Let's meet in the middle

I always say neoliberals will affirm your identity and support your right to be who you are!... As you die in the gutter of exposure and capital defense force brutality. Sorry, free market forces! 🤷
You can't eat pride ribbons. You can't live in pride ribbons. A neoliberal is better than a scapegoating fascist, but so is an empty soda can. Neoliberals are also equally as effective as an empty soda can in opposing fascism, the inevitable outcome of capitalism when left to run amok instead of straightjacketed to serve society as it must be.
- Look, what matters here is that everyone is included equally under oppressive capitalist movements which aim to drain of us of our lifeblood and monetize our very cells.
- Neoliberal doesn't actually mean " The newest Brand of liberal" NeoLibralist regimes historically have also been exceedingly anti-queer. The term was coined in the 80's to describe a burgeoning different brand of liberal government that focused on cutting spending by privatizing swaths of the government. Think Thatcher, Regan and the modern Republican party... See also the early Nazis who historically privatized huge amounts of government to pad the wallets of their supporters but the label was applied retroactively.
  If they are getting rid of government services and outsourcing them to a private company that's "Neoliberal politics". You are right that they are effective as an empty soda can at stopping facism but that's because they are usually better positioned to assume power, give up on democracy and go fascist but they aren't the group you're calling out here.
  Really the bar for what "liberal" means is a system with a basic set of rights of the person that cannot be infringed upon by the government, universal rights of the person to own stuff (though not all stuff) and a dedication to some kind of democratic system. Basically it's become democracy's basic format and practically everyone in government who isn't a fascist is some variation of liberal or at least playing by Libralism's rules. It's not a statement on socially progressive or socially conservative rhetoric. You're probably better off specifying " Social Progressives" if you want to be accurate to whom you're talking about.
  It's kind of the same rules as "NeoClassisism" which isn't constantly updated to mean the newest thing. That term got coined to specifically refer to an art style that is now 300 years old. Neo these days practically never refers to anything cutting edge.
  
  No they're just using the Tankie definition of (neo)liberal: "my enemy". It's part of the theory of social fascism, which claims that everyone who disagrees with me is a fascist.
- so... why didn't the left stop fascism? I hear a lot of talk about killing people, but it's been three months and nothing has happened.
  Are we all just yappers?
  You can bitch all you want, but the right won, and they won exactly what they wanted. So bitching about it on the left isn't going to make us anymore likely to win, is it?
  
  We have no leftwing party in the United States
  I phone banked for Sanders on 2 campaigns.
  I don't see Neoliberals or Fascists as winning, just different degrees of losing.
  I no longer have the slightest hope of ever "winning" a prosocial government here. We're too oligarch captured.
  I talk and comment to maintain my sanity in an insane capitalist hellscape I lack the power to change.
  
  Well said.

Can someone who identifies as a leftist explain to me what "neoliberal" means? I have no fucking clue at this point.
- White Karens who drive around with awareness ribbons on their prius and chastise you for calling black people black instead of "African American" and really think that someone needs to do something about the current social crisis as long as it doesn't upset anyone or anything and as long as everything stays exactly the same, and as long as nobody messes with their investments. They secretly cannot stand people different than themselves and want to retire on a golf course.
  
  Aka not a liberal. The neolibs people bitch about are not the same as a garden variety liberal who believes human rights(liberty) must take precedent over economic forces. That aligns with a lot of leftist views, but they will be ree-ing after this comment about how marx was an unfathomable god and the only path to utopia is forced authoritarianism under martial law. Eventually the dictator will give up his power when the means are seized because he was the true communist all along.
  Thats all so much easier and less of a gamble than unifying the commoners amirite
- It mostly means a dedication to deregulation and free markets. More specifically, private-public partnerships. That is the difference between them and Libertarians or Anarcho-Capitalists, since Neoliberals see that the government needs to provide things like courts, military, police, etc. but want to insert private companies to provide government services (e.g. in WW2, soldiers cleaned and laundered the military's uniforms internally, now a private company will do the laundry for a military base at a 50% markup).
  As all political ideology, in its original formulation, Neoliberalism was a deviation from liberalism, in the Vienna Circle, by its rejection of "political liberalism". It didn't believe in formal freedom, democracy, equality, etc. Real freedom is the freedom to buy and sell on an unregulated market, real democracy is the ability to vote with your wallet, and real equality is the lack of regulations protecting one group from another. This is why neoliberals of the 1920s and 30s were pro-fascist, since the fascists were so dedicated to privatization and repressing socialists and communists. Thus preserving the freedom of the market, even if later neoliberals want to walk that back.
- https://youtu.be/5luQB_yFmTM
  https://youtu.be/Vjt51bMHnXA
  https://youtu.be/_xAqZJTIsIA
  https://youtu.be/vyl2DeKT-Vs
  Tldw; liberals still want capitalism and the class hierarchy it creates. They just want capitalism that is supportive of gay and black people and social safety nets.
  
