[The Baron]

Some will say its immigration & islamification thats feeding the rapid rise of the right all over the world, but I have another theory. I believe its the lefts unwillingness to debate ,their condemnation without argument , their overuse of the racist & bigot words & their violent protests against all opinons they dont agree with. The left is driving the masses away from their idioligy. If the left is to regain their popularity they need to engage in sensible debate . Come up with sensible arguments & stop the violent protests , the mask wearing, missile throwing , car burning lefties have gone too far . It looks more like tantrum throwing because they are not geting their own way.

[layman]

I think it is both but I would dispute the term "the left".

I think a better term would be 'the left-liberal consensus'. Something Bill clinton and Tony blair described in terms akin to the end of history. It is almost like the right agreed to accept cultural and social leftism as long as the left accepted economic liberalism. A sort of pact.

Yes, people are rebelling against it. To its elitism, globalism, multiculturalism, anti-culturalism, anti-nationalism, anti working classism etc etc.

[The Immortal Goon]

I'm consistently confused by the liberal's use of the word, "left."

As if the anarchist in a black mask, the Fenian blowing up a car, Tony Blair, Black Lives Matter, Alan Greenspan, the public employees unions, and a Marxist economist are all some how in power and running things close to some kind of coherent ideology.

[Electro Cat Attack]

The Left supports the working classes and Economic Marxism. The rest is liberalism.

[Donna]

Left and right are meaningless dichotomies today (see my signature). The traditional definition (labour to the left of capital) is obsolete since the prerogative to challenge capital has shifted from trade unions to the entire function and consciousness of whole nation-states (similarly, capital itself has been obscured).

Those who actively work against the interests of nationalism and populism, particularly by making non-negotiable, supra-scientific clauses against the so-called prejudices of the petite-bourgeoisie (racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.), are in fact serving the interests of global capitalism and cannot be considered 'left' even in the traditional sense.

This is why there is a rise in nationalism, a rise in racism, a rise in sexism, a rise in homophobia, etc. These things constitute the hierarchal organization of national society and as proletarianization occurs on a global scale, they have been divested of their petite-bourgeois rubric and have become vehicles for the self-interest of the working class everywhere.

Thus the awakening of the dead in those revolutions served the purpose of glorifying the new struggles, not of parodying the old; of magnifying the given task in the imagination, not recoiling from its solution in reality; of finding once more the spirit of revolution, not making its ghost walk again.

[Thompson_NCL]

The Left supports the working classes and Economic Marxism. The rest is liberalism.

"Left" is not an ideology, it is a position. When Americans say "Left" they invariably mean liberals of a leftist persuasion. No one means Marxists, because they are an irrelevance and have no place in the public debate.

Of course our resident communists get uppity about that, because they are so used to thinking of themselves as THE left. In reality they should probably think of themselves as "beyond the scope of discussion".

[Senter]

I guess perspective is everything. I find it to be the exact opposite. I find it is the right/"conservatives" who, consistently on every forum I've been to, are the ones who are unwilling to debate as they deflect and counter-accuse, who condemn without argument when they refuse to discuss their views in civil debate, who rely on a continuing and largely unconscious racism in their expressions, . . . and violent protests? .... they are the ones who show up armed and demand more guns.

Regarding the left reacting "violently", I have to admit that when I read someone saying exceedingly ignorant, uninformed, counter-productive things that children understand better like "money is speech" and "the rich will create more jobs if we cut their taxes", I tend to lose my patience.

[Zagadka]

I seem to recall "the new right" being more neo-conny, then Tea-Party-ey... Their single continual trend has been doing everything possible to cripple Democrats.

[Ummon]

I believe the "right" is rising among the uneducated poor in the West because of relative economic decline compared to other portions of the world. It's not a worldwide phenomenon.



Poorer and less educated people tend to have more anti-LGBT views.

The poor are more likely to hold racially prejudiced views:



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sean-mcel ... 53240.html

The poor tend to be more religious:



The poor tend to have lower rates of gender equality:



The point of this is not to castigate the poor, but to show that when people are economically vulnerable they often look for scapegoats for those economic woes and/or adopt more regressive views because they are struggling.

[AFAIK]

Why do those graphs have such sharp lines drawn across them when the data points are spread all over the place? Why not draw a band that more accurately covers the range of results?

[Donna]

The point of this is not to castigate the poor, but to show that when people are economically vulnerable they often look for scapegoats for those economic woes and/or adopt more regressive views because they are struggling.

You are in fact castigating the poor by refusing to acknowledge that they are acting in their own economic self-interest.

[Kaiserschmarrn]

I'm not at all impressed by the graphs. It should be obvious that for the last three the causal direction could be the other way round. Further, there is always the possibility that it may be other unknown factors that cause the trend in the variables.

