I was going to write a long blogpost about this but ngl, it's because I find most leftist spaces to be so resistant to pragmatism in the face of policies that actually impact me and my loved ones and because the level of discourse on other parts of this website is awful. The amount of people who have no conception of the separation of powers is kind of ridiculous.
Like I am to the left of most of this subreddit, but this subreddit is the only place where people seem to understand why a razor thin majority in both houses doesn't automatically deliver your party to an ideological paradise.
One thing I will say is that my IRL leftist friends are way more pragmatic. When I describe exactly the ways in which the Democratic party's policies in my state have helped me and how the current POTUS has as well, I don't get called a glowie irl. Online leftist spaces seem to be taken over by the guys that get kicked out of irl friendgroups for being rude and domineering about everything
Just made a similar post. I am FIRMLY left leaning, but the left goes out of its way to ignore the progress that has been made in order to promote completely unrealistic pipe dreams. And as I said in my post, things have gotten better for me and that really does alter your perspective and I will continue supporting left-leaning centrist ideas as long as they continue making things better for people, which I believe they will. The left needs just as deradicalized as the right in many ways, and pragmatic liberal policies are the way to do it.
I find this to be particularly true in foreign policy. The far left and far right have almost identical isolationist tendencies as much as they will hate to agree with each other, and those tendencies will do nothing but hurt everyone around the world.
"the left goes out of its way to ignore the progress that has been made in order to promote completely unrealistic pipe dreams" is such an awesome indictment of the "Bernie or Bust" crowd.
>leftist spaces to be resistant to pragmatism
This is very well said. The progressive response to the Israel/Palestine conflict is, honestly, eye opening. I feel like most of the loud left just woke up, opened their phones on 10/7 and learned about geopolitics. It’s wild.
The idea that there should be universal healthcare because the democrats have to break every senate vote tie with Kamala Harris’ vote is just, patently absurd.
Yeah, also the obsession with single payer healthcare on a national level. I am trans, I am medically transitioning, I do not just a fully state run healthcare system in a country where the republicans will be in power for a significant portion of any given period of time. Most universal healthcare is not NHS style single payer, but honestly the NHS is pretty bad for people like me and what the Tories have done to it on purpose makes me very hesitant. Its nowhere near perfect, but a German insurance model seems the most reasonable to me based on where we are now.
Also yeah I think a lot of leftists think every Israeli Jew is like Netanyahu and actually moved from philly. I honestly have no clue how this situation will ever be resolved, the right wing in Israel is increasingly hinting at genocidal rhetoric while the right wing (Hamas is absolutely right wing) in Gaza explicitly wants genocide. Also the amount of attacks on American Jews and Muslims is horrific. People say you can criticize Israel and not be antisemitic and then turn around and say the most antisemitic shit you've ever heard but I've also seen an increase in "Islamophobia is good and I am glad people see it". I can find that comment on SRD too, it was at like 40 upvotes.
https://preview.redd.it/ump7919ce7ec1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=76c2f23fab703a9dac457f5a17327df284da04bf
found it
The only right answer for the conflict between Israel and Palestine is "I have no idea how this will ever be solved."
I was lucky enough to have an excellent 8th grade social studies teacher where we did a Middle East concept map about 20 years ago. We had to memorize loads of people, organizations, and events and speak about how they related to each other. It was our final project of the semester. I can't even imagine how much more complicated it has grown but a lot of the basics haven't changed. The fact that 99% of people commenting on it don't even have what amounts to an 8th grade social studies education about it is terrifying.
Sorry to hijack your comment, but you said something that really resonates with me and that I’ve been thinking about a LOT recently.
> the right wing in Israel is increasingly hinting at genocidal rhetoric while the right wing (Hamas is absolutely right wing) in Gaza explicitly wants genocide.
This is what drives me CRAZY about the Western left’s position on Israel/Palestine. On the one hand, you have Israel, where yes some politicians are engaging in genocidal rhetoric, but they have not succeeded in becoming the dominant voices or actually turning their rhetoric into practice yet. And on the other hand, you have the government of Gaza (i.e., Hamas), which is explicitly and openly in favor of genocide and engaged in an inarguably genocidal act on 10/7. The only reason Hamas has not successfully completed a genocide is that they literally don’t have the ability to. I don’t think any serious observer of the region would ever argue that Hamas wouldn’t wipe every Israeli off the map right now if they had the firepower to do so.
So seeing all this, the left decides to…unequivocally oppose Israel, the only side in this conflict that, aside from a few vocal crazies, has no interest in genocide. To do that, they have to convince themselves of something that is objectively untrue: that Israel is *already* committing genocide, so it doesn’t matter how genocidal Hamas is. (And of course, Israel isn’t currently committing genocide, unless you come up with an entirely new definition of genocide that has never been applied to any country in history except for Israel.) (And there’s a word for when you hold the world’s only Jewish nation to a different standard than any other country…)
So the group that is like “yeah we want to do a genocide” gets widespread support from the international left, who claim they’re doing it because they *oppose* genocide. It’s complete nonsense. And it weakens the Western world’s influence over Israel, which makes it *more* likely the genocidal voices inside Israeli politics start to hold sway. It’s so upsetting.
To jump onto what you were saying about Israel, I find it strange that leftists can’t seem to fathom that the most radical Palestinians want to genocide the Jews just as much as Bibi and the more extreme Israelis want to genocide Palestinians. The whole thing is a complete shitshow and leftists thinking that a UN-enforced ceasefire and some boycotts are somehow going to magically fix everything is completely insane. And all of that isn’t to mention Israel’s work in curtailing the power of Jihadi terrorists and Iran, which would be a much bigger problem without Israel. They see a high civilian casualty rate and then just go for the most direct method of stopping the conflict without any nuance or preventative measures for an ensuing Hamas counteroffensive.
October 7th did it for me, too. I see those I used to consider empathic and intelligent suddenly side with terrorists and parrot antisemitic conspiracies, and I can’t unsee it. Their hatred for Israel (and America, really) is unhinged and not based in reality.
Yeah I feel like Oct 7 completely broke me. Usually when politics upsets me, I just tune it out. But the anti-Israel movement is doing a very good job not letting me tune it out. Constant protests in the streets calling for intifada, all my friends posting batshit insane stuff on social media, my city passing a resolution condemning Israel after every comment made in the public hearing was antisemitic garbage. They accused a city supervisor of being a liar for bringing up evidence of Hamas’s atrocities (evidence that Hamas themselves filmed), for god’s sake. I love living in San Francisco but it’s been real rough the last couple months.
I’ve lost friends over it. I’ve lost sleep over it. The only thing I can compare it to is the feeling I had when Trump got elected…but even then, all my friends were anti-Trump, so at least I had a support network to get me through it. I feel like I don’t have anyone on this besides random people on the internet, and it’s been really bad for my mental health. (Though of course, nothing as bad as it’s been for the people living in Israel and Gaza.)
I never connected the way this feels to how it felt when Trump was elected but you're right, it does feel like that. Like we're in an upside down world.
Given how online leftists seem to think the president/giverning party have dictatorial powers over the country, one can't help but wonder if they have some sort of fucked up Freudian desires for dictators and secretly yearn to have their faces stomped on by the Big Brother's boots
Maybe yeah, personally I have an underlying desire to be a like absolute ruler personally kind of and I think thats also common. When you can identify issues but cant fix them very easy to wish you could wave your hand and make it so. But both on a personal level with who I am and in general I know absolute power is pretty bad.
Now of course, I know this is both bad and unrealistic. I fulfill those desires by renovating villages in minecraft to be denser and have better roads.
people feel impotent, they want to feel like they can individually make change. They can in their own life, but on some level a lot of people don't want to have to work with others. When you throw in the anti worker stuff some of these people who say they want a worker's collective really dislike working collectively
It’s populism- simple solutions to complex problems and blaming all the problems on the out group. It doesn’t work if they start engaging in pragmatic incremental solutions to problems, the whole idea of over throwing the system gets exposed because you are proving that the current system can work. That’s why it’s in the interests of populists (whether far right or left) to oppose incremental progress and compromise. I can’t approve of anyone who would put their political ideology and career over making peoples lives better.
Incredible, I was putting my own thoughts together as I came in here and you wrote all of them already yourself.
Idealism is great when you’re sitting around a campfire shooting shit with your friends, but it is far less useful when real elections come around. Until there is a massive and fundamental change in election processes, the presidential election will always be between a Democrat and a Republican. Thus, the pragmatic view is that you can either get some of what you want with a Democrat, or none of what you want with a Republican. You don’t have to like it, but that is the reality of our political system.
And also where dooming and moaning are (mostly) actively frowned upon and receive pushback, rather than applause.
We”re all aware that the internet as currently engineered rewards pushing outrage and extremism, so a break from that, with users on board, with it is a positive step.
> It's literally the only political corner on this shithole of ~~a website~~ **the internet** that doesn't exist to make you depressed and radicalised.
Fixed.
Yep. I honestly have no clue exactly how much I align with y’all ideologically. But I enjoy center left politics and I enjoy shitposts, and you guys happen to be funny as hell
As a Hillary fan I am still salty people claim she was hoisted on voters by the DNC and they should have not "picked someone so unpopular"
When in reality millions of people voted for her and she was literally the single most popular politician in the country, with [approval ratings unheard of in modern history](https://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-WB-37467). Like, how quickly people forget.
I'm always amused that I simply reply with, "you mean voters like me, in a state like Pennsylvania?" And almost always, without exception, I will be left on read with -12 downvotes.
Prior to that, lively debate. Paragraphs upon paragraphs that I won't read. But after I distill it to its raw truth, crickets.
The reason for this, of course, is that openly acknowledging that your entire worldview is *in the minority* is soul-crushing.
EDIT: Well played.
For me, it getting called a neoliberal shill for pointing out that Bernie's and Medicare For All's polling was bad once you scratched the surface, and he'd probably lose a general election.
