Are you left-leaning or right-leaning? WHY?

Question

Are you republican or democrat? AND WHY? I've noticed that most females lean towards the left and most males lean towards the right. Most women like Biden, and most males like Trump.

nightdrot · Accepted Answer

"Right leaning," but I always, when I see this kind of question, have to put an asterisk over it.

First, to start, the terms "right," "left" and so forth, are not terribly helpful. The usage comes out of the French revolution, when supporters of a republic sat to the left of the Speaker's chair in the National Assembly, while supporters of the Church and the monarchy sat to the right. While these are common usage in contemporary politics, they actually don't say very much. (Also, just to add, Mr. Trump is a populist, not "conservative."(

At any rate, my conservatism is not what Americans typically call conservative. Because what Americans call conservative is, historically speaking, not conservatism but is, rather, classical liberalism.

(As an aside, what Americans call "liberalism" is actually "radical" liberalism. "Radical," here not meaning as we use the term today, i. e., extremist, but rather as the ancient Greeks used it, meaning "to the root of." The radical liberals agreeing with the classical liberals that liberty is the purpose of government and politics, but arguing that differences in wealth and power in society make that liberty problematic.)

My conservatism, which for convenience I will call classical or Tory conservatism, traces its intellectual pedigree through Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas - and probably most importantly - the 18th century British statesman and political philosopher, Edmund Burke, and also the British Prime Ministers Benjamin Disraeli and Lord Salisbury.

In an American context, it shows up in the thinking of Alexander Hamilton and then - almost by historical accident, the American Whig Party, and the former Whig turned Republican, Abraham Lincoln. (It is a great historical "what if" as to what the GOP would have looked like had Lincoln lived and the radical Republicans not gained the ascendancy.)

Classical conservatives believe, unlike American conservatives and liberals, that the purpose of government is to answer Aristotle's first questions of politics, "How ought we to live? What kind of a people do we wish to be?" To which classical conservatives respond that the purpose of government is to nurture civic virtue. To reinforce those habits and customs that make a harmonious and stable social order possible.

Classical conservatives believe in the free market as a tool, rather than an end in itself. They recognize that it is a powerful wealth creator, efficient to some degree, and a guard against an overweening state. However, they believe, as Burke said, "The effect of liberty to individuals is that they may do what they please. We ought see what it will please them to do before we risk congratulations."

Consequently, classical conservatives support an ameliorative welfare state. (The welfare state was invented by two conservatives - Disraeli and Bismarck.) In this they differ from American liberals who see the welfare state as a lever to engineer social transformation.

Tories believe that political philosophy should take as it starting point not human reason, but human nature. That political rights are developed through historical usage, and are not abstract pre-existing.(They don't deny that such abstract rights don't exist. Merely that they are of no practical benefit or use in civil society and law.)

Suffice to say, I could go on, but this summarizes the issue.

ChinaGrove · Accepted Answer

Right. Close the border

Brittanyroseee · Accepted Answer

Im more conservative. Im also a huge conspiracy theorist…. However i do agree with a small percentage of things from the left like legalizing marijuana, legalizing euthanasia for severely ill people who WANT it and are in PAIN, im fine with gay marriage but i don’t understand the rest of that “stuff” and i personally have gay friends who also are conservative and against lgbgt ideology, i agree with abortion in certain aspects obviously not until late pregnancy or until birth thats like insane, i agree with owning guns but i also believe we have a mental health issue in the USA which needs to be addressed to stop these mass shootings. Other countries have much better health care and mental healthcare we could do better but instead the left and president likes to give money to illegals, wars, etc.

4ngelic · Accepted Answer

i'm a centrist. i agree on some things with liberals, others with conservatives. dont really like either side either since nowadays both parties have gotten so extreme and getting more radical each day. like the dems are basically going more and more into woke leftie braindead commie territory and the repubs are getting closer and closer to making america like 1930s germany & italy. yay.

WhiteSteve · Answer

I’m registered as an Independent, but the MAGA faction of the right wing is out of control. Like “no longer living on the same planet as the rest of us”-out of control. And the scary part is that most of the constituents (that means “voters” for MAGA dopes) of the movement seem to almost entirely be illiterate in both politics and critical thinking, like these people have absolutely no fucking idea what they’re talking about when you get them into a conversation, they only have buzzwords and slogans, absolutely zero substance behind their beliefs.