In reality the relationships are likely to be much more complex than implied by these graphs.

[Potemkin]

You are in fact castigating the poor by refusing to acknowledge that they are acting in their own economic self-interest.

This. There seems to be a widespread ignorance among the middle-classes and upper-classes as to why the working classes have the attitudes and values which they do. They seems to ascribe it to 'bad breeding' or 'viciousness' or just plain 'ignorance', anything to refuse to acknowledge that the lower classes are, in fact, simply behaving rationally, given the objective conditions of their lives. For example, I can remember watching a TV documentary in Britain a few years back in which a working-class lad was asked whether he would rather have £1 right now or £2 in a week's time. He answered that he would rather have £1 right now. A middle-class psychologist (with a middle-class accent and a smug self-righteous expression on his face to match) casually diagnosed him as a "psychopath" because of this one answer, since he clearly could not think a week into the future. What this middle-class wanker of a 'psychologist' refused to perceive was that it is, in fact, rational for a working class person to prefer to be given £1 right now rather than accept the promise of £2 in a week's time. The working classes live in an unstable and uncertain social and economic environment. If they turn down that £1 right now and opt for £2 in a week's time, then when they try to claim their £2 a week later, the offer might not still be open, or the person who made the promise might deny they had done so, or their child might have died of whooping cough because of a lack of medicine when they needed it. You take what you are offered when it's available, because who the fuck knows what might happen in a week's time. If you are middle-class, of course, then you live in a very stable social and economic environment, and you tend to be comfortably off anyway, so it is then rational to wait a week for the £2, and if they refuse to pay it then you simply get your lawyer to sue them for breach of promise. The middle-classes can afford to plan ahead, whereas the working classes cannot. In other words, it's a different fucking world. Airily and smugly dismissing the lower classes as "psychopaths" simply because they behave rationally in the social and economic environment which the middle-classes have fashioned for them is an abuse of psychiatry and an abuse of one's social position. It's also why the working classes hate liberals and hate the political and moral system they have been 'thrown into', to use Heidegger's phrase.

[Kaiserschmarrn]

Poor and uneducated is more or less a synonym for stupid. Attitude towards them varies from pity and condescension (they don't know better) to disparagement and castigation (they are obstinate, refuse to listen to us experts and will bring doom to all of us). The reaction quite likely depends on how dangerous their views are perceived to be.

[Potemkin]

Poor and uneducated is more or less a synonym for stupid. Attitude towards them varies from pity and condescension (they don't know better) to disparagement and castigation (they are obstinate, refuse to listen to us experts and will bring doom to all of us). The reaction quite likely depends on how dangerous their views are perceived to be.

Indeed. The Brexit vote is a good example of this. A professor of politics wrote an opinion piece for the BBC news website in which he described how he had given a public lecture before the vote about the likely negative consequences of a 'Leave' vote on Britain's GDP. A working-class voice from the audience shouted at him, "That's your bloody GDP!" That one exclamation explains more than a dozen weighty tomes of analysis as to why the British electorate voted for Brexit. The one time the upper-middle classes cannot ignore or contemptuously dismiss the working classes is when they allow them to vote.

[Rugoz]

For example, I can remember watching a TV documentary in Britain a few years back in which a working-class lad was asked whether he would rather have £1 right now or £2 in a week's time. He answered that he would rather have £1 right now.

This behavior is still within the framework of the homo economicus, it's perfectly rational. The individual just has a very high discount rate.

What is not rational is hyperbolic discounting (in contrast to exponential discounting). For example if the individual says "I want $2 in two weeks instead of $1 in one week". One week later the individual says "I want $1 now instead of $2 in one week". People are hyperbolic discounters (to various degrees).

[AFAIK]

"That's your bloody GDP!"

There are fears that Brexit will lead to property prices crashing in London. What a terrible prospect this must be for those who have been priced out of their own homes by a jet setting international elite.

As for waiting a week for an extra pound why not turn the argument around. Ask the posh git to lend a working lad $50 along with a promise to pay him $55 in a years time. 10% interest is far superior to any of the current banks, only a short sighted psycho would turn it down!

[Potemkin]

There are fears that Brexit will lead to property prices crashing in London. What a terrible prospect this must be for those who have been priced out of their own homes by a jet setting international elite.

Indeed, AFAIK. They must really be regretting their decision now.

[Rugoz]

The political left is globalist and tends to ignore problems that come along with it. I don't know why exactly.

[Ombrageux]

The political left is globalist and tends to ignore problems that come along with it. I don't know why exactly.

I think it's a mix of miseducation/sentimentality and ethno-politics, depending on the person.

The percentage of leftist people who understand that open borders undermine their own stated left-wing objectives (especially "democracy," "social justice") is infinitesimally small!