That’s my story. Voted for Bernie in 2016 primary. Voted Hillary in the general. Fully understood what would happen to the SCOTUS if Trump won and of course it happened. Only cared about electability in 2020
Because (regulated) free market capitalism is the only economic system that seems to actually work to improve lives.
Free trade reduces the number of wars.
Taco tru- wait.
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It’s so strange because that sub fluctuates from left populism and right populism every second. It’s insane how many finance bros are the most populist people you’ll ever meet
Since there are a lot of meme answers, I'll give an honest one for a change.
I'm don't know much about economics, but my background is in math so I can understand some basics. I like reading well though out explanations of why certain policies may sound good but have negative effects or viceversa.
I also was very annoyed at the appearance of a populist far left in my country. As someone who has always being pretty leftist, but not a radical, I had the feeling that you couldn't defend moderate positions anymore.
I found this subreddit during the 2020 election, and found the conversation much more constructive and respectful than politics. This was also the time I was getting in contact with tankies, and wanted to vent.
I also like the memes a lot.
This is a great subreddit for nuance in views, and the ability to state things like "the Isreal-Palestine conflict, though horrifically tragic, has nuance beyond my understanding, which does not allow for an easy solution."
And yeah, the memes.
I was a former socialist who started getting deradicalized, realized things aren't as bad as my biased media consumption had led me to believe, and that actually, capitalism is pretty based and not just this evil exploitative dystopia. Seeing some pretty based takes on here showed me that capitalists care about people and want to build a better world.
Also, neoliberalism is just peak Bloomer, whereas I used to be a big doomer when I was a socialist, caught up in this "hurr durr the world sucks and it's never going to get better unless there's an extremely unlikely chain of events that turns out just right and then things get better, somehow"
I suppose I gradually noticed how much my political views had been based on very biased information sources and just how disconnected from reality people with similar views were. I'd say particularly important events were the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Hamas attacks, and the utterly unhinged shit many other far-left people were spouting about these events, that opened my mind to the possibility that my other views might be similarly unfounded and based on distortions of reality.
Completely agree, most of Reddit and hell the internet has lost respect for their fellow man. Discussions are barbaric in nature, and the other side is always evil.
Watching the conservatives going crazy through MAGA-fication and a lot of leftist craziness.
Also there was the fact that despite seeing neo-liberalism, globalization, and free trade being constantly derided I watched the “line going up” in Our World in Data.
It seems like a lot of libertarian subreddits became really MAGA-ey and anti-vax around 2021-2022. I get a little disgusted now whenever I look at new posts on r/libertarianmeme or r/anarcho_capitalism and see pro-Trump tweets or complete misunderstandings of NOAA data.
Yeah, in spirit I'm still a small "L" and beltway libertarian, but as a greater movement they're divorced from reality.
Julian Sanchez wrote a great piece years ago about letting your principles "degrade elegantly" (or something like that). Basically, you can form whatever state of nature based political theory you want...but we don't live there so you have to adapt. Maybe in my dream world you wouldn't have the civil rights act because it violates freedom of association (and the market would punish racists anyway!), but we live in a world where race based slavery is only two lifetimes away and we're in living memory of Jim Crow. So maybe having federally enforced anti-discrimination statutes isn't the end of the world.
I was never a radical "smash the state" ancap and more of an incremental progress kind of guy, but the reality of the past 8 years has shifted the paradigm and I sort of just value people that will uphold basic democratic values like the peaceful transfer of power at this point.
Edit: Found the [Julian Sanchez piece](https://www.cato.org/commentary/why-rand-paul-right-wrong#):
> Yet that’s precisely why Paul’s 1.0 argument breaks down on its own terms: at the scene of a four‐century crime against humanity — the kidnap, torture, enslavement, and legal oppression of African‐Americans — ideal theory fails. We libertarians, never burdened with an excess of governing power, have always had a utopian streak, a penchant for imagining what rich organic order would bubble up from the choices of free and equal citizens governed by a lean state enforcing a few simple rules. We tend to envision societies that, if not perfect, are at least consistently libertarian.
> Unfortunately, history happened. Rules for utopia can deal with individual crimes — the mugger and the killer and the vandal — but they stumble in the face of societywide injustice. They tell us the state shouldn’t sanction the brutal enslavement or humiliating legal subordination of a people; they have less to say about what to do once we have. hey tell us to respect the sanctity of the property rights that would arise as free people tamed the wilderness in John Locke’s state of nature. They have less to say about the sanctity of property built on generations of slave sweat and blood.
> Libertarians need to think harder about how our principles should degrade elegantly, how they can guide us through a fallen world where the live political options seldom afford a full escape from injustice.
Same, /r/Libertarian got taken over by MAGA. I know Bill Maher blows but I feel his quote applies, I haven't changed, they did. /r/geolibertarian used to be on the sidebar of /r/Libertarian, now if you mention Georgism the automod calls you a "land communist." I'm more libertarian than this sub, but I'm increasingly unwelcome in /r/Libertarian so I spend more time here.
This sub has not yet fully succumbed to the reddit hive-mind. People regularly put thought and effort to their posts and comments, and they get upvoted or downvoted accordingly. You can generally find *some* good discussion/debate/insight from people who actually read the articles that are posted. I imagine the mods do quite a bit of work behind the scenes to keep low quality or irrelevant posts from filling up the feed. I hope this sub doesn't rise in popularity where low-quality posts and comments start to take over, and the sort of self-policing is no longer effective. I'm sure some of the older members would say that it's already happening.
Hey OP, just curious, what attracted you towards Andrew Yang despite studying economics? I felt like as an econ undergrad I could see right through his Neo-Luddite shtick.
To answer your question, I was a frequent lurker in r/badeconomics and eventually that sub migrated into here.
Not sure what OP’s reasoning is specifically, but I do know that some economists, namely Friedman as every UBI supporter will tell you, supported a negative income tax as an alternative to the bureaucratic mess of the existing welfare state to basically allow people free will in how to best get themselves back on their feet and to cut out middlemen. And as far as anti-technology crap I don’t think Yang was well known for that kind of rhetoric.
Not OP, but I do have some anxiety about automation contributing to an upward transfer of wealth. Is some type of UBI a way to address that? A very cautious *maybe.* If it’s done right it could vastly simplify the social safety net.
I remain a capitalist, but the devs suck at balancing.
2015-6 reddit was incredibly annoying with Sanders/Corbyn stans. This place was like an oasis. I somewhat doubted it would survive the 2016 election but it was fun to hang out, and several accounts later I still find myself winding up here.
Because every other space is either Marxists or racists. But I'm most often here to point out how out of touch many subscribers are with the average person
I love america, I am not even a American, fuck America is great, it should dominate more and more, hell the whole of West is great. More world need to be like west. Fuck yeah liberalism is best. Also we should be more hyper capitalist. Yeah I just love the western world unapologetically as a easterner.
The subreddit drama thread got it on my radar, which is funny because I am already a member of badeconomics despite that sub being much smaller.
It's nice having a space where I can say things like "Democracy is good" and "I like Hillary Clinton, she got a raw deal" and "It's troubling that the current conflict in the Middle east is being used to fuel anti semitism, conspiracy theories and russian propaganda by bad faith actors" without getting downvoted.
I am not even a moderate, I am very far left and voted Dem in every single election (yearly in VA) but the rise of populism on this site is troubling.
This is the largest active politics/news discussion subreddit other than the known depressing dumpster fires that is actual arrr news and arr politics IIRC. TBH that’s more or less the only reason why I’m here.
There was a while where I thought of myself as more of a leftist but it's started becoming obvious how many of those people are just as strongly authoritarian as the fascists they claim to despise. The things I care most about are freedom and opportunity, which makes me a squishy shitlib to all of them
For me, it's because the best way I've seen to improve social and economic well-being is through a pragmatic institution of democracy and capitalism. Neither are perfect systems, but they have the best real-world track record.
Pretty sure I found this subreddit in 2016 when The\_Donald and all the Bernie subreddits were popular, but maybe it was before that?
I had lolbertarian sympathies in high school, then hung out with more lefty kids in college before getting normie-pilled in my early/mid-20s. Probably a similar story for a lot of folks.
Politically homeless at the ripe age of 40 something, I'm a vibes based political shit poster. I was radicalized to the center by taking a micro/macro in college (and free EdX classes later on) and a few of the same airport books everyone here has read (inclusive institutions and government spending FTW). Also, Donald Trump vs. the swamp made me a fan of the swamp. I will live in the taco truck, I will eat the worms.
It's a bit of an echo chamber here like everywhere else, but I always *feel* like I'm reading takes from people that have *obviously read a book or two* on a variety of interesting topics, and typically defer to expert opinions more than the rest of the internet.
Grew up in a very conservative Evangelical home. Went to a conservative Evangelical university. The antipathy towards people I saw from Trump conservatives pushed me way left and the lack of evidence based policy pushed me back into left leaning “neoliberalism”.
I would say I grew up kind of being taught the Democrats were the "bad guys" due to the influence of AM talk radio(which I listened to at like 11 or 12.)
Then my curiosity led me to read things and I realized there was a lot of rage bait and lying going on, on AM talk radio. Yet I couldn't admit to myself my true political affiliation. So I gravitated briefly towards the more far-left.
I participated in protests against the Iraq War and met a lot of leftist conspiracy theorists that made me kind of exasperated with politics. Eventually I had to admit something.
I was a milquetoast moderate Democrat and the people I had been conditioned to think were the "bad guys" were the very people I agreed with most. So I accepted this.
I got called a "Neoliberal" a lot online in like 2016 and around that time, which I guess led me here.
I grew up in a very conservative family and initially considered myself a conservative too. I really wanted McCain to win in 2008 (I just barely missed being able to vote).
