Leftist vs [neo]liberalism
Leftist vs [neo]liberalism
Aug 1 2025, 3:35 PM
So I'm making this post to collect various resources that try to help explain the difference between left wing and [neo]liberalism. (Others who are more politically aware than me feel free to add to this thread, ofc.)
Starting with this Reddit comment that encouraged me to make this thread:
jasoncross00 DNC: "We need to win more elections! How can we get people motivated?!"
sees Mamdani
DNC: "Oh we have got to put a stop to THAT!"
Make it make sense to me, people. Every time we get a principled, smart, and charismatic Democrat who actually fights for real working-class issues against the oligarchy and corporate overlords, they win and they win BIG. Whether it's AOC, Crockett, Omar, or (soon) Mamdani.
And in every case, they get almost no establishment support. Or worse, are actively opposed by the Dem party elite.
Like holy shit, do you want to win elections or not?
Cool-File-6778 They want to win. Not you. The Clintonite neo-liberals.
They are absolutely willing to let you suffer under a Trump presidency believing it will drive you back into voting for them. They will not abide a populist left wing movement.
I could go into depth on this but in the 80s left wing politics fell in the west, the democrats had actually left wing people and they got rocked by Reagan and it made them take a new path, left socially right fiscally. It unfortunately worked, Clinton won in America, Blair used the same tactic to win in the UK and neo-liberalism was born and has dominated the democrats ever since.
They believe that the only way to win is to appeal to voters who are not bigoted but at the polling stations will vote for whomever they believe are safe hands for the economy and for 60 years the media, politicians and corporations(as well as military/police) have all repeated the same mantra.
*insert long paragraphs about reduce taxes on rich, increase military spending, cut regulations, cut spending, the kind of things you expect from right wing economic policy thinktanks which has been propagandized throughout the media for 60 years
They rely on "swing" voters getting sick of republicans and being willing to vote for democrats. Those swing voters are conservative when it comes to fiscal policy but go back on forth on whether they actually want to vote for republicans.
That is how they see things, and is why they are willing to go nuclear on really left wing movements in their party. They feel like they can only gain power by being a less bigoted republican party because they see the american public as low information conservatives.
That is how they won power with Clinton, Obama and Biden that is how they will continue to pursue power. The problem they have is that they want to appeal to younger left wing voters but don't actually want to offer them anything, they just want to repackage and rebrand themselves to be able to continue as they have been, without offering anything, while gaining that support, for as little as possible.
Real left wing politicians are a threat because they actually offer what people want which make repackaging neo-liberalism impossible. They will fight it until its dead and then refocus their attention on winning power.
Vote blue no matter who is a phrase that means "get in line and vote for a neo-liberal because we will happily let the republicans ruin your lives if you don't".
From https://old.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1mcqq6b/zohran_mamdani_beats_out_all_nyc_mayoral/n5wym6b/?context=1
Kozlik's regular member account. 🍀🐐
I think for those new to politics, or kind of in the surface level of the left versus right dichotomy, it is somewhat difficult to wrap one's head around the difference between the left/leftists and [neo]liberals. It doesn't help when right-wingers intentionally conflate the terms. It especially doesn't help when even the terms liberalism and neoliberalism are actually different concepts, and when most people talk about liberals they mean neoliberals (thanks to tuff_terfies on Ovarit for educating me on that, especially in the context of liberal feminism and neoliberal feminism).
So I'm making this post to collect various resources that try to help explain the difference between left wing and [neo]liberalism. (Others who are more politically aware than me feel free to add to this thread, ofc.)
Starting with this Reddit comment that encouraged me to make this thread:
jasoncross00 DNC: "We need to win more elections! How can we get people motivated?!"
sees Mamdani
DNC: "Oh we have got to put a stop to THAT!"
Make it make sense to me, people. Every time we get a principled, smart, and charismatic Democrat who actually fights for real working-class issues against the oligarchy and corporate overlords, they win and they win BIG. Whether it's AOC, Crockett, Omar, or (soon) Mamdani.
And in every case, they get almost no establishment support. Or worse, are actively opposed by the Dem party elite.
Like holy shit, do you want to win elections or not?
Cool-File-6778 They want to win. Not you. The Clintonite neo-liberals.
They are absolutely willing to let you suffer under a Trump presidency believing it will drive you back into voting for them. They will not abide a populist left wing movement.
I could go into depth on this but in the 80s left wing politics fell in the west, the democrats had actually left wing people and they got rocked by Reagan and it made them take a new path, left socially right fiscally. It unfortunately worked, Clinton won in America, Blair used the same tactic to win in the UK and neo-liberalism was born and has dominated the democrats ever since.
They believe that the only way to win is to appeal to voters who are not bigoted but at the polling stations will vote for whomever they believe are safe hands for the economy and for 60 years the media, politicians and corporations(as well as military/police) have all repeated the same mantra.
*insert long paragraphs about reduce taxes on rich, increase military spending, cut regulations, cut spending, the kind of things you expect from right wing economic policy thinktanks which has been propagandized throughout the media for 60 years
They rely on "swing" voters getting sick of republicans and being willing to vote for democrats. Those swing voters are conservative when it comes to fiscal policy but go back on forth on whether they actually want to vote for republicans.
That is how they see things, and is why they are willing to go nuclear on really left wing movements in their party. They feel like they can only gain power by being a less bigoted republican party because they see the american public as low information conservatives.
That is how they won power with Clinton, Obama and Biden that is how they will continue to pursue power. The problem they have is that they want to appeal to younger left wing voters but don't actually want to offer them anything, they just want to repackage and rebrand themselves to be able to continue as they have been, without offering anything, while gaining that support, for as little as possible.
Real left wing politicians are a threat because they actually offer what people want which make repackaging neo-liberalism impossible. They will fight it until its dead and then refocus their attention on winning power.
Vote blue no matter who is a phrase that means "get in line and vote for a neo-liberal because we will happily let the republicans ruin your lives if you don't".
From https://old.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1mcqq6b/zohran_mamdani_beats_out_all_nyc_mayoral/n5wym6b/?context=1
Kozlik's regular member account. 🍀🐐
