Yes

For those in here that take offense to this distinction:

2 party political systems function to collapse diverse political perspectives into one of two camps and normalize an 'average' view for both parties. Leftists take issue with this collapse because it erases dissenting views within each party in service of defeating an 'other' at the expense of pursuing our real political goals.

The label matters to those of us who want to make the point that the US democratic party does not really represent our interests; at-best they represent a less-objectionable flavor of the same ideological framework, but one that needs to be dismantled all the same.

"Stop trying to divide us!" is a refrain spoken by those who are better served by the party than we are.

Put another way: "We are not the same"

- How's the saying go?
  I know, I have three of them and I still can't pay rent.
I think the current best demonstration on this is how hard people are pushing Mark Kelly as VP.
They push a center-right president onto the stage and then dangle another "centrist" to try and, what? Appeal to Never Trumper Republicans? Racists?
How about you offer actual progressives some goddamn enticement for once and offer it to Jamaal Bowman, who the Dems primaried in favor of a genocidal AIPAC stooge?
- If he was that popular and progressives that numerous he wouldn't have lost his primary, especially as the incumbent. Simple as.
- They push a center-right president onto the stage
  Like, 90% of the US Senate is center-right or worse. You're in a country that is governed overwhelmingly to the right of the popular political view. I don't think the VP pick is going to meaningfully shift any of that. Running Walz as your VP isn't going to turn the US Senate into the Minnesota Governor's Mansion.
  How about you offer actual progressives some goddamn enticement for once and offer it to Jamaal Bowman, who the Dems primaried in favor of a genocidal AIPAC stooge?
  Because the US has a huge geopolitical strategic interest in staying friendly with Israel and a vanishingly small interest in cultivating support among progressive New Yorkers.
Very well put

They didn't like John McCain, so they lumped him in with the rest of us.
The upside of that is it works against their overton window dragging, if you are going to be called a commie leftist no matter what might as well lean into it
- How does it work against overton window dragging if saying "maybe people should stop dying of preventable disease in the wealthiest country on earth" gets you labelled a communist? It's precisely the sign that the overton window is shifted to the far right
- Sure wish the libs would get this

Meh, though the meme is true, most Americans would say liberals are EVERYONE left of center, and conservatives are EVERYONE right of center.

.
- Correct, I invoked an unnamed speaker in my statement.
  Rephrased: each asked American would describe liberal or conservative as capturing the entire spectrum, (left or right respectively) of what they consider center.
  All I mean is that the terms are most commonly used (in America) to capture damn near half of the spectrum.
- No one wants to consider themselves radicalized
  Speak for yourself buddy, proud owner of the "radical leftist" label here.
What most Americans think of as 'center' is way fucking right compared to most of the world.
Here Bernie Sanders is a radically dangerous communist.
In other parts of the world he is just considered a bit progressive.
- Bernie is barely left of center on the world stage
The center is now also conservative, unfortunately.
- Doesn't matter to my explanation
They only say that because they've been trained to by conservative media. Just because education is bad doesn't mean reality is different.
- No, it's a matter of colloquial semantics.
- Corporate media and cable news in general

When you have only two parties you can only have one dimension.

Using neo-liberals to define liberals is like using national socialism to define socialism.

It's authoritarian propaganda.

Libs and leftists are different
- Sure, but liberals are still left wing, and saying they're not is just making enemies out of other left wingers, with is a long standing left tradition.
  You'd all get so much further if you recognised allies in one area don't have to be allies in all areas. You can all have your own opinions and work together where it suits you towards set goals, rather than name calling, "no true Scotsman"-ing and in fighting. It honestly feels like the right have infiltrated the left at times, and just turned them on each other.
- Yeah..
  ITT: people who are in a state of BBQ flavored confusion.
  Lemmy help y'all out.
  leftist: some socialist policies, universal healthcare, publicly funded education, jobs programs, ubi, abolition, etc..
  liberal: voting rights, property ownership, access to banking, civil liberties
  neo liberal: global access to markets, global tade, international standards bodies, world banks, world courts, trade agreements.
"neoliberalism" is a term coined to be descriptive, it's a subset of liberalism. "national socialism" is a term coined to hijack the rising popularity of socialism.
- Calling liberal when you're really just for the freedom to exploit and economically subjugate so nobody can stop you is also a slight hijack.
  I believe in freedom or liberty as a word for a specific value. A vast majority of all normal human beings believe in this value. Not all are sane enough to understand that as a society you have to make compromises.
  I feel like socialists and libertarians / neoliberals are trying to gaslight us into thinking freedom means something different, something materialistic. Well not gaslight exactly, but stealing or hijacking a word like you say. Like trying to redefine what feminism means.

I think at this point the average American conflates "liberal" with simply an attitude on how much you hate or don't hate queer people, regardless of any other political sentiment. One time a chud told me the only real political issue is abortion.

us americans are not, to put it lightly, an intellectual country

I mentioned this anecdote in another thread a couple weeks ago, but I think it fits here too:
It's not even just chuds ime, it's the majority of the US population that thinks the "further left" something or someone is, the more "liberal" it is. Even many liberals think this.
A while back I told someone (an acquaintance I met irl) that I considered myself a communist and their response to me was:
"I'm pretty liberal myself, but communism is too liberal even for me."
There were several other people present and none of them thought this was a strange thing to say.
- It may in part have something to do with how only American liberal spaces allow for anyone to say they're a communist without severe social and professional ramifications.
- At this point, I honestly don’t know what “liberal” actually means. I don’t even know how to ask/find out. When I was growing up, I always thought it was good.
  Now I don’t even know what “good” is, other than not being racist or anti-LGBTQ+.
- flashback to my college days getting asked on surveys what my politics are on a scale of liberal to conservative
  they'd always mark me as "independent" since their scale had nowhere to put communists
- Linguistically, that's usually how it is used in America (but not elsewhere), "liberal" means "left"