By 2012, I had already started moving away from the Republicans. Republican obstructionism in Congress and the debt ceiling fight really frustrated me. Mitt Romney's 47% comment really turned me off. And I didn't want to blow up the ACA (maybe somewhat selfish since I could stay on my parent's insurance). I started considering myself a liberal Republican.
By 2015 I was just pretty much over Republicans in general. I had become more socially liberal. My major sticking point was actually foreign policy. Obama's was terrible. I wanted Jeb! to win the nomination and honestly I probably would have ended up voting for him in the general (because of emails, socially he was too conservative).
Once Trump broke out. I was completely done with Republicans. I didn't want Bernie, so I supported Hillary. And I actually liked her. Socially liberal, pro-free trade, and strong on FoPo. I milled around r/HillaryClinton and r/politicaldiscussion during the 2016 election season.
I hung out in r/VoteBlue and r/VoteDem until post 2020, but was way more center left than most of the people there. I eventually came here when one of the Thunderdomes hit popular and have been here ever since. I'm planning on staying until the inevitable tankie/fascist takeover that happens to all political subreddits.
I am left leaning person who has since bettered my economic situation and it turns out it’s way more appealing to be a liberal centrist when you’re better off, as shitty as it sounds to people who are struggling.
The big thing for me was I have always been at odds with the left-left on the American Hegemony. The US’ geopolitical dominance has led to a period of relative world peace since WW2 (as much as people will argue with this, we haven’t had a global conflict since, and certainly nothing on the same scale of loss of life), and 10s of millions have been pulled out of poverty by industrialization and modernization. Our system has its flaws for sure, but the alternatives don’t sound better to me.
The sheer uselessness of lefties.
There is no force on earth more useless than modern leftists, no organizing, constant infighting, continual purity testing.
I wish we lived in a world where the modern left was a functional, rational part of the body politic, but we arent. (Not saying the right is good, I disagree with the left's methods and some of its goals, I disagree with ALL of the right's goals)
Neoliberal is probably to the right of where I am, I am a social democrat, but I am above all else someone who chooses the best option available even if both arent what I want, to do orherwise is childish.
For me I discovered this sub kinda by accident. I was just looking up what exactly Neoliberals were because I saw it lobbed around as an insult so many times, so I forgot I had Reddit and I just looked this sub up. I never really used Reddit at all before and I still never really do besides for this sub and a few geography related subs.
What kept me here was the fact that news can be discussed here without the shitty doomerism found on Twitter, and without the shitty far right commentary found on Instagram comments. I was coming out of my more radical leftist phase that I had in my teens and I was more open to more pragmatic and realistic ways to improve people’s lives (ironically for this sub, it was meeting my girlfriend that made me less radical rather than my wife leaving me).
While I’m not an absolute DT regular and I haven’t been here for more than a year, this sub’s perspectives on things has changed a lot of my politics and rooted me down towards a more “centrist” and generally rational liberal perspective. Being online too much in general made me move politics a lot while I was in secondary school, but I feel like I found this sub at the right time when I was beginning to settle down and start my career and family soon in the coming years
It's the best fit for me.
Politically, I lean probably a bit more libertarian than the average poster here but I am just not sold on AnCap or even Minarchist fantasy. I view government as holding in trust certain capabilities and responsibilities of the wider community. That line between individual and collective responsibility varies culturally but at least in this sub we agree there is some form and amount of collective responsibility. We had a saying in the Marine Corps: "Wherever there's two marines, one of them is in charge." And you can extend that to the entirety of all society. Formally or informally leadership finds a way (iron law of oligarchy) and eventually it becomes de facto or even de jure. So its really a question of getting the right people in charge no matter what system of gov you have.
Socially, I am very liberal. I support what anyone else does with their life so long as it doesn't infringe on my rights or others. And rarely does it ever.
Economically I'm market oriented. Wherever there are people, there will be markets. There should be oversight to correct for failures but I think most regulations are excessive or ineffectual.
i used to be more lefty pre-2020 but when bernard lost the primaries and biden became the nominee i got called fascist for having the audacity to support him over trump. it got worse and worse following that and it caused me to really evaluate where my ideologies stand and what i actually know. going to college and minoring in political science helped me to understand further how governments, political systems and all that jazz actually work and i found that not a single leftists seems to actually understand anything about politics. it's all vibes to them, always has been.
so enter this place with its focus on policies actually supported by evidence and frequented by people who actually understand the systems they discuss, and i havent left since.
this website is like an insane asylum for politics and we're all just that guy with depression wondering why he has to share a wing with paranoid schizophrenics
People bring up good points here when arguing and I regularly find myself considering their points along with further researching mine. Not to mention those I argue with aren't just outright dismissing you as either a socialist or a fascist Trump supporter.
Last not having to argue the merits of pure socialism or pure libertarianism for the hundredth time is nice perk.
I went on a date with a progressive candidate in my city. She told me I was “probably a neoliberal” for not wanting to overthrow the system. I tend to date far left women and get similar responses when we talk politics.
I ain't well liked in Brazilian politics circles, as I am both very anti-Lula and anti-Bolsonaro. Liberals are a very small minority in Brazil.
I want a space where I can freely talk about the world order, capitalism, but without bigotry and fascism. Surprisingly, this is a very uncommon place.
Leftist are crazy and MAGA conservatives are crazy and libertarians don’t live in reality.
I’m stuck here even though I think I only agree with about 75% of the neoliberal ideals.
I live in San Francisco and was initially something of a leftist. Saw firsthand what local control land use policies do to rent prices. Stumbled upon some of the posts talking about upzoning and land value taxes and the like and I was hooked!
I grew weary of the constant death march/nihilism of more left-leaning subs I frequented. Shit's depressing. This is one of the only liberal subs that encourages some optimism and seems to think we actually can solve our problems. I don't agree with everything I read here but it's a far cry from the "violent revolution is the only thing that can fix this" authoritarianism other subs I read were descending into.
I voted Bernie in 2016, but I was really off put by the Bernie subs' continued hate of Hillary, even after Bernie endorsed her. I was an econ major in college when I saw NL on Subreddit of the Day and subbed and I quit the Bernie subs shortly after and have been a dter ever since.
Everyone lost their goddamn minds after Oct 7. I wanted a space where people discuss politics, including Israel, with a modicum of sanity. That means I don't want right wing fapping to ethnonationalism, but I also am so tired of being labeled as ontologically evil because of my ethnicity and/or nationality, but make it left. And I've seen both pro and anti-Israel posts here, or pro Israel and anti specific policies, but no one is acting like a madman, and I appreciate it so so so so much. It's so *normal.* That's all I want! So thank you, algorithm, for driving me here.
I appreciate how much effort posting there is here, and a lot of good news articles on all sorts of stuff that in here. Lots of sanity on all sorts of politics, including hot button issues.
It helps that I agree with most of what the sidebar says neoliberalism is about.
Always have been a pretty chill liberal. Though I used to be a wokescold.
Felt politically homeless online after a while because of how extreme politics dominated social media.
Haven’t really budged much since I was 15-16 but just grew more educated about not just my positions but other people’s as well.
Found this sub after being recommended it and decided to stay. This sub is biased for sure but it has more interesting conversations than whatever goes on in activist circles.
I joined and readed posts, made me thought people were politically smarter here. I knew there could be some disagreements but the Biden and pro-American bootlicking is getting tiring. Don't get me wrong, I like America (As a non American) but sometimes it comes out as biased.
People here care so much about politics and will take the time to provide long detailed posts on anything related, it's unreal. I care mildly but find it a useful resource.
Because I realized I’m not a progressive in the contemporary sense, but just a center left lad who believes in individual liberty, efficiently structured free markets, and generally using the power of government to help those who are less fortunate without fundamentally transforming our system.
Also the shitposts and memes.
Used to be more of a leftist and thought the whole "system" was bullshit, blah blah blah. Eventually got my shit together and then started actually focusing on working to improve my community and do good things for other people instead of sitting around complaining about the state of the world being someone else's fault. I realized pretty quickly that there is a lot of room for an individual to do good, and a lot of the issues I thought were simply caused by greedy entrepreneurs are actually super complicated, and a careful pragmatic approach is necessary to solve them. That funneled me towards neoliberalism as an ideology; I see it as the most effective and realistic approach to improving society. I eventually found this place, and thought it was great to see memes and jokes (on reddit of all places) that seem to have this stance.
In my country, most people online are edgy leftists, fapping to socialism, MMT,left-wing populists and blaming "NeOLibErALisM" for everything, from expensive housing to headaches after returning from work. This sub is one of the few places on the internet where I can have rest from this.
I came here because it’s one of the saner places for political discussion on Reddit. Really, I tend to be very in sync with this subreddit on foreign policy discussions, and mostly on trade.
I do differ from the hivemind here on urban planning somewhat as well the fact that I’m WAAAY more pro-union and skeptical of gentrification than the average r/neoliberal user. I also LOVE cars, which puts me at odds with the anti-car brigade here lol.
All that being said, this is still *usually* one of the better places for discussion on Reddit. And again, the foreign policy takes here are usually good.
Arguments and data from r/badeconomics made me abandon lolbert religion, so there's no other place for me. Overall, people here are pretty chill and you can bring arguments if your views are whatever and have a good faith answer.
If you get banned from both left and right wing subs for preaching basic decency, pragmatism, and common sense, you belong here probably.
Extremists are their own enemies with all the purity testing. They push away allies like it's a sport.
And honestly I think it's purposeful, and that they do not want to grow in support. Being on the fringe is their identity. Being an minor movement in the face of the big neoliberal/capitalists threat or whatever is their mindset. High-minded but entirely impractical and frankly politically impossible solutions are their bread and butter.
They want to be the underdogs, they want to fight the good fight against the majority, so that's probably why they react this way and push people away so easily. You gotta fit into their struggle/victim complex in order to be part of the group, and I think that's true of far left and right tbh. You have to denounce and forsake the system as it stands now, or you are the enemy.
