment I predict Elon (and, Trump's probable reinstatement) will draw to the platform, nor do I particularly want to use a platform whose owner considers my views to be akin to a plague. I will, as long as it remains feasible to block accounts I have no interest in.

>or have the incentives of social media tricked you into seeing it as a totalizing conflict where nobody can agree to disagree?

I didn't take over Twitter because I felt it needed to be liberated from the "woke mindvirus." Elon is bringing the totalizing conflict, I just want to read my feed in peace.

Why is it that liberals run from a platform full of conservatives, but conservatives don't run from a platform full of liberals?

What do you think Voat, Gab, Parler, Rumble, WeMe, Truth Social, Gettr and numerous other "alternative" platforms formed in the last few years were all about? Conservative safe spaces are a whole market segment now.

I will grant you it must be difficult trying to voice your opinion as a conservative in a liberal space, but there are countless examples of conservative safe spaces and running away from those platforms, or they just never join them in the first place.

>I’m skeptical that he can fundamentally change the incentives that make social media amplify extremist views over moderate views. “The other side is terrible” will always get more engagement than “we should work together”, even with validated identities.

There have been a ton of Elon doubters over the last 10 years.

I hope he is successful. We must get people back to the same team.

He said if he’s successful, that both the far left and far right would be equally unhappy, has he made any kind of statement to suggest his goal is to “get people back on the same team”? I.E. his goal is to get people to trust the platform, not each other.

>He said if he’s successful, that both the far left and far right would be equally unhappy, has he made any kind of statement to suggest his goal is to “get people back on the same team”? I.E. his goal is to get people to trust the platform, not each other.

Basically what he just said is that he won't be allowing violence or calls to violence.

When you boil down or remove the perjorativeness of 'extremism'. You can have a borderline extreme opinion on abortion. Either on right the right side that no abortion should be allowed or on the left side of 'abortion should be allowed even after birth' Neither of these are extremist positions though.

Extremism comes down to not being willing to entertain the other side and the requirement of using violence to solve the political divide. Those are far extreme positions.

I think we can all agree that violence isn't the answer and if some violent extremist from either side has been censored. Nobody will actually care.

I'm actually curious to push on your idea that "we can all agree that violence isn't the answer". Because I think there are more and more people who think it is the answer. I would guess you're saying the vast majority rather than all (Sorry if this sounds pedantic but it's not meant to be).

Also, is it ok to call for violence if your next tweet says that you were joking? I do not think there is not agreement on what a violent extremist is.

>I'm actually curious to push on your idea that "we can all agree that violence isn't the answer".

Survivors always universally agree violence isn't the answer. I'm not saying literally 100% of people are opposed to violence. Will Smith just ruined his reputation and ended his career with violence.

> Because I think there are more and more people who think it is the answer. I would guess you're saying the vast majority rather than all (Sorry if this sounds pedantic but it's not meant to be).

The federal government has many responsibilities but 2 of the fundamental ones.

1. Military and police to prevent all violence. Government gets full monopoly over violence.

2. Borders to define where violence isn't allowed.

Fundamentally the government who represents everyone is the 'all'. Obviously it's more complicated than that because violence is allowed in some examples. Boxing -> MMA for example, but my understanding is that it's well regulated.

Even more complicated yet, there will always be a portion of every society who wants to kill. It's an evolutionary thing that Joe Rogan likes to call Chimp Brain. For whatever reason they are wired to the point they need to kill. Imagine the helicopter scene from full metal jacket: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S06nIz4scvI

Those people exist. Even in Ukraine right now. There are Russian soldiers who are doing this. Everyone is the enemy and needs to be killed. Stupid ukraine for whatever they did to force me to be there. I'm going to punish ukrainians equally, they all need dying.

These people are going to push toward violence. You have to proactive to avoid this.

>Also, is it ok to call for violence if your next tweet says that you were joking? I do not think there is not agreement on what a violent extremist is.

Great question, and what is the 'correct' solution? I dont care about the next tweet but perhaps you are banned until you delete the tweet? Commonly that's what twitter already does.