Do these labels really have any benefit or value in society, or are they just yet another lame excuse for us all to hate on a group of 'others'

They referred to specific ideologies and economic and social policies before the modern corporate propaganda machine really started in the 80s. Pretty sure they’re meaningless to most Americans these days.
I hate that the left is so hell bent on creating division among itself and allies with this "nobody is left enough for me;" bullshit.
- There are absolutely people who are too right leaning to be called Leftist
- My point was more that there shouldn't even be labels such as left, right, conservative, liberal, etc. Putting everyone into these little boxes and arbitrarily pitting them against each other only serves to create problems where non existed and solves precisely nothing along the way.
  There can't be division if there are no groups for people to be divided into. There can't be any of the "nobody is left enough for me" bullshit if there is no left or right.
  The only true purpose of these labels is for those at the top to divide those at the bottom so they keep their silly little power a bit longer. I for one, fail to see a logical reason to continue playing this game.

TBF there are about seven mutually exclusive definitions of “liberal” in each country.

Not so much "in each country" as "between countries", right? I'm European and in my home country "liberal" tends to mean Neoliberal
- Here too, but colloquially it means something like “unburdened by tradition” or “freedom loving”, which is, well, not how our liberals roll.

.ml has entered the chat

Americans are actually taught in school that the entire American political spectrum is inside liberalism.

They then immediately forget that anyway and fall into the conservative/liberal false paradigm.

false paradigm
I think you mean false dichotomy
- I knew it would be this brilliant piece of poli-historical analysis!

The thing I love about lemmy is instead of neoliberals and weird racists silencing Leftists like reddit, it's Leftists and Social democrats constantly at each other's throats.

The latter is much more amusing

The latter is much more amusing
same here; but likely for different reasons.
i like learning about viewpoints that differ from mine; i think they help me question my own beliefs and, usually, it re-enforces them.
- Yeah, on reddit, if you're not the mainstream reddit opinion you have to hide in an echo chamber, if you are the mainstream, then most of the platform is one giant echo chamber.
  It doesn't help that they're all exceptionally rude and confrontational

Even apps like Bumble don't make a distinction, as an European I find it quite annoying

Well, the apps have other problems too...

That's why lefitist is usually an unhelpful term. I only hear it used as a self descriptor by libs who want free healthcare and support imperialism.

I use it intentionally all the time to distance myself from liberals, especially when talking to liberals (it's a pointless distinction to conservatives). It breaks liberal brains a little less often lately than it used to, but while the repetitive conversation about the distinction is annoying, it also usually results in some wheels turning a tiny bit inside them.
- i outright use the word communist to describe myself to liberals and that usually cuts off any potential liberal camaraderie pretty quickly lol

An anarchist believes in liberty for people to live freely

A capitalist believes in liberty to freely exploit people

Unfortunately the capitalists also own the means of mass communication and have gaslit the socialists into thinking liberty only means the latter!

Resist imperialist redefinition of words!

Welcome to the No true Scotsman party.

You can burn liberals on the same pyre as magats and cops.

Y'all change labels at will and then get upset when people use the "wrong one". Where I'm from liberal means you're not a conservative. Also can we stop with the divisions and no true Scotsman bullshit on the left? This is why the left loses to conservatives so often, cause they love to find divisions and hate among their own side and allies.

These words have meaning and there's confusion when people mean something else in the US. American Democrats are right of center in global politics. Liberals (global definition of the word) have controlling presence in industry and politics. They literally don't want anything significant to change because it is set up exactly the way they want it. They can lobby to get what they want. They can contribute unlimited amounts to third party campaigns.
- There is absolutely a difference between leftists and people who think Democrat policy positions are exciting.
Liberal means "not conservative' because our Overton window is fucked six ways to Sunday.
can we stop with the divisions and no true Scotsman bullshit on the left
No, because (A) liberals are by definition not leftists regardless of how little they know about their own right-wing political advocacy, and (B) ignoring the fact that there are differences among leftists (and liberals and leftists) is both wholly unproductive and furthers political alienation of the people whose opinions you want to be able to conveniently pretend don't exist.
Additionally, just because you don't understand leftists when they tell you that liberals are not leftists, doesn't mean they are engaging in a No True Scotsman fallacy. It means you haven't engaged enough with them to understand.
- This is why Trump is going to win ffs

Liberalism is left (progressive) absolutely

Liberal Parties are generally not.

How is capitalism left?
- The definition of Liberal is about indiscriminate personal freedoms, so it is more opposed to Authoritarian Right than anything else.

Easy way to distinguish them

Liberals - Implement reforms that maintain capitalism. Support oppressed identities/communities so that they can achieve equality.

Leftists - Complete revolution of the economy to destroy economic social classes. All identities/communities are inherently equal except for oppressors.

Examples:

Economic

Liberals - Progressive tax code to redistribute wealth from the wealthy to the impoverished. People with disabilities are given enough to survive.
Leftists - No one is capable of becoming wealthy. Impoverished people exist only if they truly reject economic support from society. People with disabilities are given even more than the general population to help their quality of life match able-bodied people.

Social

Liberals - Same-sex marriage is recognized by the government
Leftists - Government? Marriage? lol no one has authority to define your personal relationships. Go live your life. Do whatever as long as you don't hurt others.

You really are back to your bs. I hope you know what you wrote is a bunch of horse shit?