  Lmao @ the idea of neolibs supporting socials sfety nets.
- basically the meme among the left is that everybody who "dragged their feet" is a "liberal" or "neoliberal"
  the left tends to have a problem where they leech off of existing parties and groups, but then immediately throw them under the bus when convenient for their party. This is just an extension of that.
  The modern vernacular for liberal is, weird... To say the least, but in short, basically the average democrat is "a liberal" the average voting democrat specifically.
  Historically, a liberal is someone who believes in government, and the institutions it provides, the fact that you should respect it, lest you ruin it. And the fact that you can achieve the best outcomes, for all people when everybody is represented. Liberals traditionally don't have an issue with competing, or opposing viewpoints, they have issues with people who don't respect institutions, or don't want them to exist at all. A "Liberal democrat" may be fine with the republican voter, but have a problem with the way the republican base is campaigning, and running the country. Or even specific demographics of the republican voter, like MAGA for example.
  Joe Biden is a good example of this, and if you look at his term, he was very, and i mean very successful, had some of the most effective legislative work in a long time. Was popular across the aisle to a significant degree (not MAGA obviously) and respected those that were.
  The problem with the modern day left, is that they have outgroup problem. They want everybody who isn't "left" and exactly in sync with their ideology to get fucked, basically. This extends further, since the left doesn't respect the government, or it's institutions, but i've yet to see any good whitepapers talking about a more effective form of government, it's all just performative yapping about why "government bad and leftism good"
  I'm not going to dive into the specifics of leftism here, because frankly, not relevant, it's pretty similar to liberalism, minus the government stuff, and some slight differences, but the modern left doesn't in any way shape or form adhere to that.
  And before anybody yaps at me, calls me a slur or whatever, i just want to say, i'm not doing a both sides meme, i think the republican party is far, far worse. I think the democratic party is far more suited to running the country effectively, as evidenced by historical terms in office (the left would VEHEMENTLY disagree with me on this one, but the facts back me up here) The problem i think is specifically with the far left, the online far left in particular.
  as you may have gleaned, i would consider myself a liberal, specifically a "governmental classical western liberal" if you want to get into the weeds of it, i think the lack of respect for government institution, and the role it plays in society has ruined our country. And there is simply no way back into a respectable position, without reinstating that within the public, i don't care how it's done, it needs to happen. I'm very sure most scholars on this topic would agree with me when i say that this is the most important thing to fix right now.
  As a liberal should, i'm not picky about political views or ideology, as long as you respect the one thing keeping this country from grinding to a complete halt and being nothing more than a thought in the wind 20 years down the line. Unfortunately i don't think the right even posses enough brain power or will to comprehend this, and i don't think the far left is physically capable of comprehending this fact fully. (they are more than willing to mentally comprehend it, but they get mad the second anybody crosses them, and calls them wrong, so they never actually give it any serious thought)
  Anyway, inb4 people yell at me all angry like.
  
  Perfectly said. Thank you! This needs to be required reading on the subject.
- The post actually explains it really well
- Most of them don’t know either, but they’ll get back to you after they as that brooding cool kid in school.
- Carney is a Keynesian.

The middle panel is entirely superfluous. Take that out and you have an accurate representation of both the GOP and DNC.

Neolibs: Half of those people should be women #blm #acab #pride
Ftfy
- Needs some awareness ribbons too.
- I do wonder what the makeup of 100 people would have to look like to be perfectly (or as perfect as possible) representative of all demographics, every way we chop them up. Race, nationality, gender identity, sexuality, permanent disfigurement, financial class, whatever.
  
  There's more than 100 possible combinations of race, nationality, gender identity, sexuality disability, etc, so you couldn't accurately represent the whole human population with 100 people.
  
  I am amused by the verbiage of "every way we chop them up" followed by "permanent disfigurement." Which is exactly what they would have if they were chopped up. 😏
  
  it's pretty simple, you just RNG select people from the population, whatever you're left with is statistically, about as close as you can get to a representative demographic.

“I’m a centrist”
- "I'm a centrist"
  Actually republican but doesn't want to admit it

I don't believe for a minute neoliberals would hold to that half women thing.
- Yeah you’ll get one board member, maybe, if they feel like it. The steps needed even just to reform capitalism to eliminate gender inequality are considered way too radical by neoliberals.
- They sure love to pitch men against women and vice versa deliberately to silence worker rights movements and they're doing it in more ways than most people are willing to admit. Ask them to close the gender pay gap and a neoliberal will tell you about their women quota and how they placed a woman in a "leading" position (she has no power and didn't get a raise) and how progressive they are already. Ask them for a raise and a neoliberal will tell you how women have it worse than you. You're right in a way of course. It's a convenient diversion for them and nothing more.
  