Furthermore, those beliefs seem rooted in some fantasy of “winning” and “being #1”…. these are childlike motivations. And worse, the beliefs they OPPOSE are things that are ultimately rooted in kindness, compassion, decency. And they KNOW they’re the assholes, don’t be fooled. That’s why their go-to retort is just claiming that the people who DO champion decency don’t really practice what they preach, and that’s simply a weak, weak argument. Like they’re in disbelief that another human could be kind and compassionate to someone outside those they directly care about.

Their North Star, instead, seems to be chasing PERSONAL prosperity, and enough national prosperity to make society comfortable to live in for themselves, but they’re very comfortable with the idea of others not making it and having a bad time in our society. And that, I just simply can’t respect in another human’s character, that’s piss poor.

The left also promotes inclusivity, and the right really seems to try to stand in the way of it. Not everyone in MAGA is a straight white man, or secondarily a straight white woman, but it’s safe to say that describes the likely majority of them…. and these people seem to have this very defensive idea that people who don’t fall into those groups, by making things easier for them and trying to put into place rules and regulations to prevent them from being discriminated against BY straight white people is somehow oppression TOWARDS straight white people.

Basically, the left seems to just be trying to say “hey, we can’t just set shit up so straight white people run the show at the expense of everyone else”, and the right seem to want to stymie that. Of course they don’t frame it like that because they publicly CAN’T, but that seems to be the obvious crux of the issue, as stated be the constituents, if not the politicians themselves.

Trump himself: one of the most clear and obvious grifters I’ve ever seen, the first time for fame and power, the second time to save his own skin from being held accountable for his own crimes….. and the scary part is it’s WORKING, because the Supreme Court is no longer an unbiased arbiter of justice, they’re CLEARLY a right-wing political operative now. They took up a case they shouldn’t have and not only sided with him, they gave him even more than what he was looking for. Just an absolute disgrace, and I’m possibly stuck with a court like this for the rest of my life, because there are no guardrails to keep these people in line because the Founding Fathers probably didn’t conceive that the people would elect a fucking hyper-narcissistic lunatic who would corrupt the whole system.

And Trump is just a tool of the religious far-right, despite Trump being very obviously non-religious and deeply amoral. This guy can’t give you a Bible verse or even hold the fuckin’ thing right-side-up, but they’ll ride him all the way to imposing Christianity as the guiding light upon our very multi-cultural society. I mean, the Republicans haven’t won a popular vote in decades, it’s not what the people want. But they hate “DEI” and un-ironically love the Electoral College🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️ This stuff is NOT what the average American wants, yet they’re trying to force it to be the ways the holy rollers think it should be. Simply fucking insane.

But the main thing to me is that the left is just astronomically more honest than the right. Like I have my elderly dad with me, and he watches a lot of FoxNews…. quite literally, the things they tell me are happening and that are huge widespread problems, I just don’t see it when I walk out my door into “reality.”

I’m not getting murdered or even having my job taken by an illegal immigrant who came through an allegedly “wide open border”, just LMFAO, I’m not sure I’ve even met one. I’m not seeing trans women routinely dominating women’s sports. I’m not seeing them assaulting women or little girls in public bathrooms. I’m not seeing drag queen strip shows in kindergarten classes. I’m not seeing a collapsing economy. I’m not seeing kitty litter boxes in elementary school bathrooms😂😂😂 I’m SURE not seeing Hunter’s laptop, or ANY strong evidence that there was any wrongdoing by Joe Biden, that whole endeavor has been PATHETIC.

Basically Trump just says it, true or not (usually not), he puts the word out to Sean Hannity, and Hannity says it on his show and creates the narrative, the Brett Baiers of the world try to cover it straight the next morning like it’s just “the news” and not “an opinion”, and morons say “I saw it on FoxNews, and then it was on a meme I saw on Facebook, so it must be true!” Holy shit. HOLY SHIT, you guys😂😂😂 Simply put: MAGA and right wing media are fucking LIARS (some willfully and others stupidly/delusionally) and they should not be trusted or have their words taken at face value or at all seriously.

