Why People Falling Out of Mainstream Liberal Politics Tend to Move Right
Why People Falling Out of Mainstream Liberal Politics Tend to Move Right
The political landscape in the West has shifted dramatically in recent decades, with increasing numbers of people becoming disillusioned with mainstream liberal politics gravitating toward the right. This trend is not accidental but rooted in systemic, cultural, and psychological factors that make the right a more accessible and appealing alternative for those feeling alienated.
The left’s historical strength lay in its ability to articulate a clear critique of the capitalist system, centered on the exploitative relationship between workers and owners. Class, as a concept, derives its significance from the process of surplus extraction: the transfer of wealth from those who labor to those who own. This dynamic is the engine of inequality, enabling a small elite to extract wealth from the working class majority who toil with little to show for it. Yet, the left in the West has largely moved away from class analysis, instead focusing on social issues and identity politics.
While issues of race, gender, and other forms of identity are undeniably important, the left’s emphasis on these concerns has often come at the expense of addressing the broader economic injustices that affect all working people. By treating these issues as separate from class struggle, the left has fractionalized its base, creating a patchwork of identity groups that often emphasize their distinctiveness rather than their shared interests. As such, the left is unable to present a unified front to the capitalist system and the ruling class.
In contrast, the right has adeptly tapped into the economic anxieties of working-class people. While the solutions they propose are misguided or outright harmful, the right acknowledges the very real frustrations of those who feel left behind by the system. When right-wing figures argue that the economy is rigged against ordinary people, they resonate with the lived experiences of many who see their wages stagnate, their costs of living rise, and their opportunities shrink.
The right’s message is effective because it doesn’t require a radical rethinking of the world. Instead, it builds on the capitalist and nationalist ideologies that people have been steeped in their entire lives. By blaming immigrants, government overreach, or cultural elites, the right offers scapegoats that align with preexisting prejudices and fears. This makes their ideology not only accessible but also emotionally satisfying.
On the other hand, moving to the left requires questioning the very foundations of the system. Socialist thinking runs contrary to the ideas of capitalism, individualism, and the myth of meritocracy that most people have been taught to accept as natural and inevitable. For many, this is a daunting prospect. It involves rejecting deeply held beliefs and confronting uncomfortable truths about the world and their place in it. While some are willing to make this leap, most find it easier to retreat into the familiar narratives offered by the right.
If the left hopes to counter this trend, it must reclaim class analysis as a central pillar of its politics. This doesn’t mean abandoning the fight against racism, sexism, or other forms of oppression but rather recognizing that these struggles are interconnected with the broader fight against economic exploitation. The forces that perpetuate class inequality are the same ones that propagate racism, sexism, militarism, and ecological devastation. These issues must be framed as part of a unified struggle that unites all working class people.
The left needs to provide a compelling narrative that's able to compete with the one that the right peddles. It has to be accessible and relatable to those feeling alienated from the political mainstream.
The other issue is tribalism. People are rejected by parents, siblings, friends and employers when they go against the grain. This was absolutely the last holiday for visiting parent.
This was absolutely the last holiday for visiting parent.
same here for my family.
i get that we need to build bridges to bring us back in from the political wilderness in this country; but there's something to be said about finding a balance between trying to help the people you care about and preserving your own well being. especially when you see the a particular beloved member of a younger generation getting sucked into the overwhelming nature of that tribe for the first time and simultaneously recognizing that there's nothing you can do about it and that all of your efforts have been in vein.
this past xmas break has made me wish that i was as smart as my sister is when she warned me that it's best to keep a friendly & welcoming distance from them decades ago; permanently. i became invested in my nephews & nieces (like i did their parents and my own siblings) and now i know that i will have to watch another procession of an entirely new generation of my family members laugh & meme at the tankies while unhappily assuming their roles as capitalist cannon fodder to the point of self harm & recycling generational trauma that their grandmothers and I had to endure. all the while proudly proclaiming that everything will be fine (eventually) because they will always vote blue no matter who and will soon be the majority.
a third of us are trumpers now and the rest still won't/can't see it 🤦
Actually mainstream liberal is not liberal but libcon (liberal conservatism)
Socialist thinking runs contrary to the ideas of capitalism, individualism, and the myth of meritocracy that most people have been taught to accept as natural and inevitable.