Unfortunately there is a disagreement over calls for violence. It's difficult to find examples of calls for violence from the right wing. Obviously that is well censored. Yet there's lots of examples from the left-wing that go unpunished. The entire 'punch a nazi' thing from the left is insidious and bad.

Here is a verified checkmark on the left calling for violence as an example: https://twitter.com/JeffGrubb/status/1086707229137485825

The context is that this is an off-the-cuff comment during the early part of the Maga kid Nick sandman story. The truth hadn't come out yet. That is to say that nick sandman was completely innocent and now rich after multiple settlements by media who smeared him. Obviously a ton more verified checkmarks called for violence toward the maga kid. Lets not even mention the number of non-checkmarks who never had their call to violence ever censored.

That maga hat represented much more than the situation really did.

> The fix to the USA falling apart is free and open discussions between the camps. This is what Elon is planning to do with twitter.

Nice, now you just have to convince the MAGA Republican and the BLM Democrat to have an open discussion, when each of them prefers to listen to their own social bubble. Good luck with that...

Or you need people to realize that MAGAs and BLMs are a small minority of the general population. You need the media to behave like adults and stop pitting one side against the other for clicks/views. You need companies to stop caving to outraged people on Twitter.

Yeah, I guess we're done.

>Nice, now you just have to convince the MAGA Republican and the BLM Democrat to have an open discussion, when each of them prefers to listen to their own social bubble. Good luck with that...

A russian cosmonaut spit on Elon when he suggested he was going to build a rocket that can be recovered and refueled. Called him insane and it can't be done. Well... don't know if you're keeping a score card...

How many short sellers of tesla lost an awful lot of money? Elon is quite the force to reckon with.

While I am not MAGA, republican, BLM, nor democrat. I have had conversations with all of those. They are all reasonable people who will listen to what you have to say.

I think there's certainly some conversations that are possible even now but so many off limits topics that are what need to be discussed. That's an easy first fix.

>American coastal elites felt more connected to elites in other countries than to their fellow Americans in the heartland

>When the left-wing attacks the right-wing

This is part of the problem. When you casually define the left as "coastal elites who are out of touch" and the right as "Americans in the heartland who are uncared for", you are taking a real problem and reframing it as "all left-wingers vs all right-wingers". You are making people feel attacked who are not in the group you are trying to criticize. People (on both sides) do this to each other constantly (though they have been since prehistory - it's just particularly bad in the US lately).

That's a good point. That first part was a copy and paste from the article.

In defense of nozero or haidt, statistically that is accurate. The red vs blue is certainly concentrated rural vs urban.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/21/upshot/america-political-...

It's interesting the consequences of this as well. There are policies being changed without a mindset of urban vs rural. Where a policy that makes sense in a urban point of view is catastrophic to rural communities. "If you think the world is overpopulated, leave the city."

Political policies like carbon tax for example disproportionately harm rural people. Some dude living in downtown toronto taking the subway is basically getting a pay cheque from the government at the expense of rural folks who must drive a low mpg pickup truck. What you think farming can be done in a econobox? https://metro.co.uk/2015/03/28/udder-disgrace-cops-find-cow-...

In fact, if you know a bloc of people support your policies and another doesn't. Figuring out of a system which transfers wealth to your supporters at the expense of your political opponents is an ideal system.

The problem though is that we in a country are the same team. Attacking 1 side is never beneficial. Urban folks attacking farmers with carbon taxes? Ok well how's that food inflation working out? Attacking oil workers with carbon taxes? How about the gas prices?

>People (on both sides) do this to each other constantly (though they have been since prehistory - it's just particularly bad in the US lately).

It's interesting as well to imagine how to solve this in the USA. Lets say Elon fails or even makes this worse and he deletes twitter. It just doesnt exist anymore.

How do you bring both sides back together without blood being shed?

You cant do nothing, it's actively becoming worse right now. Act now or else.

It's certainly not going to be solved by more censorship and removing free speech. In fact, censorship is a new thing. Free speech has been around for plenty long to know it's not causing it. My hypothetical also assumes reduction in censorship by elon failed.

So as president happytoexplain of the independent party. How do you bridge the divide? How do you bring people back together?

