Why has the modern American political climate been reduced to "liberals" AKA progressives strawmanning and...

Why has the modern American political climate been reduced to "liberals" AKA progressives strawmanning and "conservatives" AKA classic liberals throwing around the slippery slope fallacy? What are the historical reasons for this?

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Historically, democracy works best when people aren't constantly obsessed with politics all the time. And no I don't mean in the "keep the people ignorant" sense, it's just that when people don't think the world is in constant crisis, they tend to not make kneejerk voting decisions and see everyone with a slightly different opinion as the "other", primarily because they didn't even know that person had that opinion.

There's a reason the old saying is that if you want to keep lifelong friends, never bring up politics or religion.

A tangential note: Are conservatives really the same thing as classical liberals? I have the impression that classical liberals usually tend to be more atheistic and socially liberal than conservatives are.

Not him but classical liberals are basically just libertarians.

Because the psychological, cultural and spiritual foundations of American democracy have been eroded and what remains is a largely ceremonial spectacle where the deployment of familiar signs & slogans as well as rhetorical inflation are meant to fill the hole left by the absence of meaningful issues to the American people. The shrill & acrimonious tenor of the political debate is evidence of its emptiness.

Political disagreements between left and right have largely been reduced to disagreements over policies designed to achieve comparable moral goals. "Conservativism" in the latter half of the 20th century is a sham that merely sanctions the unbridled pursuit of material success and "Liberals" have lost sight of what is valuable to middle-class culture in their eagerness to condemn everything that is objectionable.

If you want to learn more check out Christopher Lasch's work, especially "The True and Only Heaven" as well as "The Culture of Narcissism"

The political right became dominated in the post-Reagan years by a coalition of the religious right (aka the "moral majority") and the neoconservatives. The former meant that they were also able to capture the vote of socially conservative Southern democrats, who tend to be single-issue voters when it comes to societal debates. The democrats have been increasingly dominated by more economically centrist (see: Clintons, obama), yet more socially liberal politicians who know to pander for gender/race/etc. minority votes. In either case, the rise of both is mostly due to the rise of identity politics.
Media also had a role to play. The rise of 24-hour cable and online news, as well as the decline of print media, meant that far more news companies were willing to be sensationalist and focus on "headline first, info later" for the sake of increased revenue/ratings/etc.

Not necessarily. "Conservative" in the modern American political sense is usually used to refer to someone who's economically liberal (a classical liberal), but socially conservative (wanting to prevent societal change). The closest to classical liberals in American politics would be libertarians.

>Are conservatives really the same thing as classical liberals?
No, but fiscally conservatives align more with libertarians/classical liberals (nominally) and lately that has been the more important issue for them than social issues
>I have the impression that classical liberals usually tend to be more atheistic and socially liberal than conservatives are.
Some are sure, but they haven't given a shit about that since at least Paul's failed election.

>if you want to keep lifelong friends, never bring up politics or religion.

That saying needs to be brought back up. And I want to lynch people who have the audacity to go "You have to be obsessed about politics or it's a privilege to not be obsessed/dominate your day to day affairs with politics"

>Some are sure, but they haven't given a shit about that since at least Paul's failed election.
The alt-rightbertarians are a truly foul political species. And I do mean alt-rightbertarians - I'm not referring to real libertarians who happen to believe in borders, I'm referring to the various fascists and monarchists who want to be called libertarians.
Real libertarians are often impractical but at least their hearts are in the right place. The alt-rightbertarians have been making a mockery of the word "libertarian" lately.

>modern American political climate reduced
>reduced
while it does seem like American politics is childish and ridden with fallacies and ideological inconsistencies its certainly not unique to modern politics. Americans in the past were inordinately fearful of communists and socialists to the point that anyone who associated with communists or socialists was treated as if they were Red Scare bombers and anyone pointed out that neither ideology necessitated Stalinesque government measures or in someway attempted to depict socialism in anything but a negative light were promptly blasted by the media and often blacklisted. Whites (in both the North and South) were afraid that blacks were going to rise up and destroy whitey after the civil war and later the civil rights movement. Our early presidential campaigns were fraught with attempts to discredit politicians with blatantly made up stuff like sexual deviancy. Americans were scared to elect Catholics for fear of being controlled by the Pope. If you listen to political debates and broadcasts from the 50s and 60s they spout strawman after strawman, quoting shitty anecdote one right after the other. Short meaningless slogans were just as if not more effective at capturing the hearts and minds of people who were concerned about any number of non-issues.

>throwing around the slippery slope fallacy
So we're still pretending it's a fallacy?

no.

the Modern "conservative" is a Traditionalist and even Religious Fundamentalist.

they would be if not for their hardon for privatizing everything.