I don’t get it. I mean, if you were absent from nursery school that day, let me maybe remind people that giving a shit about yourself over others makes you a kind of objectively bad person. I don’t know if we’ve lost that character value in the shuffle or what. It’s not even that it’s always a deliberate and malicious attitude, but just not being able to see that the whole thing is shameful in its nature…. it’s really scary and disappointing to me to live in a country full of so many people like that.

And that’s the most alarming thing about all of it: most MAGA points SHOULD be able to be shot down with a very simple retort of “ok, but…. you would have to be a terrible, deplorable person to endorse and embrace that”, and these people are just basically “yeah, no, I don’t care.” The guardrails used to be decency and an aversion to feeling shame. But how do you battle against people who are strongly PROUD of things they should very clearly be ashamed of?

I feel very hopeless because I don’t know how we carry on with these kinds of people in the mix of “who Americans are.” Very disheartening, and infinitely embarrassing. We look stupid as fuck to the rest of the world for even CONSIDERING Trump.

Dude incited a riot at the Capitol to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power, enough said. And I’m appalled that people will look at you with a straight face and tell you “it was ANTIFA!” or “it was undercover feds!” I think we’re not supposed to really say this anymore, but I’m going old school for this and speaking in MAGA’s language, with all respect to legitimately developmentally disabled people….. that is fucking RETARDED. Imagine if I told you a BLM riot was really MAGA in disguise trying to make BLM look bad. You would laugh in my face, and rightfully so. What an absolutely preposterous attempt at an excuse😂😂😂 MAGA will forever be known as the movement that tried to disrupt democracy, just wear it proudly at this point.

It’s just really tough to lean right these days everything from them is so hateful, and beyond that, COMPLETELY DISHONEST AND DISINGENUOUS. It appears that the one requirement these days is “be an openly bad person, and claim moral righteousness in doing so.”

The only recourse is for these people to look in a mirror and realize THEY’RE the villains in the movie, not liberals, but I’ve just never seen a group living in more willful self-delusion than the MAGA right in all of my 45 years, coming from a guy who desperately doesn’t even want to pay attention to politics like I used to.

MisterWack · Answer

I was right leaning from 2016-2018 though I became more educated, open minded, and started doing my own research compared to the Left V. Right…. 2020 I voted for my first president after years of supporting Trump / talking people into electing him, I cast my ballot for President Biden.

Debate class, education in general, watching President Trump footage during the pandemic got me to switch I’d say. It wasn’t overnight and I was always open to rejoining ‘MAGA’ though they really have no policies left.

Trump promised Infrastructure, Veteran Benefits, Afghan Pullout, Fixing The Border, Repeal Affordable Care Act / Replace it with better plan, bring jobs back, etc.

President Delivered! Infrastructure, Veteran Benefits via Pact Act, Afghan Pullout, Kept in place Trump’s border policies however closed the border recently via Executive Order also has proposed Fentanyl Detectors which Republicans voted against, Expanded Affordable Care Act, and brought thousands of jobs via Infrastructure Law, Inflation Reduction Act, Chips And Science Act bringing thousands of manufacturing for microchips.

Not to mention Trump flip flopping, now promising he will expand Affordable Care Act when back in office… Don’t trust him since he tried to repeal it with no plan AND now supports TikTok even after trying to ban it / Republican colleagues saying China is spying on us through the app & Trump agreeing on that.

NaultD · Answer

I'm hard core left and want universal health care for everyone.

I'm alaskan native and I do get a lot of free healthcare that I would be dead without. They actively want me to be alive and live a full life

I also buy healthcare to supplement but the company I buy from my job. The thing Is they an evil monster of a company. Their only profit motivation is denied coverage.

The reality is we need healthcare being closer to life insurance. Just like everyone needs healthcare at somepoint that's not actually profitable people eventuality die. Yet insurance make a profit from life insurance.

V_Injector · Answer

A political quadrant test puts me -3 and -3... slightly left of center and Libertarian as opposed to authoritarian. I'm basically just centered, but that Overton window wants to make me out as full Hitler which is usually somewhere on the right up there with the authoritarians... So I'm turning on the gas. My oven is hot.