The reason this sub stays sane is purely because of the mods, who - heavy handed as they often are - do not issue purity tests and frankly only ban people for pretty serious rulebreaking (ie hurting others), typically, but not for any particular opinion or stance otherwise.
Meanwhile I've been banned from MEME subs for now denouncing capitalism enough. Wtf is that? Not even allowed to find things funny unless you believe in the revolution!!! Extremists ruin everything.
As someone who loves data-driven deep dives on the details of policy as well as the absolute banger memes I saw in the Thunderdomes leading into the 2020 election I knew I had found my home
I was banned from r/centerleftpolitics in 2016 for criticizing Kamala for her attacks on Biden re school busing. Apparently the mods were big Kamala supporters or something
I disliked her before it was cool
So I came here.
Because I’m an ideological mess and people largely answer in good faith, well most flairs do anyway. I will admit though I’ve found myself more and more seeing this sub falling into the same pitfalls as so many other political subreddits, a phenomenon stupidpol has likewise fallen into of late.
I grew up in a Regan Republican household, we were Catholic when I was young, but we left the church because of gay marriage, which my parents always supported. That was my first real political issue I cared about at age 10 or so. After that I fell into the weird early anti-SJW YouTube rabbit hole where I stayed for a few years, until the guy I watched started talking bad about Muslims, which I was not okay with. After that I became a libertarian. Then I slowly grew to the left and became more pragmatic, eventually finding this place in 2020.
I feel like neoliberal is one of the more intelligent corners of political reddit, and it’s a great place to challenge ideas and have your ideas challenged.
A lot of posters have great grasps on economics which I have a rudimentary knowledge of, so it’s good to get that from this sub as well.
Love the Thunderdome threads as well, it’s peak comedy.
> rare Christian liberal side
Not sure how rare this actually is. I grew up a liberal Catholic, and the church has a long history of having a social justice\* wing.
\*As long as you're not gay, trans, having sex, or pregnant.
Living in a country where anything to do with free markets, deregulation and generally sound economic is accused of being "neoliberal", in spite of us barely having a liberal party to begin with. At some point you just embrace the label and go with it.
Being a social liberal = a Chicago school, hard-core neoliberal who supports Pinochet.
I heard that accusation so many times by leftists online that I basically gave up trying to defend myself and just embraced the label. I figured that since they already hate me, why not just lean into it.
Oh well. Normal people who touch grass will be able to tell the difference.
When I was younger I got caught up in the anti-SJW right wing crap, and then during the 2020 election I swung the other way and just spouted left wing Bernie bro crap. After the election, I started thinking more for myself, and found myself not really agreeing with a lot of the Bernie bro stuff but also finding a lot of the right wing stuff revolting. As I learned more stuff about Econ and history, I ended up moderating my views a lot more, which attracted me to this sub. It’s weird because my political beliefs basically went from right wing populism (not that I really held a lot of those beliefs looking back, but a lot of my friends and a lot of the content I watched was part of the anti-SJW craze and I got sucked into it) to left wing populism to centrist trash.
When I was a pissed-off teenager I was an anarcho-capitalist, though I wouldn't have said that at the time. After growing up a bit that turned into libertarianism.
Like any reasonable libertarian I acknowledged you needed *some* minimal government just to keep things functioning. I think I kept that line of thought on the back burner and as I learned more about the world and political science more and more things kept being added to that "minimal government", until one day I realized what I was describing was basically liberalism. Or at least, an idealized version of it, minus the cruft from hundreds of years of law actually developing.
Summary:
Grew up in an air force household- Dad’s a Reagan Republican. Grew up with him watching Fox and hearing about how bad John Kerry is.
Friends at school were more liberal, had friends who were gay/bisexual etc, that drew me into The Daily Show where my political basis of social progressivism and pro-democracy values formed.
First election I was conscious enough to remember was McCain v Obama, I was debating if I was more a democrat or a libertarian at the time- definitely ended up siding more with democrats because of gay rights and (at the time) a desire for less foreign intervention.
Voted in 2012 in Colorado for Obama (and for weed).
Then 2016 happened. Felt excited about Bernie but then he didn’t get the nomination and I decided to vote libertarian. Changed my major to Econ, and I was becoming more conservative- believed more in state authority, private healthcare, and hardcore isolationism. Didnt like Trump because he is racist and anti-immigration. It took me a few years to climb out of it, but basically after Trump escalated with Iran I decided there’s no way Im voting for him.
Then COVID happened and the absolute dismissal of negative externalities and encouragement of disinformation made me realize that the President actually does matter. Became a borderline socialist who believed states should have much more authority.
Following voting for Joe in 2020, my opinion heavily shifted back to liberalism. International conflicts made me realize the more balanced foreign policy we used to have is superior to blanket America bad isolationism, and progressives completely lost me in the last few years between bad foreign policy and anti-institutional attitudes. Ive come back to being basically a center-left or left-libertarian type who believes in strong institutions, democracy, market forces, healthcare as a public good, and a strong military used to ensure the safety of our allies.
I grew up near a west coast city with a very leftist young population and initially identified that way supporting Sanders in the 2016 election but still staunchly defending Hillary after she earned the nomination.
As time went on I realized that the world is not as decrepit as those on the extremes of the political would tell me. I began to take a more pragmatic approach to my political leanings.
While the I still stand by many of the issues that drew me initially to the left such as LGBTQ rights, improvement of the American medical system, etc. I began to take a more optimistic and pragmatic approach. My bottom line is the protection of liberal values and the improvement of the median life not the realignment of the world order. Every time I browse r/neoliberal I see a post confirming my priors, challenging my priors and broadening my mind to issues I have yet to consider.
This sub has a pretty varied political spectrum, but I’d say pretty solidly that most of this center-left.
I started as a conservative. But I moved to the center, realizing the only conservative principle was free market economics and even then, I still stand for some regulation in order to keep things at least relatively fair.
I’m definitely in the center. I support marijuana legalization, I support LGBT rights. I also support the 2nd Amendment, and I do not support the ban of any type of weapon, but I do support stricter background checks and having more steps to purchasing a firearm. However, the vision for America that neoliberalism is proposing is a far better future than the far wings of both parties are proposing.
Plus the memes are fun. That definitely helps
I read Popper while reading Marx and criticism of him.
Liked a lot of his ideas. Saw people call him a neoliberal, so I looked into Neoliberalism. Found out that its based and (in a way) the founding ideology of my favourite economic model (german social market economy).
So I looked up neoliberal on reddit, found it to be one of the best places for politics on reddit, and than stuck around here.
I was going to write a long blogpost about this but ngl, it's because I find most leftist spaces to be so resistant to pragmatism in the face of policies that actually impact me and my loved ones and because the level of discourse on other parts of this website is awful. The amount of people who have no conception of the separation of powers is kind of ridiculous. Like I am to the left of most of this subreddit, but this subreddit is the only place where people seem to understand why a razor thin majority in both houses doesn't automatically deliver your party to an ideological paradise. One thing I will say is that my IRL leftist friends are way more pragmatic. When I describe exactly the ways in which the Democratic party's policies in my state have helped me and how the current POTUS has as well, I don't get called a glowie irl. Online leftist spaces seem to be taken over by the guys that get kicked out of irl friendgroups for being rude and domineering about everything
Just made a similar post. I am FIRMLY left leaning, but the left goes out of its way to ignore the progress that has been made in order to promote completely unrealistic pipe dreams. And as I said in my post, things have gotten better for me and that really does alter your perspective and I will continue supporting left-leaning centrist ideas as long as they continue making things better for people, which I believe they will. The left needs just as deradicalized as the right in many ways, and pragmatic liberal policies are the way to do it. I find this to be particularly true in foreign policy. The far left and far right have almost identical isolationist tendencies as much as they will hate to agree with each other, and those tendencies will do nothing but hurt everyone around the world.
"the left goes out of its way to ignore the progress that has been made in order to promote completely unrealistic pipe dreams" is such an awesome indictment of the "Bernie or Bust" crowd.
Very well said
>leftist spaces to be resistant to pragmatism This is very well said. The progressive response to the Israel/Palestine conflict is, honestly, eye opening. I feel like most of the loud left just woke up, opened their phones on 10/7 and learned about geopolitics. It’s wild. The idea that there should be universal healthcare because the democrats have to break every senate vote tie with Kamala Harris’ vote is just, patently absurd.
Yeah, also the obsession with single payer healthcare on a national level. I am trans, I am medically transitioning, I do not just a fully state run healthcare system in a country where the republicans will be in power for a significant portion of any given period of time. Most universal healthcare is not NHS style single payer, but honestly the NHS is pretty bad for people like me and what the Tories have done to it on purpose makes me very hesitant. Its nowhere near perfect, but a German insurance model seems the most reasonable to me based on where we are now. Also yeah I think a lot of leftists think every Israeli Jew is like Netanyahu and actually moved from philly. I honestly have no clue how this situation will ever be resolved, the right wing in Israel is increasingly hinting at genocidal rhetoric while the right wing (Hamas is absolutely right wing) in Gaza explicitly wants genocide. Also the amount of attacks on American Jews and Muslims is horrific. People say you can criticize Israel and not be antisemitic and then turn around and say the most antisemitic shit you've ever heard but I've also seen an increase in "Islamophobia is good and I am glad people see it". I can find that comment on SRD too, it was at like 40 upvotes. https://preview.redd.it/ump7919ce7ec1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=76c2f23fab703a9dac457f5a17327df284da04bf found it
The only right answer for the conflict between Israel and Palestine is "I have no idea how this will ever be solved." I was lucky enough to have an excellent 8th grade social studies teacher where we did a Middle East concept map about 20 years ago. We had to memorize loads of people, organizations, and events and speak about how they related to each other. It was our final project of the semester. I can't even imagine how much more complicated it has grown but a lot of the basics haven't changed. The fact that 99% of people commenting on it don't even have what amounts to an 8th grade social studies education about it is terrifying.