>the Modern "conservative" is a Traditionalist and even Religious Fundamentalist.
hahahahahhahahahaha
The modern conservative is a spineless turd who is equivalent to a progressive of 20 years ago.

it's only a fallacy in debate.

you can plainly see it happen in real life. just look at the UK and what happened after Gun Control. they didn't stop at semi autos and pistols. next it was making knives and silverware a controlled item. making BB/pellet guns treated like firearms. now they're restricting corrosives. uk police do sweeps of public housing areas to find weapons. any fucking trash they find in a bush or under stairs is considered a weapon.

elected officials or the loonies that vote them in?

elected officials are just like they are regardless of political philosophy they represent. they don't really believe in what they are selling. conservative politicians just have it harder. because they have to pretend to be some sort of bible thumping hick.

proggies have it easier. they're fascist that always get to look like they stand for equality and tolerance.

>The modern conservative is a spineless turd who is equivalent to a progressive of 20 years ago.
This statement is absurd. 20 years ago was 1997. Progressives in 1997 were pretty similar ideologically to progressives today. Modern conservatives are hugely more socially conservative than progressives of 1997. Actually, modern conservatives are probably more socially conservative than progressives were 100 years ago.

What are you basing this on?
In 1997 Democrat president Clinton was introducing "Don't Ask Don't Tell" towards gays. In 2017 you'd be hard pressed to find a single national congressman who isn't at least tacitly in favor of Gay marriage.

Bill Clinton was not a progressive.

By today's standards or the standards of the time? Because Teddy Roosevelt was a progressive for his time, but he'd be the equivalent of a jingoistic bigot if he lived today.

>What are American politics such shit
Because we give every nigger who is a citizen (maybe, if you're not you can get away with it) the right to vote without any prerequisites.

Prols will be prols , and their idea of governance is a shit flinging popularity contest akin to voting for Prom king+queen

>By today's standards or the standards of the time?
Either. He was a "third way" "new democrat".
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Democrats

This , but people stuck in the contemporary will never be able to understand how the overton window shifts perspective over time and will continue to project themselves onto history, even if said history happened within a generation around them

Except even when that was the case, we used to elect better presidents than we do now. Do you really think that today, an Eisenhower or a Nixon or a Hoover or even a Truman could ever become president? Hell I don't even know if we can elect a Carter these days, because while he was a terrible president, he was a superb human being, and I feel like the system has gotten too bad for that.

If you ask me we're only about a good hundred years from reaching the point in the roman republic wherethe senate would just straight up murder without justification anyone that tried to pass reforms.

So in other words, a progressive.
>"Don't ask don't tell"

How about if you're a fag , you're not in the military and we don't tacitly allow fags in the military? You really that Clinton ran on the promise of allowing gays to serve in the military, even if not openly serve, right?

We used to try and uproot them

Because it's a simple, easy, and effective method of discourse. The brain can deal with loose terms like this very quickly and passively, thus it is extremely powerful to use labels, language, and brackets as propaganda. Humans learn fast when they are taught terminology or ideas on a conceptual repetitive level. I have studied memetics, and this been the case throughout all of history. That's about all. Peace out.

>Except even when that was the case, we used to elect better presidents than we do now
We haven't elected a 'good" president since Teddy Roosevelt , the history of our elections post Jacksonian Democracy has been nothing but a steady decline in our own competence. It's been nothing but political machines exploiting the prols combines with politicians abusing the 4th estate into creating brainwashed proletarian slaves who have nowhere near the level of mental acuity to judge who they ought to be governed. Also
>Hoover
>A good president
Alright sure , he was an upstanding man of moral character, but what he actually did during the depression was a shit.

...

>So in other words, a progressive.
No, the idea that Clinton was a progressive would have been laughable to progressives. Clinton was part of a move to the right among left-leaning US voters. Progressives would have seen him as much too centrist.
You're obsessed with the culture issues and ignoring economic issues.

>he was an upstanding man of moral characte

Something our system practically regards as a weakness these days

>He was a move to to the right
>You're ignoring economic issues
Oh yes because nothing says reactionary like NAFTA
>Progressives at the time
Thought gay marriage was fringe unless you were part if a radical progressive movement

Why actually be a person of good character if you can just lie about it? Even in our current post modern age, the people who are "woke" enough to see past the lies on a shallow level are so cynical that they believe every politician is required to be Machiavellian super villain just to rule over the country.

As if morality is just a ineffective way to rule people

>Why actually be a person of good character if you can just lie about it?

Because once in a while we got Carters who genuinely were that.

>What are the historical reasons for this?

USA has pretty much always been divided into two parties. Instead of making formal parties that form coalitions Americans just bunched together in 2 mega parties. This has literally been going on since Washington was president.

>Oh yes because nothing says reactionary like NAFTA
Yes, progressives both then and now would generally view supporting NAFTA as something that a suspect capitalism-lover would do.

Are you not aware of all the progressive-affiliated anti-WTO protests in the 90s?

>USA has pretty much always been divided into two parties
Well SOMEONE tried to warn us about it but then the Federalists and Jeffersonians started ree'ing , which after nearly 75 years turned into a civi war full if hilarious ironies on all sides. Plus about 600,000 dead.

