What americains think of lefts ideologies ?

12 comments

1. I look at it like a little kid looking at a toy they know their parents won’t let them have at the store.

2. Communism is a failed ideology that has killed millions.

3. Communism sounds neat in theory, but in practice has not worked out well for any nationa that attempts to practice it. Socialism has been stretched to mean so many different things that it’s almost impossible to weigh in on it. Basically just a meaningless buzzword at this point. I like some concepts that have been described as socialist and find others utterly abhorrent.

4. Communism refers to genocidal regimes like the USSR and CCP.

   Marxism refers to the theoretical idea.

   Socialism is a messy term.

   The left likes to conflate welfare with socialism to normalize socialism, and the right likes to conflate welfare with socialism to demonize welfare. In the end you have no idea what people mean when they say socialism.

5. There’s “communism” the stateless, classless, moneyless society and then there’s “communism” the USSR/DPRC/Cuban/Yugoslavian/etc realities and then there’s “communism” the things mainstream politicians/journalists don’t like. Most people differentiate very little between them, to the point that the word has become almost meaningless in common usage. As for the many different ideologies and policies encompassed by the term, some are fairly popular while others are nonstarters. It’s usually not a compliment to call something “communist,” but it’s often done jokingly (e.g. “commie units” for Celsius) and sometimes people who agree with Marx or Bakunin or anybody in between will embrace the label.

6. The fear and hatred of socialism and communism is pretty ingrained in the generation of people who grew up during the cold war. As the baby boomers die off I suspect you’ll see the pendulum start to swing the other way since Millennials and younger haven’t been treated kindly by capitalism.

   The cold war isn’t the only reason Americans dislike socialism though. Our national culture embraces independence more than a lot of other countries.

7. Depends on the kind of people your around. Plenty groups use socialist as an insult while others heavily advocate for America to pick up socialist policies.

8. Keep in mind that the Overton Window for US politics if more right-wing oriented than, say, the typical European country. In the US, there are only two main parties, the Democrats are left leaning and the Republicans are right leaning. But for example, if you take the main German parties, and their underlying policies, they would fit into the Democrats. (So both the Traffic Light Coalition and the CDU would be Democrats.) So former Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and former CDU leader and chancellor Angela Merkel would have few disagreements about policies.

   So in the US, to the Republican/Right side, “socialism” is a dirty word.

   About communism, that reflects the Cold War between the US and USSR, and the “hot” wars against communism in Korea and Vietnam.

   [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window)

9. Usually it’s just edgy people online who actually advocate for socialism or communism. I’ll put it this way: We do not have an actual leftist party here. Don’t let Republicans whining about “Marxists” fool you, the Democratic party is center-left at best, and tends to just lean centrist.

10. Fascism is much more dangerous but yeah, Communism is pretty bad I guess. I’d still consider myself extremely Progressive though and I think Communism is an incredibly overused Boogeymen by the right. Apparently the “radical left” or “Marxists” or whatever the new buzzword is are the biggest threat to America, meanwhile there’s been what, 1 left wing shooting in the past 20 years compared to tens or even hundreds of shootings from right wingers. Give me a fucking break.

11. As you can see from some of the comments already, yes socialism and communism carry enormous stigma in the US, almost more than anything else to be honest. There are many different American definitions ranging from “communism means murdering everyone by firing squad” to “communism means universal healthcare”. The mere utterance of the words will trigger lecturing, ridicule, aggression, condescension, and sometimes nationalist sentiments. In my experience many Americans are shocked to find out that not every single person in the country or the world is unanimous in this view.

    There certainly are many Americans who identify as leftists, Marxists, socialists etc and they are not just confined to Reddit. But overall it’s a deeply unpopular and marginal group.

12. 1) Most Americans dont like Communism

    2) Alot of Americans also define stuff as “socialist” which is not even seen as socialist in other parts of the world