I'll give a detailed response here, and then I'm off to get some lunch and run some errands.
Your theory is that people vote for far-right candidates because ... they're leftists? If that's too simplistic, please try to clarify.
Huh? I'm assuming you're referring to my reply to that other poster, elaborating on how the one-party US state leads to fascism? If this was your takeaway from that post, I'm left to decide whether you're being deliberately obtuse or if I'm far too charitable re: your intelligence. No, people don't vote for far-right candidates because they're leftists. Although that actually is a thing that exists, accelerationists, but that's not what I was getting at, at all. That's a tiny demographic. You're probably the only person on this board that had that takeaway from that post.
The point was that if there's no party that has the political will
and power to actually address society's material needs and problems, the resulting and ongoing degradation of people's material conditions, radicalizes people to the right by encouraging them to seek solutions outside of seeking recourse for their material concerns (again, because means of seeking recourse for their material concerns have been eliminated), i.e. - Jews/Black folks/LGBT/immigrants/women/globalists are too blame for all of society's ills, not the economic system. And this isn't even Marxist political theory my guy - this is mainstream political and sociological theory. Degrading material conditions = society becomes more radicalized. That is mainstream, empirical sociology and empirical political science.
Tell me - what is
your explanation for why the far-right is growing in the US? I know you're an idealist, not a materialist, so my assumption is that your answer will be "oh its because the wrong ideas are spreading around more than the good ideas are." If you think the economy is doing great, and things are better than ever before, then you have a gigantic hole in your analysis that needs to be explained - why is fascism/the far right growing in the US if things are better than ever before? I'm all ears. Oh, oh, bonus points if you can give me the same explanation for what happened in Weimar, Germany. Just another case of those pesky bad ideas spreading more than the good ideas? Or, like every other political scientist and political historian, do you recognize that the bad material conditions for citizens of the Weimar Republic, combined with the liberal party's unwillingness to address them while simultaneously making concessions to the fascists (gee, this part really sounds familiar to me, but I can't quite put a finger on why) lead to the rise of Hitler? Thanks.
My theory is that they vote for people whose overall image lines up with what they want. Further, the factual premise is just way off. There are significant differences between the parties and material conditions have been increasing pretty much non-stop for >150 years.
These significant differences only relate to domestic social issues. And while those do matter, of course, I'm saying they're significant, it still leaves Democrats and Republicans aligned on ~95% of foreign policy and economic issues.
Really extensive analysis and papers have been written on the near total alignment between the Republican party and the Democratic party. But, hey, fuck the analysis from academic papers - how about you just look at their actual voting records and see their near unanimous consent on economic and foreign policy? The track record is there for everyone to see. Both parties support exploitation of the 3rd world. Both parties voted for the Iraq war. Both parties support doing coups in nations that won't allow Western capital access to their markets. Both parties do not support single payer healthcare. Both parties do not support tuition free college. Both parties do not support a nationwide effort to eliminate homelessness. Both parties do not support increasing minimum wage to a living wage, or at all. Both parties do not support a nationwide government effort to increase the housing supply.
How are you going to sit here and lie to me and everyone else that the Dems and Republicans aren't at least 90% aligned, when the voting and policy record is publicly available information, and when extremely credible academics have been writing extensive analysis pointing out the alignment between the two parties, for decades?
No, I'm certainly exposed to that point of view. It's wrong, though, as mainstream politics differs a bit from country to country, but all attempts to quantify this show Democrats being a pretty normal mainstream left party in a developed country--to the left of the norm in a lot of ways.
Source - trust me bro.
Of course, the reality is the opposite of what you're saying. Virtually all of the common hallmarks and qualifying indicators of a left party, are absent from the democratic party. The democratic party does not support UHC as a matter of course, as virtually all other left parties do. The democratic party does not support guaranteed paid family leave as a matter of course, as virtually all other left parties do. I could go on.
Your above quoted statement was a convoluted way of saying "yes, the dems are a left party because relative to their country, they are to the left of their opposition, therefore, they're a left party". But like, no, there is no universe in which that's how politics work. Being a left party or right party isn't based on a relative position. There is no humanities department on earth that teaches that. It's based on the actual political positions and policies that the party supports.