I think people care far, FAR too much about who the president is. We need to just restructure government into a parliamentary system with a figurehead monarchy put in place to act as the national celebrity for people to give a shit about.

>Progressives are leftists
*Liberals

Again, you're conflating what is popular now vs then. The average progressive then was a neo-liberal , not demsoc, not anarchist, not socdem; they were either neo-liberals or hardcore keynians. They were a mix between capitalist and socialist sentiments, but back then the socialist sentiments were far more radical

>progressive-affiliated
So you mean a few liberals showed up to leftist protests then eh?

Reminder that Barack Obama said himself that his politics would have made him a moderate Republican in the 80's and that Hillary Clinton describes herself as being in between "center left and center right" (though she's more of the latter). Democrats are not the progressives they want you to think they are, and Republicans fell for it.

the voting system and its mathematical set-up practically gurantees that this thing he warned about will happen.
If this thing would not happen some other horrible shit probably would though - voting as in itself is fraught with problems
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow's_impossibility_theorem

TLDR any system of governance will reach shit only thing that can ease stuff is culture
looking at the state of culture pretty much all around the world there is no hope

Yes, progressives are leftists. "Progressivism" is basically economic leftism plus admixtures of social justice, environmentalism, and so on. The kind of people who cared a lot about economic leftism, social justice, and the environment in the 90s were not neo-liberals.

>In favor of nation building
Neocon
>in favor of nationalized healthcare
Socdem
>Is black

How would he be a conservative from the 80's? They were hardcore neo-libs with a pro-Israel and anti-soviet stance, Obama wasnt really any of those things.

>progressives are leftists
A lot of progressive *today* would disagree with you, let alone in the 90's topkek

>economic leftism, social justice, and the environment
>We're not neo-liberals
They literally were. Neo-liberalism was founded as a middle path between capitalism and socialism

wut
Some of them might not like the specific term "leftist", but certainly most of them would see themselves as part of the tradition that is inspired by socialism.

>Neo-liberalism was founded as a middle path between capitalism and socialism
Every mainstream political movement of the last 100 years is a middle path between capitalism and socialism, generally leaning more towards capitalism. The entire first world is a middle path between capitalism and socialism, leaning towards capitalism.
Within that middle path, progressives identify as far more to the left than neo-liberals. Also keep in mind that almost no-one self-identifies as "neo-liberal". It's a term that's been used mainly to refer to others, not to oneself.

"Every mainstream political movement of the last 100 years"
To clarify, I mean in the West.

>Every mainstream political movement of the last 100 years is a middle path between capitalism and socialism, generally leaning more towards capitalism
When was fascism, anarcho-capitalism, libertarianism, and right wing nationalism ever a middle path between capitalism and socialism? Many of these idealogies were totally built against the concept of the workers becoming their own owners, you surely realize?
>Neo-liberal is not a self descriptor
Because it's an umbrella term, generally speaking.

Fascism and right-wing nationalism generally offer the workers social programs, at least in propaganda. Anarcho-capitalism has never been mainstream. Libertarianism has only hovered at the edges of the mainstream.
>Many of these idealogies were totally built against the concept of the workers becoming their own owners, you surely realize?
Yes, hence I wrote "between capitalism and socialism".

For the purpose of determining what is history, please do not start threads about events taking place less than 25 years ago. Historical discussions should be focused on past events, and not their contemporary consequences. Discussion of modern politics, current events, popular culture, or other non-historical topics should be posted elsewhere. General discussions about international culture should go on /int/.

>Historical discussions should be focused on past events, and not their contemporary consequences. Discussion of modern politics, current events, popular culture, or other non-historical topics should be posted elsewhere.

>Neo-liberalism was founded as a middle path between capitalism and socialism
No it is fucking not. At best with social democracy and capitalism, but socdem is already a middle path between capitalism and socialism

>Progressives in 1997
Progressives in 1997 were far more against immigration than they are today, fag/tranny/pedo/whatever acceptance was not even remotely as important as it is today, "white privilege" shit barely existed at all...need I go on?

Sure, but they were not like modern conservatives.

Modern "conservatives" basically share the same views on those issues as 90s mainstream progressivists.

>slippery slope is a fallacy
Uh, oh...

It is a fallacy, in that it can be a missleading argument relying on exaggeration, but just because it's a fallacy doesn't make it untrue in some cases

It's not a fallacy, it can be a fallacy in certain cases but is not a fallacy on itself.

The slippery slope exists and is a viable argument. Classic slippery slope is going from "don't ask don't tell" about homosexuals to teaching school kids about anal sex and giving them puberty blockers if they want to transition to another gender.

Alternatively imagine Neville Chamberlain claiming a slippery slope fallacy when called out on his appeasement towards Hitler.

>modern politics

Unironically this.

Still butthurt over the election I see?