Political rhetoric in the US has most Americans thinking that "liberal" is a extremely leftwing position, and that Democrats are practically socialist. This nonsense permeates education, media, and culture in the US, and it helps protect wealth and privilege from social progress; so, here are some definitions and some clarifications on misuse..

Liberalism

Liberalism is rooted in enlightenment rejection of monarchy and feudalism. It truly was a far left idea - 300 years ago. There's some great stuff in there, such as individual rights, democracy, and science.

But liberalism is utterly capitalist - free markets, small government. It is not at all socialist.

In a capitalist society, "liberal" is a centrist position. If this makes you uncomfortable, go look up the definition and history of liberalism - then ask yourself why you don't even know what the term "liberal" actually means.

Yes, I understand that in the US, "liberal" colloquially means “leftwing”, but that is exactly my point - Americans’ perspective on politics is so skewed that they think a centrist position is far left.

Neoliberalism

Nearly all Republicans and most Democrats are not even traditional liberals, but neoliberals.

What's a neo-liberal? My personal definition is: a fuckhead who uses alleged devotion to 18th century capitalist ideals to justify creating a neo-feudalist or oligarchic world in which wealth and privilege overshadow both individual rights and public wellbeing.

The actual definition is more like “a liberal who believes in unregulated free markets and rejects 20th century adjustments to capitalism - promoting deregulation, privatization, and lower taxes”.

Neoliberal theorists and pundits clearly hide their actual intentions or are lying to themselves. For example, they claim to be “for individual freedom”, but they promote increased and violent policing and increased limitations on personal freedom.

Neoliberalism was developed in the 1970s by conservatives. Reaganism was a neoliberal project, but Democrats fully adopted neoliberalism during the Clinton administration. It has been the dominant philosophy of both major US political parties since then.

In truth, neoliberalism is a pack of lies that justify giving more money and power to the rich. Neoliberal economic policies harm every part of the economy except for investors and executives. Privatization is shown over and over again to provide lower quality and higher costs, and yet the neoliberal fanatics continue to try to destroy every public institution, from the NIH in Britain to public education to the fucking post office.

Why is our standard of living going down while we have historical productivity levels? Neoliberalism. Why is the media just a mouthpiece for the rich? Neoliberalism. Why are so many people unable to consider college? Neoliberalism. Why aren’t people buying houses? Neoliberalism. Much of what is wrong in the world is the result of neoliberalism, and both Democrats and Republicans stand by it - the Democrats just shove this shit down our throats with a more empathic fist.

Conservatism

Any definition of political conservatism that you look up will say some variation about “reduced or slow change” and or “sticking to traditional conventions and traditions”. That is more or less true over the last few centuries - whether conservatives were clinging to monarchy or monopolies - but it’s not really accurate for modern “conservatism”.

Modern conservatives seek to roll back freedoms and protections that have been in place for 50 or 100 years. These things are have been the status quo. They aren't asking for slower change, they asking for rapid and harmful regressive change. Much of what gets marketed as “conservative” is actually authoritarianism, theocracy, oligarchy, plutocracy, neo-feudalism, or fascism.

Neo-feudalism

Neo-feudalism is the idea that we should bring back unequal rights before the law - that the wealthy and powerful deserve to be treated better than the common person, like royalty. It is a philosophy that is implicitly against freedom and democracy. It is implicitly authoritarian in nature.

Unfortunately, it is largely discussed as theory, but neo-feudalism is a real ethos, and rich people like the Koch brothers and Peter Thiel have been working to steer politics in that direction. They want to literally be above the law (as opposed to how they are already generally figuratively above the law). They aren’t just taking our rights and opportunities away because they want more for themselves. They want less for us. They want us to be a serfs.

JD Vance is Peter Thiel’s prodigy; so, we now have someone devoted to neo-feudalistic ideals a heartbeat away from the US presidency.

Leftism

Modern leftist ideologies developed in response to the failures of unchecked capitalism. Anarchism, socialism, and other forms of anti-capitalism or socialized capitalism are leftist ideologies.

The "radical Democrats" you keep hearing about - AOC or Bernie Sanders - generally, are not even democratic socialists, let alone actual socialists. They are social democrats who want to prop up capitalism with some limited socialist ideas. No offense to social democrats - I appreciate them - but they are the most rightwing of true leftwing positions. They are not radical, and borrowing a few socialist concepts is not socialism.

Is Bernie going to lead us to seize the means of production? No. Never. Whatever he may be philosophically, in action, he is not a socialist.

Actual leftists want radical change or a revolution. They believe that unchecked capitalism will always promote imperialism and discrimination, and that it will always devolve into authoritarianism and plutocracy.

Social Democrat versus Democratic Socialist

I’m not going to go into specific leftwing ideologies here, but to explain the comment about “socialist” Democrats being social democrats, here’s the difference.

Social democrats are basically New Deal Democrats. They are fully liberal capitalists. But they realize that unguided and unchecked capitalism will eat itself while hurting a lot of people; so, they introduce programs to make capitalism more livable - such as public healthcare, social security, worker protections, and work programs. Many would say they end up doing the minimum to prevent revolt. They are not at all socialists. They borrow socialist ideas to protect capitalism.

Democratic socialists, on the other hand, want actual socialism. They generally think we should have a gradual transition using existing political machinery, but that is certainly not completely true - many democratic socialists do think a revolution is ultimately necessary to liberate people from the systems currently in place. They are socialists, if less radical than some other socialist groups. They have nothing to do with the Democratic party,

Reactionaries

A reactionary is someone who reacts to social progress by trying to prevent or undo gains in freedom and opportunity. People who want to take women's', immigrant, or LGBTQ rights away are reactionaries. People who fight against popular liberation movements are reactionaries.

Dictionary definitions say reactionaries seek “a return to previous status quo”, but in usage, it means fighting for more restrictive and non-democratic policies, regardless of what the status quo has been.

When people call people fighting against oppression reactionaries, they are demonstrating ignorance.

Back to the Point

Most people in the US who aren’t activists or leftists don’t have a basic handle on these terms. I’ve seen people with political science degrees argue that Democrats are, in fact, a far-left party while the rest of the world describes the Democrats as centrists at best.

This is not a coincidence. Our education and media is curated to create the illusion of choice when our political options in the US are rather narrow. Yes, one party wants more racism and homophobia while selling our future to the rich imperialists; and the other party wants less racism and homophobia while selling our future to the rich imperialists. Yes, that difference does matter. But politically, it is stil not a real choice.

Both parties hide their commonality in serving the rich. I'd call them evil and less-evil capitalists. They have us all fighting over splinter issues while both parties represent monied and corporate interests first, followed by whatever special interests they pander to in order to create an illusion of choice.

The world is facing serious problems - from poverty to climate change to rising fascism to genocides. The Democrats and Republicans avoid dealing with any of it. Instead they just play good cop bad cop with us. And all cops are bastards.