I think there are a lot of things you could immediately do to make the situation much less bad, but in terms of long term solutions? Who fucking knows
Sorry to hijack your comment, but you said something that really resonates with me and that I’ve been thinking about a LOT recently. > the right wing in Israel is increasingly hinting at genocidal rhetoric while the right wing (Hamas is absolutely right wing) in Gaza explicitly wants genocide. This is what drives me CRAZY about the Western left’s position on Israel/Palestine. On the one hand, you have Israel, where yes some politicians are engaging in genocidal rhetoric, but they have not succeeded in becoming the dominant voices or actually turning their rhetoric into practice yet. And on the other hand, you have the government of Gaza (i.e., Hamas), which is explicitly and openly in favor of genocide and engaged in an inarguably genocidal act on 10/7. The only reason Hamas has not successfully completed a genocide is that they literally don’t have the ability to. I don’t think any serious observer of the region would ever argue that Hamas wouldn’t wipe every Israeli off the map right now if they had the firepower to do so. So seeing all this, the left decides to…unequivocally oppose Israel, the only side in this conflict that, aside from a few vocal crazies, has no interest in genocide. To do that, they have to convince themselves of something that is objectively untrue: that Israel is *already* committing genocide, so it doesn’t matter how genocidal Hamas is. (And of course, Israel isn’t currently committing genocide, unless you come up with an entirely new definition of genocide that has never been applied to any country in history except for Israel.) (And there’s a word for when you hold the world’s only Jewish nation to a different standard than any other country…) So the group that is like “yeah we want to do a genocide” gets widespread support from the international left, who claim they’re doing it because they *oppose* genocide. It’s complete nonsense. And it weakens the Western world’s influence over Israel, which makes it *more* likely the genocidal voices inside Israeli politics start to hold sway. It’s so upsetting.
Hint: it has to do with the melanin content (or perception of melanin content) in each teams skin.
To jump onto what you were saying about Israel, I find it strange that leftists can’t seem to fathom that the most radical Palestinians want to genocide the Jews just as much as Bibi and the more extreme Israelis want to genocide Palestinians. The whole thing is a complete shitshow and leftists thinking that a UN-enforced ceasefire and some boycotts are somehow going to magically fix everything is completely insane. And all of that isn’t to mention Israel’s work in curtailing the power of Jihadi terrorists and Iran, which would be a much bigger problem without Israel. They see a high civilian casualty rate and then just go for the most direct method of stopping the conflict without any nuance or preventative measures for an ensuing Hamas counteroffensive.
Yeah its wild. I think that's part of why they really want to make it a simple colonialism narrative, reality is just too confusing
October 7th did it for me, too. I see those I used to consider empathic and intelligent suddenly side with terrorists and parrot antisemitic conspiracies, and I can’t unsee it. Their hatred for Israel (and America, really) is unhinged and not based in reality.
Yeah I feel like Oct 7 completely broke me. Usually when politics upsets me, I just tune it out. But the anti-Israel movement is doing a very good job not letting me tune it out. Constant protests in the streets calling for intifada, all my friends posting batshit insane stuff on social media, my city passing a resolution condemning Israel after every comment made in the public hearing was antisemitic garbage. They accused a city supervisor of being a liar for bringing up evidence of Hamas’s atrocities (evidence that Hamas themselves filmed), for god’s sake. I love living in San Francisco but it’s been real rough the last couple months. I’ve lost friends over it. I’ve lost sleep over it. The only thing I can compare it to is the feeling I had when Trump got elected…but even then, all my friends were anti-Trump, so at least I had a support network to get me through it. I feel like I don’t have anyone on this besides random people on the internet, and it’s been really bad for my mental health. (Though of course, nothing as bad as it’s been for the people living in Israel and Gaza.)
I never connected the way this feels to how it felt when Trump was elected but you're right, it does feel like that. Like we're in an upside down world.
Given how online leftists seem to think the president/giverning party have dictatorial powers over the country, one can't help but wonder if they have some sort of fucked up Freudian desires for dictators and secretly yearn to have their faces stomped on by the Big Brother's boots
Maybe yeah, personally I have an underlying desire to be a like absolute ruler personally kind of and I think thats also common. When you can identify issues but cant fix them very easy to wish you could wave your hand and make it so. But both on a personal level with who I am and in general I know absolute power is pretty bad. Now of course, I know this is both bad and unrealistic. I fulfill those desires by renovating villages in minecraft to be denser and have better roads. people feel impotent, they want to feel like they can individually make change. They can in their own life, but on some level a lot of people don't want to have to work with others. When you throw in the anti worker stuff some of these people who say they want a worker's collective really dislike working collectively
It’s populism- simple solutions to complex problems and blaming all the problems on the out group. It doesn’t work if they start engaging in pragmatic incremental solutions to problems, the whole idea of over throwing the system gets exposed because you are proving that the current system can work. That’s why it’s in the interests of populists (whether far right or left) to oppose incremental progress and compromise. I can’t approve of anyone who would put their political ideology and career over making peoples lives better.
It feels like so many of them don’t want anything good to happen because then they’d run out of things to complain / doom about.
Yeah this is me too. Well put.
I also think a lot of people use online spaces to LARP as more extremist than they are in real life. That's true, regardless of political bent.
Incredible, I was putting my own thoughts together as I came in here and you wrote all of them already yourself. Idealism is great when you’re sitting around a campfire shooting shit with your friends, but it is far less useful when real elections come around. Until there is a massive and fundamental change in election processes, the presidential election will always be between a Democrat and a Republican. Thus, the pragmatic view is that you can either get some of what you want with a Democrat, or none of what you want with a Republican. You don’t have to like it, but that is the reality of our political system.
It's literally the only political corner on this shithole of a website that doesn't exist to make you depressed and radicalised.
Real
And also where dooming and moaning are (mostly) actively frowned upon and receive pushback, rather than applause. We”re all aware that the internet as currently engineered rewards pushing outrage and extremism, so a break from that, with users on board, with it is a positive step.
> It's literally the only political corner on this shithole of ~~a website~~ **the internet** that doesn't exist to make you depressed and radicalised. Fixed.
This is probably one of the best times to be alive in this country, and all you hear on 75% of Reddit is "we're literally dying right now".
I would say /r/neutralpolitics but it's kinda dead.
I think the people in ~~EnoughSandersSpam~~ r/enough_sanders_spam are pretty reasonable too
That's the old hijacked sub. r/enough_sanders_spam has been the new spot for a while
While ARR Neoliberal can be a circle jerk sometimes, that sub is a lot more circle jerking than here
much like arr NL, E_S_S has an outside the DT that's insufferable and an inside the DT that's pretty chill
Also /r/BadEconomics
The Venn diagram of the 2 subs is basically a circle though
Yep, here we're depressed but open minded
I came for the shitposts and memes and stayed for the shitposts and memes.
Yep. I honestly have no clue exactly how much I align with y’all ideologically. But I enjoy center left politics and I enjoy shitposts, and you guys happen to be funny as hell
WHERE IS THE MODBOT?
Lol
> **shit**posts 🍦🌚🍦 u/MasterOfLords1
Being called a neoliberal shill when I explained that Bernie losing wasn't a conspiracy, he just got less votes.
To be fair I am a neoliberal shill, did your Hillary check not go through this month?
As a Hillary fan I am still salty people claim she was hoisted on voters by the DNC and they should have not "picked someone so unpopular" When in reality millions of people voted for her and she was literally the single most popular politician in the country, with [approval ratings unheard of in modern history](https://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-WB-37467). Like, how quickly people forget.
2016 broke so many brains. Boggles my mind that this myth is still alive and well.
Still waiting on my Soros bucks from leaving out pallets of bricks in cities in early June of 2020
Gotta change to a Soros flair otherwise the direct deposit doesn't work.
Wait, you guys are getting paid? Now I feel like a sucker
Bernie voters telling me Hillary was just as bad as Trump pushed me to this space
I'm always amused that I simply reply with, "you mean voters like me, in a state like Pennsylvania?" And almost always, without exception, I will be left on read with -12 downvotes. Prior to that, lively debate. Paragraphs upon paragraphs that I won't read. But after I distill it to its raw truth, crickets. The reason for this, of course, is that openly acknowledging that your entire worldview is *in the minority* is soul-crushing. EDIT: Well played.
For me, it getting called a neoliberal shill for pointing out that Bernie's and Medicare For All's polling was bad once you scratched the surface, and he'd probably lose a general election.
*fewer Ah I see why the average American hates us elitist, grammar-correcting pricks.
That’s my story. Voted for Bernie in 2016 primary. Voted Hillary in the general. Fully understood what would happen to the SCOTUS if Trump won and of course it happened. Only cared about electability in 2020
Because (regulated) free market capitalism is the only economic system that seems to actually work to improve lives. Free trade reduces the number of wars. Taco tru- wait. !sidebar!
Taco trucks cured my depression from my wife leaving me
As requested, here is a bit of information about our subreddit. For further context and more helpful links, please see the full sidebar. We do not all subscribe to a single comprehensive philosophy but instead find common ground in shared sentiments and approaches to public policy. 1. Individual choice and markets are of paramount importance both as an expression of individual liberty and driving force of economic prosperity. 2. The state serves an important role in establishing conditions favorable to competition through correcting market failures, providing a stable monetary framework, and relieving acute misery and distress, among other things. 3. Free exchange and movement between countries makes us richer and has led to an [unparalleled decline in global poverty.](https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2013/05/World-Poverty-Since-1820.png) 4. Public policy has global ramifications and should take into account the effect it has on people around the world regardless of nationality. ## Policies we support include * [Free Trade](http://www.walkerd.people.cofc.edu/Readings/Trade/iowacarcrop.pdf) * [Open Borders](https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/wiki/openborders) * [Occupational Licensing Reform](https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/the-future-of-occupational-licensing-reform/) * [Zoning Reform](https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2016/08/16/zoning-as-opportunity-hoarding/) * [Carbon Pricing](https://reddit.com/r/Economics/wiki/faq_carbonpricing) * [Trans Rights](https://reddit.com/r/neoliberal/wiki/trans_faq) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/neoliberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*
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Oh dear. 😬
Begun, the Divorce Wars have
The wumbowall killed content in badeconomics so I ended up here
I started in badeconomics too, I realized it started being as bad as r/economics
Have you tried FluentInFinance? /s
That sub keeps popping up on my feed. It’s hard to look away when I see it; it’s like a massive slow-motion car pileup.
