First off, I don’t base my views on “what Americans are like” with what people post online. Just about everyone I know personally has just gone off the deep end it seems.
People I’ve known for decades who were “right of center” have now drifted to the far right. Where they used to support separation of church and state, small government, etc. they now want the government to tax the poor, establish a Christian ethnostate, and are openly talking about “the coming revolution”. Meanwhile, most everyone I’ve known who is leftist wants the government to disarm them, claims to be pro-LGBT but blindly supports any Muslim country and blindly hates Israel, and thinks Joe Biden is the “greatest president EVAR”.
Am I just in a weird bubble where 95% of the people in my life are politically and philosophically dipshits? Does anyone else experience this with people they actually know? I feel like I’m going crazy when I can be talking with a “leftist” about trans rights in Texas and then the very next conversation is about how wholesome they think the average Palestinian is in Gaza. Is there anyone else who’s at least left of center and recognizes that religious zealots in the Middle East want to kill you and shouldn’t be supported and religious zealots in YOUR OWN FUCKING COUNTRY want to kill you and you shouldn’t disarm yourself?
Just what the fuck is going on in this country? There’s so much disinformation and paid trolls that I don’t base these views off what’s online. I just run into the exact same lunacy with nearly everyone I’ve known my whole life.
Have they though? I struggle to find positions that the Democrats hold that are to the left of where they’ve been for the last 20-30 years. They are pro-choice, for racial equality, for gay rights, etc. Republicans on the other hand have swung wildly to the far-right.
I wish the Democrats would move left, but I haven’t seen it in my lifetime, they are a party of centrists, for the most part.
I do live in a town with two major colleges for the region. It’s crazy how many “socialists” I’ve met who don’t even know about concepts like UBI. “Tax the rich” doesn’t make you socialist. That’s just the easiest, lowest hanging fruit to figure out.