You might try to go nationalism. Tell everyone they are Team America, that the fight isnt with each other. Build some foreign enemy for people to rail against. At the same time go around ending all the wars the USA involved in. End wars that the USA arent even involved in. Reduce tension, reduce war exhaustion. Make sure people's economic situation is as good as possible because of high correlation between violence and economic situation. Reduce the poor mindset in general, tackle it directly.

Who did I just describe?

I’m not convinced social media will fix things. IF we could have conversations with each other, and discuss nuance, it would help. However, it’s turned into a tool to just shout knee-jerk memes at each other and demonify the other side. I don’t see any honest real discussions happening among people who disagree. It’s just fanning the flames that will burn us all.

> social media will be what fixes this. The fix to the USA falling apart is free and open discussions between the camps.

I feel like cancel culture may be your blind spot.

> This is what Elon is planning to do with twitter.

The only things Elon is planning to do with twitter is to silence his critics, become a Rupert Murdoch style figure, and keep manipulating stock prices.

If it makes anyone feel any better, Musk's Twitter acquisition reminds me of Buffett's acquisition of Berkshire Hathaway -- he did it because he was assmad and is likely to take a bath on it.

(as the twitter picture is getting a bit of thought)

The depiction of the right remaining where it is from 2008 to 2021 is misguided at best. The party of George Bush, John McCain, and Mitt Romney is the same as the GOP today is incorrect.

https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2021-04-20/geo...

https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/27/politics/mitt-romney-gop-ukra...

https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/27/politics/john-mccain-donald-t...

---

I believe that this depiction only makes sense for Elon if a different right endpoint is used - where the right is closer to Ron Paul and the left is instead the caricature at the extreme that the comic portrays.

It wouldn't surprise me if the Democratic Party has shifted to the more authoritarian end of the Y axis of the political compass - increased regulation in the wake of corruption and the increased power of corporations.

If you draw a line from where Ron Paul to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama on https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2008 and put Elon on that line... then ok. 2008 make sense. Then you draw it again on 2012 https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2012 and it makes sense. And again 2020 - https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2020 it makes sense (note the change of where Biden was in 2008 to 2020 though this is hardly scientific measurements).

However, that completely ignores the shift of the the majority of the rest of the Republican Party to the top right corner.

This chart only makes sense for Elon if the right end is held constant at the libertarian and the left end changes, but ignores the rise of the authoritarian right along with any of his changes.

>The depiction of the right remaining where it is from 2008 to 2021 is misguided at best.

As I mention here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31206510 it has been objectively measured. There have been quite a number of leftist political commentators who recently have been offended that they are labelled right-wing now. Bill Maher or Russel Brand for examples.

Carlos Maza before his disgrace wrote on the subject @vox and he basically argued that obama and truman were the same politically. That's rather insane, sure they did start a bunch of wars and bomb countless civilians. I on the otherhand don't recall Obama threatening to draft the people in a union on strike into the war. I also suspect truman and obama's stances on immigration are slightly different LOL.

Dont get me wrong. I can certainly see both parties moving left. LGBT rights are a key example. There's nothing wrong with moving left.

>The party of George Bush, John McCain, and Mitt Romney is the same as the GOP today is incorrect.

I would agree.

George W Bush for example actively voted against gay marriage. Even planned to make a constitutional amendment to protect marriage from homosexuals. He banned homosexuals from boy scout. I can just imagine how horrified Bush is about it being Scouts now. Even was of the opinion that it's not possible to commit a hate crime toward a gay.

Flipside, Trump went around the world promoting LGBT rights and brought the fight to the middle east and russia to decriminalize being LGBT. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/trump-adm...

Do you feel this new republican party is going the right direction of LGBT rights? I think so. I applaud Trump here.

>I believe that this depiction only makes sense for Elon if a different right endpoint is used - where the right is closer to Ron Paul and the left is instead the caricature at the extreme that the comic portrays.

I think that's kind of the point. Objectively the far right hasn't changed much at all. In fact the common argument is that the far right has moved slightly left since that time. Which on 1 issue I clearly show the shift. Not the other way around like you suggest.