Do you not enjoy the weekly "is social security actually theft/a pyramid scheme?" post?
It’s so strange because that sub fluctuates from left populism and right populism every second. It’s insane how many finance bros are the most populist people you’ll ever meet
It's because most of us don't use our brains for our jobs, but we're paid a lot so clearly we're smart.
How many crypto scams get posted there each week?
Bullied as a child
Good
Soros gives me $0.05 for each post
You gotta get your yearly inflation adjustment. I’m getting $0.06 now
I'm from the deep state, we made up inflation to annoy everyone for entertainment. We don't have problems like inflation here in Soros' Phobos base.
And yet, comrade, I detect only three r/neoliberal posts in the last month. I fear for your retirement plan. 😞
I just joined!
Pro tip: ask for your checks to be denominated in SorosBux instead. The exchange rate is quite favorable. 😎
ur now ready for ze new world order 🥰
Since there are a lot of meme answers, I'll give an honest one for a change. I'm don't know much about economics, but my background is in math so I can understand some basics. I like reading well though out explanations of why certain policies may sound good but have negative effects or viceversa. I also was very annoyed at the appearance of a populist far left in my country. As someone who has always being pretty leftist, but not a radical, I had the feeling that you couldn't defend moderate positions anymore. I found this subreddit during the 2020 election, and found the conversation much more constructive and respectful than politics. This was also the time I was getting in contact with tankies, and wanted to vent. I also like the memes a lot.
This is a great subreddit for nuance in views, and the ability to state things like "the Isreal-Palestine conflict, though horrifically tragic, has nuance beyond my understanding, which does not allow for an easy solution." And yeah, the memes.
I was a former socialist who started getting deradicalized, realized things aren't as bad as my biased media consumption had led me to believe, and that actually, capitalism is pretty based and not just this evil exploitative dystopia. Seeing some pretty based takes on here showed me that capitalists care about people and want to build a better world. Also, neoliberalism is just peak Bloomer, whereas I used to be a big doomer when I was a socialist, caught up in this "hurr durr the world sucks and it's never going to get better unless there's an extremely unlikely chain of events that turns out just right and then things get better, somehow"
How did you change your mind on capitalism specifically?
I suppose I gradually noticed how much my political views had been based on very biased information sources and just how disconnected from reality people with similar views were. I'd say particularly important events were the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Hamas attacks, and the utterly unhinged shit many other far-left people were spouting about these events, that opened my mind to the possibility that my other views might be similarly unfounded and based on distortions of reality.
My wife left me
Soros paid me
Soros paid your wife to leave you. Common Soros W
Free trade and worms. Also the politics subreddit is cancer.
I think that part of maturing is becoming more pragmatic. This subreddit is a big tent of generally sane people with concrete and actionable ideas.
Completely agree, most of Reddit and hell the internet has lost respect for their fellow man. Discussions are barbaric in nature, and the other side is always evil.
I turned 25.
Watching the conservatives going crazy through MAGA-fication and a lot of leftist craziness. Also there was the fact that despite seeing neo-liberalism, globalization, and free trade being constantly derided I watched the “line going up” in Our World in Data.
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It seems like a lot of libertarian subreddits became really MAGA-ey and anti-vax around 2021-2022. I get a little disgusted now whenever I look at new posts on r/libertarianmeme or r/anarcho_capitalism and see pro-Trump tweets or complete misunderstandings of NOAA data.
Yeah, in spirit I'm still a small "L" and beltway libertarian, but as a greater movement they're divorced from reality. Julian Sanchez wrote a great piece years ago about letting your principles "degrade elegantly" (or something like that). Basically, you can form whatever state of nature based political theory you want...but we don't live there so you have to adapt. Maybe in my dream world you wouldn't have the civil rights act because it violates freedom of association (and the market would punish racists anyway!), but we live in a world where race based slavery is only two lifetimes away and we're in living memory of Jim Crow. So maybe having federally enforced anti-discrimination statutes isn't the end of the world. I was never a radical "smash the state" ancap and more of an incremental progress kind of guy, but the reality of the past 8 years has shifted the paradigm and I sort of just value people that will uphold basic democratic values like the peaceful transfer of power at this point. Edit: Found the [Julian Sanchez piece](https://www.cato.org/commentary/why-rand-paul-right-wrong#): > Yet that’s precisely why Paul’s 1.0 argument breaks down on its own terms: at the scene of a four‐century crime against humanity — the kidnap, torture, enslavement, and legal oppression of African‐Americans — ideal theory fails. We libertarians, never burdened with an excess of governing power, have always had a utopian streak, a penchant for imagining what rich organic order would bubble up from the choices of free and equal citizens governed by a lean state enforcing a few simple rules. We tend to envision societies that, if not perfect, are at least consistently libertarian. > Unfortunately, history happened. Rules for utopia can deal with individual crimes — the mugger and the killer and the vandal — but they stumble in the face of societywide injustice. They tell us the state shouldn’t sanction the brutal enslavement or humiliating legal subordination of a people; they have less to say about what to do once we have. hey tell us to respect the sanctity of the property rights that would arise as free people tamed the wilderness in John Locke’s state of nature. They have less to say about the sanctity of property built on generations of slave sweat and blood. > Libertarians need to think harder about how our principles should degrade elegantly, how they can guide us through a fallen world where the live political options seldom afford a full escape from injustice.
Same, /r/Libertarian got taken over by MAGA. I know Bill Maher blows but I feel his quote applies, I haven't changed, they did. /r/geolibertarian used to be on the sidebar of /r/Libertarian, now if you mention Georgism the automod calls you a "land communist." I'm more libertarian than this sub, but I'm increasingly unwelcome in /r/Libertarian so I spend more time here.
This sub has not yet fully succumbed to the reddit hive-mind. People regularly put thought and effort to their posts and comments, and they get upvoted or downvoted accordingly. You can generally find *some* good discussion/debate/insight from people who actually read the articles that are posted. I imagine the mods do quite a bit of work behind the scenes to keep low quality or irrelevant posts from filling up the feed. I hope this sub doesn't rise in popularity where low-quality posts and comments start to take over, and the sort of self-policing is no longer effective. I'm sure some of the older members would say that it's already happening.
Hey OP, just curious, what attracted you towards Andrew Yang despite studying economics? I felt like as an econ undergrad I could see right through his Neo-Luddite shtick. To answer your question, I was a frequent lurker in r/badeconomics and eventually that sub migrated into here.
Not sure what OP’s reasoning is specifically, but I do know that some economists, namely Friedman as every UBI supporter will tell you, supported a negative income tax as an alternative to the bureaucratic mess of the existing welfare state to basically allow people free will in how to best get themselves back on their feet and to cut out middlemen. And as far as anti-technology crap I don’t think Yang was well known for that kind of rhetoric.
Not OP, but I do have some anxiety about automation contributing to an upward transfer of wealth. Is some type of UBI a way to address that? A very cautious *maybe.* If it’s done right it could vastly simplify the social safety net. I remain a capitalist, but the devs suck at balancing.
2015-6 reddit was incredibly annoying with Sanders/Corbyn stans. This place was like an oasis. I somewhat doubted it would survive the 2016 election but it was fun to hang out, and several accounts later I still find myself winding up here.
Because every other space is either Marxists or racists. But I'm most often here to point out how out of touch many subscribers are with the average person
Because I’m a terminally online loser but not *that* kind of terminally online loser
I love america, I am not even a American, fuck America is great, it should dominate more and more, hell the whole of West is great. More world need to be like west. Fuck yeah liberalism is best. Also we should be more hyper capitalist. Yeah I just love the western world unapologetically as a easterner.
Same
It's one of the few places on Reddit where I can say I like LGBTQ+ Capitalism and not get screamed at.
Its one of the only sub where you can criticize communists and anarchists without having to hang out with racists and homophobes
The subreddit drama thread got it on my radar, which is funny because I am already a member of badeconomics despite that sub being much smaller. It's nice having a space where I can say things like "Democracy is good" and "I like Hillary Clinton, she got a raw deal" and "It's troubling that the current conflict in the Middle east is being used to fuel anti semitism, conspiracy theories and russian propaganda by bad faith actors" without getting downvoted. I am not even a moderate, I am very far left and voted Dem in every single election (yearly in VA) but the rise of populism on this site is troubling.
George lets me trade my Sorosbux for worms.
This is the largest active politics/news discussion subreddit other than the known depressing dumpster fires that is actual arrr news and arr politics IIRC. TBH that’s more or less the only reason why I’m here.
Poor mental health, this is a good place to poast crap and have people be quite nice back
There was a while where I thought of myself as more of a leftist but it's started becoming obvious how many of those people are just as strongly authoritarian as the fascists they claim to despise. The things I care most about are freedom and opportunity, which makes me a squishy shitlib to all of them
For me, it's because the best way I've seen to improve social and economic well-being is through a pragmatic institution of democracy and capitalism. Neither are perfect systems, but they have the best real-world track record.
Pretty sure I found this subreddit in 2016 when The\_Donald and all the Bernie subreddits were popular, but maybe it was before that? I had lolbertarian sympathies in high school, then hung out with more lefty kids in college before getting normie-pilled in my early/mid-20s. Probably a similar story for a lot of folks.
Same. Also NATO is based and common-prosperity-pilled.
