I'm feeling very disillusioned with liberalism right now

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don't identify with any party just be an individual

if you don't like any of the candidates vote strategically to prevent your worst candidate getting in

I like how he worded it. "Instead of letting anything get too out of hand?" (paraphrasing)
Oh, like my 401K so that we can have an actual hope of retirement, instead of panhandling outside of CVS for our medications? That's what Medicare has relegated old people to now, can you imagine how much more wonderful the coverage will be when it's spread out among all the citizens of the US, instead of just the old or disabled?

I wonder if government would take away years worth of savings, or Union retirements from folks who retired before socialism?

It's like that my side of the pond too. I don't know if you've heard of Brexit (sarcasm). And catching a tube in London can be difficult with all the Extinction Rebellion sorts gluing themselves on the roof. A few of them allegedly told a woman in labour to get out of the cab and walk.

I live in probably the most liberal part of the Midwest, and I pay a significant portion of my paycheck to socialism in the form of public schools for kids I don't have and for a public transportation system I don't use. I'm okay with that because it keeps the traffic congestion down, it gets people (who may not be able to afford cars) to work, and it provides an education. Living in a well-educated city is to me preferable to living in a stupid city - higher education = well paying jobs = lower rates of unemployment = less crime. Our city regularly rates in the top 10 of cities with the highest quality of life.

So yeah, I'm good with it.

I think what people miss is not the "evils" of liberalism or conservatism, but putting a con man or a sociopath in charge. A narcissistic sociopath will still be a narcissistic sociopath, no matter what team they're on.

A good question is how do you become the leader of a whole country if you are NOT a sociopathic narcissist? I think it takes a certain kind of calloused ruthlessness to be able to do things like declare war or unite enemies through diplomacy.

I sort of look at it like the hospital I work for. We have a CEO, but that CEO has advisors and committees under her that she gets direction from. And she can't make decisions on her own. If she were to lose her mind and violate hospital policy, she would be removed.

Unless of course, EVERY position head underneath her was a con man who had been placed there specifically for the purpose of supporting the head sociopath. (Not that I'm comparing to this any current administration...)

Sounds fitting for how the American government is supposed to work. Other countries too.

@OP (and 3 pages late)

This is why I spend a lot more time listening to Sam Harris or Brett and Eric Weinstein or why Rebel Wisdom (something no one seems to really talk about) is as insteresting to me as it is. There are alternatives, just that very few and far between are the people who actually seem to want alternatives.

Jo Swinson, leader of the Liberal Party.
Walks like a conservative, talks like a conservative.
Won't back a bill to stop the privatisation of our National Health Service.

Strange times over here too.

Until everybody learns the differences between “Democrat”, “Leftist”, “Liberal”, and “Socialist”, maybe it’s best to not discuss any of them openly. The same could be said for “Conservative”, “Fascist”, “Republican”, and “Rightist”.

The strange thing is that in most other places, “liberal” parties tend to be center-right. In Brazil, Bolsonaro’s party is called the Social Liberal Party, yet is mostly considered far-right.

Left-of-center parties are usually called the “Social Democratic” or “Labo(u)r” party.

The only parties I support now are birthday parties.

Sadly this country has become split. I've noticed it since Trump had been in office. I don't remember it being this bad when Obama was in office. I didn't see us vs them and people dumping people over politics and calling them Nazis or delusional or saying the leftists have a mental illness.

I miss the days of Obama, Bush, and Clinton when people weren't at each other's throats. Even with all their scandels there was not as much tension as there is now.

And yes Im aware things were much worse back in the 1860's and 1960's. But I worry every day that things could get that bad again.

That isn’t what happened. The Labour Party proposed an amendment to the Queen’s Speech calling for, amongst other things, the repeal of the Health and Social Care Act 2011. Not only would that require a huge reorganisation of the NHS (very expensive) but it would also repeal provisions that the Lib Dems fought very hard for, on things like mental health, social care, and inequality.

Given that the NHS isn’t being privatised, repealing this act would have been the main effect of the amendment. The Lib Dems could never support such a thing. The amendment was designed so that Labour could say “Look, they don’t care about the NHS!”

The Lib Dems and the SNP did exactly the same trick when they proposed an amendment calling for the preservation of Freedom of Movement with the EU. Labour were forced to vote it down, damaging their credibility with pro-Europeans.

Atm Labour are much closer to the Tories than the Lib Dems are. During the coalition years the Tories were forced to implement LD policies alongside their own, but now we’re seeing what they’re really like. Their only ideas are spending more money and leaving the EU - both ideas where they can count on the support of the Labour Party.

It's because "liberal" now doesn't mean what it says on the tin. Liberal now means just make the rules up as you go along to try to justify the unjustifiable. "Liberal" is meant to mean "open to other ideas" where as today's liberals are only open to ideas they agree with. The Liberal Democrat party in the UK is not liberal or democratic, they are fascists with a caramel latte.