>It wouldn't surprise me if the Democratic Party has shifted to the more authoritarian end of the Y axis of the political compass - increased regulation in the wake of corruption and the increased power of corporations.

Bill Maher I believe made this point. That the left has gone so far left that everything to the right of them look right wing. You can identify this by seeing democrats like you say here.

>https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2008

Political compass was questionable for some time, but it's interesting to see it here. They are offensively wrong for canadian politics.

If you see your entire political spectrum as right-wing authoritarian. That's a problem with the graph. If you're going to produce a poor graph like this you have to justify it. They dont.

>https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2020

The failure largely speaking is that the left vs right false dichotomy. But political compass is also self-biasing from a far left position.

Hawkins in left libertarian should be bottom left corner. The graph is biased by that much.

In a way the political polarization is visible in those graphs. It's also interesting to see why. They do the analysis by finding answers to questions. "What is your stance on abortion, gun rights, etc." and then plot.

But if you self-biased based on your own political beliefs by only asking certain questions. Then you end up showing your bias and not the political plot of politicians.

>However, that completely ignores the shift of the the majority of the rest of the Republican Party to the top right corner.

Elon very clearly understands what is wrong. I would put money on a bet that he understand better than I do.

The censorship and failure in communication have produced echo chambers which artificially pushed the left-wing toward the far left. Afterall what happens if the left-wing only talks to the left wing? Of course their discourse without dissent will shift left. We haven't measured it, but right-wing echo chambers would do the same thing.

What do you think the consequences will be when the right-wing shifts far right? Elon wants to fix the problem before this happens.

> There have been quite a number of leftist political commentators who recently have been offended that they are labelled right-wing now. Bill Maher

Was never a leftist, or a political commentator with any coherent ideology at all. AFAICT, he was only ever painted by some as a leftist because of the Right painting everyone who wasn't in lockstep with the racist war fury of the early 00s as “leftist”, and because being a comedian when the Republican Party was at a local maximum of control, for a while all the easy targets for his contrarian humor were in the Right.

And he’s evolved on the positions that got him perceived as leaning left then, becoming more positive retrospectively on the Iraq War, more Islamophobic over time, etc., more openly supportive of foreign dictatorships in general.

Brand I’ve not paid much attention to, but he never struck me as particularly leftist, either.

>Was never a leftist, or a political commentator with any coherent ideology at all.

He labels himself a leftist. His views are commonly left of center. He lives in leftyville california. He went to Cornell which doesn't produce republicans. I watched him on politically incorrect, but I only see the odd show here and there since he went to real time on hbo. I would say he's a lefty. I very much doubt there's any air of caricature in his public persona. I do believe he has been legitimate in his beliefs. Better yet makes tons of funny jokes.

If on the subject of political polarization of the left-wing has you saying Bill Maher is right wing. I rest my case.

>Brand I’ve not paid much attention to, but he never struck me as particularly leftist, either.

Like I know Bill Maher is left of center. Brand is left of him.

He even recently made a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4e8lSQy64c

Lets not forget the bernie bros who are suddenly right wing as well, joe rogan, jimmy dore, kenosha shooter guy.

The point to take away. If you think "the right" are racist war fury and islamaphobic. You should leave your country. There's somewhere else that is better for you. "the right" are your fellow countrymen, they are on your team. Do you know of lots of your country people that you like are moving somewhere? Europe, Japan/Korea? Australia? Germany? Perhaps you should reach out to them. See if it's really better?

> Elon tweeted this yesterday ... He has a vested incentive/interest to help make this not happen.

Then why is he Tweeting nonsense cartoons that only serve to divide people?

I mean, the right has stood still for the past 13 years? This perception is part of the problem. Notwithstanding actual studies (tweeted in reply to that comment) show the exact opposite has happened -- that the left has moved leftward slightly while the right has lurched further to the right 4x further, we know the right has moved far right since 2008 because of January 6 2021. That's proof positive that a problem exists with right-wing extremists, and to just pretend otherwise strikes me as dishonest on Musk's part.