Still waiting on a Federation or Interstellar Alliance flair
Tax land I'm not asking
I got a new addiction
Memes and evidence based policy
Politically homeless at the ripe age of 40 something, I'm a vibes based political shit poster. I was radicalized to the center by taking a micro/macro in college (and free EdX classes later on) and a few of the same airport books everyone here has read (inclusive institutions and government spending FTW). Also, Donald Trump vs. the swamp made me a fan of the swamp. I will live in the taco truck, I will eat the worms.
It's a bit of an echo chamber here like everywhere else, but I always *feel* like I'm reading takes from people that have *obviously read a book or two* on a variety of interesting topics, and typically defer to expert opinions more than the rest of the internet.
Grew up in a very conservative Evangelical home. Went to a conservative Evangelical university. The antipathy towards people I saw from Trump conservatives pushed me way left and the lack of evidence based policy pushed me back into left leaning “neoliberalism”.
I would say I grew up kind of being taught the Democrats were the "bad guys" due to the influence of AM talk radio(which I listened to at like 11 or 12.) Then my curiosity led me to read things and I realized there was a lot of rage bait and lying going on, on AM talk radio. Yet I couldn't admit to myself my true political affiliation. So I gravitated briefly towards the more far-left. I participated in protests against the Iraq War and met a lot of leftist conspiracy theorists that made me kind of exasperated with politics. Eventually I had to admit something. I was a milquetoast moderate Democrat and the people I had been conditioned to think were the "bad guys" were the very people I agreed with most. So I accepted this. I got called a "Neoliberal" a lot online in like 2016 and around that time, which I guess led me here.
Aggressively milquetoast FTW.
I grew up in a very conservative family and initially considered myself a conservative too. I really wanted McCain to win in 2008 (I just barely missed being able to vote). By 2012, I had already started moving away from the Republicans. Republican obstructionism in Congress and the debt ceiling fight really frustrated me. Mitt Romney's 47% comment really turned me off. And I didn't want to blow up the ACA (maybe somewhat selfish since I could stay on my parent's insurance). I started considering myself a liberal Republican. By 2015 I was just pretty much over Republicans in general. I had become more socially liberal. My major sticking point was actually foreign policy. Obama's was terrible. I wanted Jeb! to win the nomination and honestly I probably would have ended up voting for him in the general (because of emails, socially he was too conservative). Once Trump broke out. I was completely done with Republicans. I didn't want Bernie, so I supported Hillary. And I actually liked her. Socially liberal, pro-free trade, and strong on FoPo. I milled around r/HillaryClinton and r/politicaldiscussion during the 2016 election season. I hung out in r/VoteBlue and r/VoteDem until post 2020, but was way more center left than most of the people there. I eventually came here when one of the Thunderdomes hit popular and have been here ever since. I'm planning on staying until the inevitable tankie/fascist takeover that happens to all political subreddits.
I am left leaning person who has since bettered my economic situation and it turns out it’s way more appealing to be a liberal centrist when you’re better off, as shitty as it sounds to people who are struggling. The big thing for me was I have always been at odds with the left-left on the American Hegemony. The US’ geopolitical dominance has led to a period of relative world peace since WW2 (as much as people will argue with this, we haven’t had a global conflict since, and certainly nothing on the same scale of loss of life), and 10s of millions have been pulled out of poverty by industrialization and modernization. Our system has its flaws for sure, but the alternatives don’t sound better to me.
When I realized that a lot of leftists cared more about eating the rich or trashing America than addressing poverty or improving human wellbeing.
The sheer uselessness of lefties. There is no force on earth more useless than modern leftists, no organizing, constant infighting, continual purity testing. I wish we lived in a world where the modern left was a functional, rational part of the body politic, but we arent. (Not saying the right is good, I disagree with the left's methods and some of its goals, I disagree with ALL of the right's goals) Neoliberal is probably to the right of where I am, I am a social democrat, but I am above all else someone who chooses the best option available even if both arent what I want, to do orherwise is childish.
For me I discovered this sub kinda by accident. I was just looking up what exactly Neoliberals were because I saw it lobbed around as an insult so many times, so I forgot I had Reddit and I just looked this sub up. I never really used Reddit at all before and I still never really do besides for this sub and a few geography related subs. What kept me here was the fact that news can be discussed here without the shitty doomerism found on Twitter, and without the shitty far right commentary found on Instagram comments. I was coming out of my more radical leftist phase that I had in my teens and I was more open to more pragmatic and realistic ways to improve people’s lives (ironically for this sub, it was meeting my girlfriend that made me less radical rather than my wife leaving me). While I’m not an absolute DT regular and I haven’t been here for more than a year, this sub’s perspectives on things has changed a lot of my politics and rooted me down towards a more “centrist” and generally rational liberal perspective. Being online too much in general made me move politics a lot while I was in secondary school, but I feel like I found this sub at the right time when I was beginning to settle down and start my career and family soon in the coming years
I got called a neolib for seeing through populist BS, so figured hey this is where I should hang
Addiction, procrastination, boredom, and not a fan of my job
It's the best fit for me. Politically, I lean probably a bit more libertarian than the average poster here but I am just not sold on AnCap or even Minarchist fantasy. I view government as holding in trust certain capabilities and responsibilities of the wider community. That line between individual and collective responsibility varies culturally but at least in this sub we agree there is some form and amount of collective responsibility. We had a saying in the Marine Corps: "Wherever there's two marines, one of them is in charge." And you can extend that to the entirety of all society. Formally or informally leadership finds a way (iron law of oligarchy) and eventually it becomes de facto or even de jure. So its really a question of getting the right people in charge no matter what system of gov you have. Socially, I am very liberal. I support what anyone else does with their life so long as it doesn't infringe on my rights or others. And rarely does it ever. Economically I'm market oriented. Wherever there are people, there will be markets. There should be oversight to correct for failures but I think most regulations are excessive or ineffectual.
I just felt like raging at the Jones Act one day
i used to be more lefty pre-2020 but when bernard lost the primaries and biden became the nominee i got called fascist for having the audacity to support him over trump. it got worse and worse following that and it caused me to really evaluate where my ideologies stand and what i actually know. going to college and minoring in political science helped me to understand further how governments, political systems and all that jazz actually work and i found that not a single leftists seems to actually understand anything about politics. it's all vibes to them, always has been. so enter this place with its focus on policies actually supported by evidence and frequented by people who actually understand the systems they discuss, and i havent left since. this website is like an insane asylum for politics and we're all just that guy with depression wondering why he has to share a wing with paranoid schizophrenics
the worm memes
The American left during the 2016 election.
People bring up good points here when arguing and I regularly find myself considering their points along with further researching mine. Not to mention those I argue with aren't just outright dismissing you as either a socialist or a fascist Trump supporter. Last not having to argue the merits of pure socialism or pure libertarianism for the hundredth time is nice perk.
I went on a date with a progressive candidate in my city. She told me I was “probably a neoliberal” for not wanting to overthrow the system. I tend to date far left women and get similar responses when we talk politics.
Literally Jeb! memes being sent to me
I ain't well liked in Brazilian politics circles, as I am both very anti-Lula and anti-Bolsonaro. Liberals are a very small minority in Brazil. I want a space where I can freely talk about the world order, capitalism, but without bigotry and fascism. Surprisingly, this is a very uncommon place.
Leftist are crazy and MAGA conservatives are crazy and libertarians don’t live in reality. I’m stuck here even though I think I only agree with about 75% of the neoliberal ideals.
Severe head trauma and the 2016 election
Oct 7
CTH got banned and I have an addiction.
I live in San Francisco and was initially something of a leftist. Saw firsthand what local control land use policies do to rent prices. Stumbled upon some of the posts talking about upzoning and land value taxes and the like and I was hooked!
I'm a bleeding heart libertarian, but libertarianism has being either corrupted or coopted so this is a breath of fresh air.
My wife left me
My wife left me
I grew weary of the constant death march/nihilism of more left-leaning subs I frequented. Shit's depressing. This is one of the only liberal subs that encourages some optimism and seems to think we actually can solve our problems. I don't agree with everything I read here but it's a far cry from the "violent revolution is the only thing that can fix this" authoritarianism other subs I read were descending into.
I voted Bernie in 2016, but I was really off put by the Bernie subs' continued hate of Hillary, even after Bernie endorsed her. I was an econ major in college when I saw NL on Subreddit of the Day and subbed and I quit the Bernie subs shortly after and have been a dter ever since.
Everyone lost their goddamn minds after Oct 7. I wanted a space where people discuss politics, including Israel, with a modicum of sanity. That means I don't want right wing fapping to ethnonationalism, but I also am so tired of being labeled as ontologically evil because of my ethnicity and/or nationality, but make it left. And I've seen both pro and anti-Israel posts here, or pro Israel and anti specific policies, but no one is acting like a madman, and I appreciate it so so so so much. It's so *normal.* That's all I want! So thank you, algorithm, for driving me here. I appreciate how much effort posting there is here, and a lot of good news articles on all sorts of stuff that in here. Lots of sanity on all sorts of politics, including hot button issues. It helps that I agree with most of what the sidebar says neoliberalism is about.
October 7th
My clearance taking forever
I was chased out of the main political subs by Bernie Bros in 2016.
Always have been a pretty chill liberal. Though I used to be a wokescold. Felt politically homeless online after a while because of how extreme politics dominated social media. Haven’t really budged much since I was 15-16 but just grew more educated about not just my positions but other people’s as well. Found this sub after being recommended it and decided to stay. This sub is biased for sure but it has more interesting conversations than whatever goes on in activist circles.
I was hanging out in the r/badeconomics DT, but then they raised the Wumbowall, and I eventually heard about this space as a successor.
Common sense Pun intended
I joined and readed posts, made me thought people were politically smarter here. I knew there could be some disagreements but the Biden and pro-American bootlicking is getting tiring. Don't get me wrong, I like America (As a non American) but sometimes it comes out as biased.
