The left, as in die Linke definitely does. It has great approaches to make life better for the working class. Unfortunately their foreign policy is so terrible they are unvoteable for me. A party that is against delivering weapons to Ukraine cannot get my vote.
The center left hasn’t been listening much for a few decades, which is why the far right has been steadily rising from a 20% ceiling to this 35% ceiling just now. But the alliance that won today is not center left - it has some legit left. You can tell because the center and the media have been working overtime to prop up the most divisive figure as Literaly Worse Than Hitler that needs to be stopped at all cost, even by electing literal Nazis.
But this new left is also an alliance, and the current fear is that some of them will jump ship to side with the center right when we all realize that we really can’t form a government, because no one has an absolute majority. Even with those potential defections, the center will likely still not get a majority back. Worst case scenario is the left breaks, no one can govern, and Macron uses an obscure law to take over 100%, best case scenario the left holds and Macron can’t even do that and we have a chance of getting at least SOME improvement.
I don’t understand the first line because I’m not a native English speaker, and acronyms sometimes confuse me.
I agree with you, and I am very happy about this victory in France. I was referring to the fact that the working class prioritizes certain issues that the left doesn’t always place at the top of their agenda.
I think it’s time to show that advocating for minority rights doesn’t mean neglecting measures in favor of workers. I believe this is true, but we need to demonstrate it now; otherwise, when the vote happens again in France, no coalition will be able to stop fascism.
In Australia, the centre left has very strong ties with employee unions. They will always advocate for better terms for employees.
Sadly, much of the “working class” votes on the right because they think of themselves as something better than the working class, despite being poor. There’s a phrase “temporarily embarrassed millionaires”.
Further left we have the greens, and indeed they prioritise environmental issues over employee terms.
Most “center” “left” parties in Europe nowadays are just Neoliberals (pro-business, pro-privatisation, pumping up asset bubbles and generally bough and paid for by moneyed interest) and hence not really Left and often not even Center.
However all countries in Europe still have real Left parties (even the UK with it’s highly rigged First Past The Post voting system has the Green Party), though judging by the one in my own country (of which I am a member) there’s often this messy mix of people whose leftwing thinking is basically slogans from the Soviet Union (these being mainly people in their 60s and older) and people who grew up in the post ideology neoliberal age for whom leftwing is basically greed but for-the-group instead of the individual (hence you end up with Identity Politics which is a twisted subverted charicature of the Fight For Equality that far too often is dominated by people who are members of a group they were born into demanding shit for their group - instead of a broad push for Equality done on the basis if need an independent of the “group” people were born into, we have competing pulls for getting shit per group, with people said to be deserving or undeserving based on the genetics they were born with, thus far too often rewarding some people who are priviledged but have the “right genetics” whilst not helping those who have real need and yet were born with the “wrong genetics”).
I don’t really know if the present day Left can find a modern ideology and vision that’s not just a “branch of neoliberalism that doesn’t talk of Economics”, though the victory of the NFP in France, lead by Melenchon and his party rather than the old “moderate” mainstream party - called Socialist but not in any way form or shape so, but rather just neolibs plus performatice leftwing talk - gives me hope.
Is the left listening to the working class?
The left, as in die Linke definitely does. It has great approaches to make life better for the working class. Unfortunately their foreign policy is so terrible they are unvoteable for me. A party that is against delivering weapons to Ukraine cannot get my vote.
The center left hasn’t been listening much for a few decades, which is why the far right has been steadily rising from a 20% ceiling to this 35% ceiling just now. But the alliance that won today is not center left - it has some legit left. You can tell because the center and the media have been working overtime to prop up the most divisive figure as Literaly Worse Than Hitler that needs to be stopped at all cost, even by electing literal Nazis.
But this new left is also an alliance, and the current fear is that some of them will jump ship to side with the center right when we all realize that we really can’t form a government, because no one has an absolute majority. Even with those potential defections, the center will likely still not get a majority back. Worst case scenario is the left breaks, no one can govern, and Macron uses an obscure law to take over 100%, best case scenario the left holds and Macron can’t even do that and we have a chance of getting at least SOME improvement.
WDYM?
The left will always deliver better quality of life for the working class.
The right likes to blame migrants and taxes which resonates with the working class.
I don’t understand the first line because I’m not a native English speaker, and acronyms sometimes confuse me.
I agree with you, and I am very happy about this victory in France. I was referring to the fact that the working class prioritizes certain issues that the left doesn’t always place at the top of their agenda.
I think it’s time to show that advocating for minority rights doesn’t mean neglecting measures in favor of workers. I believe this is true, but we need to demonstrate it now; otherwise, when the vote happens again in France, no coalition will be able to stop fascism.
Sorry, wdym is “what do you mean?”
In Australia, the centre left has very strong ties with employee unions. They will always advocate for better terms for employees.
Sadly, much of the “working class” votes on the right because they think of themselves as something better than the working class, despite being poor. There’s a phrase “temporarily embarrassed millionaires”.
Further left we have the greens, and indeed they prioritise environmental issues over employee terms.
Most “center” “left” parties in Europe nowadays are just Neoliberals (pro-business, pro-privatisation, pumping up asset bubbles and generally bough and paid for by moneyed interest) and hence not really Left and often not even Center.
However all countries in Europe still have real Left parties (even the UK with it’s highly rigged First Past The Post voting system has the Green Party), though judging by the one in my own country (of which I am a member) there’s often this messy mix of people whose leftwing thinking is basically slogans from the Soviet Union (these being mainly people in their 60s and older) and people who grew up in the post ideology neoliberal age for whom leftwing is basically greed but for-the-group instead of the individual (hence you end up with Identity Politics which is a twisted subverted charicature of the Fight For Equality that far too often is dominated by people who are members of a group they were born into demanding shit for their group - instead of a broad push for Equality done on the basis if need an independent of the “group” people were born into, we have competing pulls for getting shit per group, with people said to be deserving or undeserving based on the genetics they were born with, thus far too often rewarding some people who are priviledged but have the “right genetics” whilst not helping those who have real need and yet were born with the “wrong genetics”).
I don’t really know if the present day Left can find a modern ideology and vision that’s not just a “branch of neoliberalism that doesn’t talk of Economics”, though the victory of the NFP in France, lead by Melenchon and his party rather than the old “moderate” mainstream party - called Socialist but not in any way form or shape so, but rather just neolibs plus performatice leftwing talk - gives me hope.