Are you left-leaning or right-leaning? WHY?

I'm gonna troll the ones acting like a bunch of fags and I never cared what side they were on.

Just so happens to be riding with Bidens acting like the fags right now.

just_a_potato · Answer

I used to be left leaning because my parents are, and I know nothing about politics. Now in present day, I feel like both parties don't really describe what I want to see in the country, not without being an extreme form of whatever the thing is anyway. I lean no where, I just exist lol.

handsomelad70 · Answer

Far left, because as a (starting Saturday) 71-year-old black Canadian man with relatives, especially my mother, who were Americans, and as the great-grandson of slaves, I've seen how the right is entering its pre-Fascism stage, playing people off against each other over discrete traits so the overlords can further exploit the workers. Plus, it was the right (then DUMBOCRATIC, now REPIGLIKSCAM) who enforced all manner of oppression of POC from black slavery and Jim Crow (which has re-emerged as Esq. James Crow), to the slaughter and dispossession of the First Americans, to the exploitation of Hispanic workers as low-wage maids, field workers and in other menial jobs (this also occurred to Asian Americans). So, why would someone such as I even dream of being a conservative?

Snakeyes7 · Answer

"Right leaning" because I actually understand how the things we had in place worked, why they worked well, and well enough about why it is failing to know that replacing it with a more centralized approach will only make it even worse.

Anonymous · Answer

I lean right in the sense of liking SMALLER government, but left in the sense of classical liberalism so basically let people do as they please as long as they don't harm other OR ASK OTHER PEOPLE TO PAY FOR THEM. I also lean federalist (delegate more power down to the states or local governments) and I lean separation of powers (so not EVERY issue is the business of EVERY branch of government).

Gospeedracer · Answer

The media lies because the Jews who control it want to destroy the west. Jews control the banks and institutions as well which they use to manipulate and destroy your life if you criticize them. Only When you figure out the Jewish agenda and what drives them will you understand the why.

Sabretooth · Answer

dude bragged about it... then, he wanted us to believe that it wasn't him he thinks that you're all brainless idiots. an innocent man doesn't need to fight and demean an accusers -- he goes to court with the evidence to prove his innocents... well, we know what he chose.

Anonymous · Answer

If you’re not a little more right leaning after the last few years, you deserve a swift smack across the face. That ought to wake you up. Really don’t know what else to tell you.

sawno · Answer

Not necessarily either but most people probably see me as right wing.

Koneko911 · Answer

Well Trump is indeed racist and sexiest... he's been caught on camera being both. So that's not a lie.

DrPepper12 · Answer

Liberal. Not democrat. This is why:

Amur8711 · Answer

I am right leaning, because I believe in Freedom and minimalist government, right to free speech, 2nd Amendment and the rest of our constitution.

Amandanator · Answer

I’m right leaning. As a woman I don’t understand how any expecting mother can go through with an abortion to permanently terminate her child.

Hispanic-Cool-Guy · Answer

I can't stand neither Republican or Democrat party.  Both suck and style of governance isn't the way a country should be led.  My leanings is left of center though.

goaded · Answer

Trump lies. Not just occasionally, but all the time.

Anonymous · Answer

Right learning, I'm in business and they treat business better

LadyBecks · Answer

I lean to the right as well

Jason2469 · Answer

Right leaning. Because I lived 38 years under leftists and it was a brutal fuck fest of loserdom

impalabill77 · Answer

I am a Democrat. Because my mom is an we both hate Trump.

Anonymous · Answer

I am centric, a bit leaning towards the left in my country. Yet if I was in the USA, I would be a republican lol.

llorando · Answer

Left leaning independent with a hint of moderate/conservative views.

In_Trance · Answer

Neither

dougeats · Answer

he's a convicted rapist and idolizes dictators. POS

Astarlessnightsky · Answer

Left leaning. but not an American.

grega239 · Answer

Im more to the right i guess

nudeNhorny · Answer

socially left economically right

Aiko_E_Lara · Answer

Centrist!

Crazzyyworld · Answer

Green Party!!

craftygoose · Answer

Right

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