The far right went from tea party curiosity in 2008 to full blown anti-democratic, paramilitary, conspiracy lunacy in 2022. We had an unbroken track record of 44 peaceful transfers of power until 2021, when the former president and his party plotted to overthrow the newly elected government by force. We are now learning as texts are being leaked, they spent the entirety of Nov-Dec 2020 texting each other illegal strategies to prevent Biden from assuming office on 1/20/21, and then tried very hard to implement those strategies, including going so far as having constructed bogus legal theories and a faux-constitutional process to attempt to legitimize their efforts. And of course, purposefully fomenting an insurrection and gleefully watching as it unfolded.

And you can't even say it's the fringe because that wing of the party has literally taken over the GOP. If you don't believe me, ask any of the conservatives who have left the GOP citing how far right it's moved. People will cite AOC as the most radical leftist they can think of, and even her Green New Deal is fundamentally grounded in the ideals of capitalism. Not very radical leftist if you ask me. Where are the actual radical leftists in Congress, espousing an end to American democracy, the monetary system, and capitalism? You can't find them because they're not there.

So given all that, for the new owner of Twitter to tweet that conservatives have moved absolutely nowhere in the past 13 years, shows just how completely out of touch he is with the political climate.

(for anyone looking to reply that the left has move left, I will not contest that, but the point of the cartoon is that the left has exclusively moved left while everyone else has stayed the same. This is objectively not true.)

The point is not mostly about economic axis, but the cultural one.

In the economic axis, you could argue that at least a certain part of the Republicans has moved to the left. The emergence of the New Right [1][2] speaks to that. Or Trump's shtick of being against "unfair" free-trade deals. Or that Republicans are now the party of the working class.

[1]: https://scholars-stage.org/the-problem-of-the-new-right/

[2]: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/04/inside-the-new-right...

> People will cite AOC as the most radical leftist they can think of, and even her Green New Deal is fundamentally grounded in the ideals of capitalism. Not very radical leftist if you ask me.

That's what I think is strange. Same thing happens in my country, some people say that our country is turning into a far-leftist woke-nation. Even though center-right parties are in majority and most elected on the left aren't even really far-left, just Social Democrats or Greens.

The GND is not about being green, it's about redistributing wealth and laundering taxpayer money.

It's about spending trillions more, causing more inflation, and things falling further apart.

AOC is a radical, and honestly she has no idea what she's promoting, like most of her followers.

Redistributing wealth and laundering taxpayer money is standard politics, not radical at all. The point is making is that she’s not a radical leftist. Insofar as you consider the GND to be redistributive it’s not doing so in a way that actual radical leftists would support. So how is she a radical leftist then?

> The GND is not about being green, it's about redistributing wealth

No idea what the GND does and what they proclaim, the Greens I mentioned are the ones in my country, which isn't the US. As far as I understand nothing else than Reps and Dems matter anyways.

> AOC is a radical

I don't think so, but that could also be due to me not being from the US.

Lots of things my country does would be wrongfully labeled as socialist, communist or radical in the US.

So its no susprise to me that AOC gets labeled as radical in the US, even though she still seems pretty tame to me.

I do welcome that she's more left than what I usually hear from Democrats.

EDIT: In order for you to understand me a bit better - If I'd be able to vote in the US, I would've voted for Bernie Sanders.

> In order for you to understand me a bit better - If I'd be able to vote in the US, I would've voted for Bernie Sanders.

You'll have to clarify specific policies because saying you support Bernie Sanders just makes it even murkier.

No joke, I agree on the vast majority of things he says. I say vast majority because I assume there are things he thinks that I don't know and see different. Else, everything I hear from him is basically what I think, give or take some small adjustments.

You could call me a Socialist, and I would be fine with it. However, I would never support an authoritarian or non-democratic system. In my opinion my country has the best political system which currently exists, so I feel fortunate for that. Still, I don't find it to be perfect. Too much lobby-ism, aka. corruption. Too much influence by industries. At least everyone has a vote and everyone can technically start a process to bring change.

Healthcare, critical infrastructure, essentials and maybe more should belong to the people of a country. The US seems to be a country belonging to those who own the most of it. Businessmen, politicians and so on. Markets have to be regulated and controlled. Tax avoidance is no different to me than tax evasion. Yada yada, feel free to ask more questions about my opinions, but I guess this is a good start.