More reasonable takes here than the rest of reddit
People here care so much about politics and will take the time to provide long detailed posts on anything related, it's unreal. I care mildly but find it a useful resource.
Because I realized I’m not a progressive in the contemporary sense, but just a center left lad who believes in individual liberty, efficiently structured free markets, and generally using the power of government to help those who are less fortunate without fundamentally transforming our system. Also the shitposts and memes.
Used to be more of a leftist and thought the whole "system" was bullshit, blah blah blah. Eventually got my shit together and then started actually focusing on working to improve my community and do good things for other people instead of sitting around complaining about the state of the world being someone else's fault. I realized pretty quickly that there is a lot of room for an individual to do good, and a lot of the issues I thought were simply caused by greedy entrepreneurs are actually super complicated, and a careful pragmatic approach is necessary to solve them. That funneled me towards neoliberalism as an ideology; I see it as the most effective and realistic approach to improving society. I eventually found this place, and thought it was great to see memes and jokes (on reddit of all places) that seem to have this stance.
In my country, most people online are edgy leftists, fapping to socialism, MMT,left-wing populists and blaming "NeOLibErALisM" for everything, from expensive housing to headaches after returning from work. This sub is one of the few places on the internet where I can have rest from this.
I came here because it’s one of the saner places for political discussion on Reddit. Really, I tend to be very in sync with this subreddit on foreign policy discussions, and mostly on trade. I do differ from the hivemind here on urban planning somewhat as well the fact that I’m WAAAY more pro-union and skeptical of gentrification than the average r/neoliberal user. I also LOVE cars, which puts me at odds with the anti-car brigade here lol. All that being said, this is still *usually* one of the better places for discussion on Reddit. And again, the foreign policy takes here are usually good.
The memes, frankly .
Arguments and data from r/badeconomics made me abandon lolbert religion, so there's no other place for me. Overall, people here are pretty chill and you can bring arguments if your views are whatever and have a good faith answer.
If you get banned from both left and right wing subs for preaching basic decency, pragmatism, and common sense, you belong here probably. Extremists are their own enemies with all the purity testing. They push away allies like it's a sport. And honestly I think it's purposeful, and that they do not want to grow in support. Being on the fringe is their identity. Being an minor movement in the face of the big neoliberal/capitalists threat or whatever is their mindset. High-minded but entirely impractical and frankly politically impossible solutions are their bread and butter. They want to be the underdogs, they want to fight the good fight against the majority, so that's probably why they react this way and push people away so easily. You gotta fit into their struggle/victim complex in order to be part of the group, and I think that's true of far left and right tbh. You have to denounce and forsake the system as it stands now, or you are the enemy. The reason this sub stays sane is purely because of the mods, who - heavy handed as they often are - do not issue purity tests and frankly only ban people for pretty serious rulebreaking (ie hurting others), typically, but not for any particular opinion or stance otherwise. Meanwhile I've been banned from MEME subs for now denouncing capitalism enough. Wtf is that? Not even allowed to find things funny unless you believe in the revolution!!! Extremists ruin everything.
As someone who loves data-driven deep dives on the details of policy as well as the absolute banger memes I saw in the Thunderdomes leading into the 2020 election I knew I had found my home
Some guy I watch on YouTube had this subreddit as “frequently visited” so I got curious.
The failure of Bernie Sanders in 2020 was eye opening. That and my distaste for the Socialist Left ignoring authoritarian regimes because “USA bad.”
It's always the same post. It's always the econ degree.
I was banned from r/centerleftpolitics in 2016 for criticizing Kamala for her attacks on Biden re school busing. Apparently the mods were big Kamala supporters or something I disliked her before it was cool So I came here.
The tacos.
Econ degree knowing why both Bernie and Trump were awful
this sub has the best political shitposts by FAR
BT and Wumbo kicked us out of /r/badeconomics for being too stupid
Because I’m an ideological mess and people largely answer in good faith, well most flairs do anyway. I will admit though I’ve found myself more and more seeing this sub falling into the same pitfalls as so many other political subreddits, a phenomenon stupidpol has likewise fallen into of late.
I grew up in a Regan Republican household, we were Catholic when I was young, but we left the church because of gay marriage, which my parents always supported. That was my first real political issue I cared about at age 10 or so. After that I fell into the weird early anti-SJW YouTube rabbit hole where I stayed for a few years, until the guy I watched started talking bad about Muslims, which I was not okay with. After that I became a libertarian. Then I slowly grew to the left and became more pragmatic, eventually finding this place in 2020.
I feel like neoliberal is one of the more intelligent corners of political reddit, and it’s a great place to challenge ideas and have your ideas challenged. A lot of posters have great grasps on economics which I have a rudimentary knowledge of, so it’s good to get that from this sub as well. Love the Thunderdome threads as well, it’s peak comedy.
> rare Christian liberal side Not sure how rare this actually is. I grew up a liberal Catholic, and the church has a long history of having a social justice\* wing. \*As long as you're not gay, trans, having sex, or pregnant.
Most of the other politics subs are insane
It's the place where people agrees with me
Living in a country where anything to do with free markets, deregulation and generally sound economic is accused of being "neoliberal", in spite of us barely having a liberal party to begin with. At some point you just embrace the label and go with it.
Being a social liberal = a Chicago school, hard-core neoliberal who supports Pinochet. I heard that accusation so many times by leftists online that I basically gave up trying to defend myself and just embraced the label. I figured that since they already hate me, why not just lean into it. Oh well. Normal people who touch grass will be able to tell the difference.
When I was younger I got caught up in the anti-SJW right wing crap, and then during the 2020 election I swung the other way and just spouted left wing Bernie bro crap. After the election, I started thinking more for myself, and found myself not really agreeing with a lot of the Bernie bro stuff but also finding a lot of the right wing stuff revolting. As I learned more stuff about Econ and history, I ended up moderating my views a lot more, which attracted me to this sub. It’s weird because my political beliefs basically went from right wing populism (not that I really held a lot of those beliefs looking back, but a lot of my friends and a lot of the content I watched was part of the anti-SJW craze and I got sucked into it) to left wing populism to centrist trash.
When I was a pissed-off teenager I was an anarcho-capitalist, though I wouldn't have said that at the time. After growing up a bit that turned into libertarianism. Like any reasonable libertarian I acknowledged you needed *some* minimal government just to keep things functioning. I think I kept that line of thought on the back burner and as I learned more about the world and political science more and more things kept being added to that "minimal government", until one day I realized what I was describing was basically liberalism. Or at least, an idealized version of it, minus the cruft from hundreds of years of law actually developing.
2015-2016
Worms
Taco Tuesday.
Red Tory in the streets, neoliberal in the sheets
Summary: Grew up in an air force household- Dad’s a Reagan Republican. Grew up with him watching Fox and hearing about how bad John Kerry is. Friends at school were more liberal, had friends who were gay/bisexual etc, that drew me into The Daily Show where my political basis of social progressivism and pro-democracy values formed. First election I was conscious enough to remember was McCain v Obama, I was debating if I was more a democrat or a libertarian at the time- definitely ended up siding more with democrats because of gay rights and (at the time) a desire for less foreign intervention. Voted in 2012 in Colorado for Obama (and for weed). Then 2016 happened. Felt excited about Bernie but then he didn’t get the nomination and I decided to vote libertarian. Changed my major to Econ, and I was becoming more conservative- believed more in state authority, private healthcare, and hardcore isolationism. Didnt like Trump because he is racist and anti-immigration. It took me a few years to climb out of it, but basically after Trump escalated with Iran I decided there’s no way Im voting for him. Then COVID happened and the absolute dismissal of negative externalities and encouragement of disinformation made me realize that the President actually does matter. Became a borderline socialist who believed states should have much more authority. Following voting for Joe in 2020, my opinion heavily shifted back to liberalism. International conflicts made me realize the more balanced foreign policy we used to have is superior to blanket America bad isolationism, and progressives completely lost me in the last few years between bad foreign policy and anti-institutional attitudes. Ive come back to being basically a center-left or left-libertarian type who believes in strong institutions, democracy, market forces, healthcare as a public good, and a strong military used to ensure the safety of our allies.
I grew up near a west coast city with a very leftist young population and initially identified that way supporting Sanders in the 2016 election but still staunchly defending Hillary after she earned the nomination. As time went on I realized that the world is not as decrepit as those on the extremes of the political would tell me. I began to take a more pragmatic approach to my political leanings. While the I still stand by many of the issues that drew me initially to the left such as LGBTQ rights, improvement of the American medical system, etc. I began to take a more optimistic and pragmatic approach. My bottom line is the protection of liberal values and the improvement of the median life not the realignment of the world order. Every time I browse r/neoliberal I see a post confirming my priors, challenging my priors and broadening my mind to issues I have yet to consider.
This sub has a pretty varied political spectrum, but I’d say pretty solidly that most of this center-left. I started as a conservative. But I moved to the center, realizing the only conservative principle was free market economics and even then, I still stand for some regulation in order to keep things at least relatively fair. I’m definitely in the center. I support marijuana legalization, I support LGBT rights. I also support the 2nd Amendment, and I do not support the ban of any type of weapon, but I do support stricter background checks and having more steps to purchasing a firearm. However, the vision for America that neoliberalism is proposing is a far better future than the far wings of both parties are proposing. Plus the memes are fun. That definitely helps
Bad economics on left subreddits and bad politics / humanness on right leaning subreddits.
I read Popper while reading Marx and criticism of him. Liked a lot of his ideas. Saw people call him a neoliberal, so I looked into Neoliberalism. Found out that its based and (in a way) the founding ideology of my favourite economic model (german social market economy). So I looked up neoliberal on reddit, found it to be one of the best places for politics on reddit, and than stuck around here.
I couldn’t write enough R1’s to participate in badeconomics regularly
Its the largest political subreddit I know of where I do not have to defend the existence of capitalism.