Hypothetically, based on what you're saying, if you have a country where there is a "Kill all minorities" party and a "kill most of the minorities" party, you're saying that the "kill most of the minorities" party is a left party, because they're to the left of the "kill all minorities" party. No. Both are fascist right-wing parties.
The argument is based on A) incoherent definitions of the spectrum and B) assuming that the product of legislation reflects the preferences of Democrats only. So, like, people look at gov't-provided healthcare in different countries, ignore the extent to which the U.S. provides it, and ignore other issues (like the U.S.'s unusually progressive taxation system and generous old-age pension), and declare Democrats to the right because we don't have the most progressive healthcare system.
It's pretty revealing, and only reinforces my point, that the only things that you can point to that are
actually left policies in the US, are the legacy remnants of mid 20th century Democratic policy, back when they actually were a left party. Progressive taxation, social security, medicare/medicaid - you're talking about policies that were passed decades ago. Policies that are constantly being undermined and attacked by both parties.
Well, again, it's actually an empirical question rather than a theoretical one.
You're intelligent enough to know the difference between theory in an academic sense, and theory in common parlance. Again, are you being obtuse or am I far too charitable re: your intelligence? There is no dichotomy between the theoretical and empirical.
For curious onlookers, or maybe Jack too if he genuinely doesn't know - in science, a "theory" doesn't mean the same thing as how people use the word in day-to-day conversations. In science a theory is not a "guess" to attempt to explain something (that's a hypothesis). In science, a "theory" is something that's actually multiple levels above what you'd describe as "true". A theory is something that's so true, you can develop models based off of it, that can accurately predict things that haven't happened yet. So, you can use theory to accurately predict things that haven't happened yet, and then you use empirical data to validate the accuracy of those predictions.
I believe Jack knows perfectly what theory is in science, but he may be under the misconception that that only exists in material/hard science and does not exist in social sciences. I assure you that theory and predictive modeling validated via empirical data does exist in the social sciences. Let's see if we can enlighten Jack on this.
Is that kind of thing really necessary? I've been posting here a while, and I think if there's one thing that's clear about me, it's that I don't see politics as a matter of tribalism.
Eh, you're right.
I mean, getting policy actually done requires coordinated efforts so I think the theory of voting as an expression of your personal brand is silly, but look at this thread. As I pointed out, I'm the only person who made any effort to defend the GOP record.
To the bolded - yes, I agree.
And when you redefine "fascist" like that, it loses any ability to communicate anything except your own affect.
I haven't redefined it. I am going off of mainstream scholarly definitions of fascism. When you're a Yemeni or Palestinian toddler getting vaporized by American bombs, it makes no difference whether it was an R or a D that signed the weapons deal - they're both fascists to you. I feel like you have a diminished capacity for empathy (just searching for explanations here), which is why you're so dismissive of economic conditions here in the states, and why you seem to give no mind to the murderous bloodthirsty foreign policy of our country. Unfortunately for you though, that reality still exists, and any serious person is going to factor that stuff into their analysis. You don't just get to hand-wave away the literal millions of innocent people that have been butchered at the hands of our government, with the support of democrats.
@blackheart, I think I recognize part of the issue. You probably recently-ish read stuff by Chomsky written in the '90s that was at least defensible then (though Chomsky is generally pretty unreliable), following a rightward move by Dems after they were absolutely crushed in three straight presidential elections. But since the '90s, there has been a big leftward move. I think Chomsky is a major source of bad takes on the left generally.
I mean, you're free to have that opinion about Noam. A few things though - A) I've been reading Chomsky for years. B) when you consider that he's the most widely cited living academic and the third most cited
all time, you're basically just engaging in anti-intellectualism by saying "everything from this guy is bad, categorically, because I say so". That's anti-intellectualism. But Noam doesn't exist in a vacuum, his political analysis is widely cited throughout academia and the world and is incorporated into and expanded upon by the political analysis of many other top academics and scholars. So really, it's just another layer of the anti-intellectualism that you're engaging in - "oh all of your analysis must be coming from this one guy". Oh, well no. If you want to categorically dismiss Chomsky, then ok, I'll just go and cite one of the other elite scholars whose political analysis also aligns with what I'm saying.
I never mentioned Chomsky once though, so this was likely just a backhanded throwaway comment by you.
You're just kind of making this up. Obviously anyone who pays attention knows there's a huge difference in economic and foreign policy. 