For mutualism, socialism is not contrary to individualism also meritocracy is not a myth. You just have system and social problems.
Liberalism is an ideology with two primary facets: political liberalism and economic liberalism. Political liberalism emphasizes individual freedoms, democracy, and human rights, while economic liberalism is essentially capitalism, focused on free markets, private property, and wealth accumulation. These two aspects are inherently incompatible. While political liberalism may appear to champion the people’s cause against oppressive regimes, once in power, it inevitably prioritizes economic liberalism, protecting the interests of the wealthy elite at the expense of the majority.
Private property rights are central to liberal ideology, serving as the foundation of individual freedom. However, liberalism’s defense of private property amounts to the protection of minority wealth at the expense of the communal good. Liberalism justifies the use of state violence to safeguard property, which it enshrines as sacred in laws and constitutions, effectively removing it from political debate. Thus liberalism perpetuates a system that benefits the few at the expense of the many while presenting itself as a champion of freedom and democracy.
A good primer on the subject https://orgrad.wordpress.com/articles/liberalism-the-two-faced-tyranny-of-wealth/
Left/Right does it actually matter?
Whether you have a more capitalist or more socialist system, you will still have an establishment, an elite class*. People are disillusioned with that class of people and want to kick them out. If we had a more socialist system we could still be in this same situation, so what does it actually solve? People just want to hit the reset button every so often when the elite become too greedy. That's really all there is to it.
*Spare me your anarchist fantasies.
"Elite Class" isn't a thing. Capitalism is a problem because Capital has supremacy over humanity, and thus society is bent to the whims of the profit motive, which necessarily pushes exploitation. Socialism is the solution because it places humanity over Capital, via central planning and public ownership, forcing production to be done for the common good and not individuals getting wealthy. Administration is a requirement for that, as is management, and these are real systems that can be employed.
Actually the whole of left-wing ideologies is based on the concept of fighting human hierarchies i.e. it literally predisposes the existence of an elite class. Capitalism/Socialism is only a subset of that. I'm not sure how you can be a human adult (?) with and kind of lived experience and claim that it all boils down to the economic system. Have you never interacted with other humans irl?
It does matter, and I don't accept with a socialist system, you have an elite class. With communism, maybe, but with democratic socialism, the goal is democracy first, because if you give powers to local people, to decentralise, and remove the disenfranchisement that people feel, you get the change for people to push for changes that help their circumstances. This was a view advocated by the late, great Tony Benn.
First past the post puts too much power in the hands of a few "representatives" and the more you break it down, the more working people can campaign and win. It's hard to campaign against centralisation as it requires a level of organisation, mobilisation, and cohesive view that is very hard to organise. Then you get corruption within that as pro-business interests influence and fund those that aim to divert the movement from the benefits of people. The Labour party in the UK could be an example of that. Currently, they're pushing for deregulation, growth and tight controls on migration.
"Democratic Socialism" purely exists as a means to smear AES, all Socialism is democratic. Moreover, decentralization is less democratic, and gives rise to competition and eventually Capitalism. Centralization is necessary for proper public ownership and central planning, even if you have local planners subservient to regional and national planners.
With regards to the voting system, look at Germany. They have 6 parties and the AfD, but really only two choices. Having multiple parties doesn't really make as much of a difference as you think it does. Political parties are formed from the same class of elites so they tend to converge on all political topics that matter. There is only divergence when you have another class of wanna-be elites trying to dethrone them. That would be the AfD or MAGA.
I think this is the crux of the problem: no matter the government and electoral system, you still end up with a government formed out of a narrow subset of the population, the elites of the day. This is inevitable because each political environment will select for some select few traits. And the only time you get disruption is when a new set of elites tries to dethrone them.
Now you can conjure some kind of system by which the government is explicitly not formed out of some elite class. Like worker councils or some such idea. However, you then run into a problems such as lack of continuity (governing terms being too short) and lack of expertise. There are also some advantages to having a government run by a (competent) elite class. So you see, it's not so simple.
But overall the electorate feels excluded when you have a government that is run by people who are so alien to them and who are clearly completely disconnected from the everyday man. And unfortunately the only protest the electorate has is to vote for another set of wanna-be elites in the hope that the resulting political disruption will unset some of the most harmful of the current crop. It's generally good when the elites are in-fighting.