  Back when I lived in Britain and participated in the comments section of The Guardian, I had a local "Feminist" literally tell me that it was more important to flatten the 23% difference in income between the cleaning lady and the night watchman than to flatten the 30,000% difference in income between both of them and the CEO.
  That very same crown generally focused on "breaking the glass ceiling" (i.e. get upper middle class and upper class women such as themselves into those 300x minimum wage positions) and I have never once read a concrete suggestion about addressing the gender inequality for the poorer social classes.
  That last box of the meme matches exactly my own experience with "Modern Feminists" in Britain.
  (Mind you, I lived in other countries and also met older Feminists and they're generally different and their version of Feminism is actually Egalitarian, though I've seen some young women were I live mindlessly ape this Anglo-Saxon neoliberal "Feminism").
- They're free-marketeers, if it is useful as branding, they'll do it. If it is not, they are fine with everyone in control being white men.
- yeah probably because they disagree with the premise at hand entirely lmao

HIRE 👏 MORE 👏 WOMEN 👏 GUARDS 👏

Dios mio! (Draws a cross.) A LIBERAL!

Finally a meme distinguishing libs and neoliberals
- Well it doesn’t show the libs at all, but liberalism and neoliberalism are basically the same thing. Libs think a free market is all that’s needed, NeoLibs think a market needs state intervention.
- Idk man, Clinton is pretty lib
  
  No, both are pretty neolib. Even though Carter was the first Democrat neoliberal, Bill Clinton made neoliberalism unquestionable bipartisan orthodoxy post-Reagan, and killed any remnants of New Dealers in the Democratic party.

I'm convinced that 95% of people that use the word neoliberal don't know what it means.
- I feel that way about people using liberal as well.
  
  this would also be correct lmao
- No, it is just that both Reps and Dems are so thoroughly neoliberal that partisan horse-race observers can't recognize the water that they swim in. Like fish getting angry because everyone keeps talking about this "water" they are swimming in.
  
  Exhibit A.
- you would be correct lmao
- The author of this stupidity certainly didn't.
  
  neither did you apparently lol

all i'm gonna say, is that i don't see leftists proposing an actual function government model that would fix all of our problems and make society better.
I do see a lot talking about how shit america is though. So there's that i guess.
For as much as you want to hate liberals and liberalism (and there are problems), it's hard to do anything with a dysfunctional government, and classical western liberalism provides a great solution to that problem. The other options aren't exactly better.
- Redistribution of wealth. Housing as a human right. Workplace democracy. Minimum wage indexed to cost of living.there are lots of socialist platforms that go unadopted.
  
  these are all great ideas. But it doesn't make a functional government.
  I'm not sure how anybody here is expecting to implement these if they hate liberal governance (the entire structure the US is based on) if you can't even begin to theorize a functional structure of governance including those things.
- Classical Western Liberalism created this dysfunctional government and is defending and trying to maintain it. The entire reason there is an opening for fascism is that the current liberal government is so dysfunctional and failing. And since both parties are anti-left, the only real option for opposing the failures of the status quo is joining the MAGA-fascist right. This is a repeat of the 1920s, showing how Liberalism enables Fascism.
  
  yeah, and it created it because we were the ones voting lmao. We voted idiots into power, they stayed in power because we liked them, and they fucked up the government irreversibly.
  It's not that complicated, we did this to ourselves at the end of the day.

So weird how in all these memes, the leftists are always the hero, yet when the time comes to make the bare minimum of effort to stop a fascist from taking over America-
They are nowhere to be seen.
- So weird how, every time there’s criticism of the Democratic Party, some pearl clutcher brings out a cynical argument to divert attention from the train wreck that they persist in simping for.
  I’m super tired of the Schrödinger’s Leftist argument - somehow insignificant enough to ignore on policy proposals, yet simultaneously crucial enough to be bullied into electoral compliance.
  If a meme is giving you badfeels because your party keeps taking a rough shit each election whilst choking out grassroots challengers, maybe you should demand a better party instead of posting drive-by takes online?
- Wait, when was there anti-fascist options for control of America? Was one of the two major parties anti-genocide, or opposed to putting minorities in concentration camps without due process? I think that you just want lower tariffs, so that your Nintendo is cheaper.
  
  It’s always easy to ask those loaded questions, isn’t it? Especially when they come from a place where there’s no such thing as nuance, and everything is purely black and white for the sake of those that refuse to see the world any other way.

Smells like Tankie in here.
- Idk if I necessarily agree with this removal. We're censoring people for swears now?

Americans and tankies who don't have a clue...