I'm feeling very disillusioned with liberalism right now

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Oh and I forgot to add these:

Criticize Barrack Obama for any reason: "Racist! You're a racist!"

Criticize Hillary Clinton for any reason: "You! Sexist! BASTARD!! !"

And yes I'm aware I'm being kind of hypocrite because I have said some of these same things about Republicans and Trump Supporters.

But now I realize how wrong it was to do that. I bought into hype myself.

Two more I thought of:

Support the Death Penalty: "Stupid! We need to release serial killers and rapists out on the streets after serving just 5 years in prison like they do in those CIVILIZED countries!"

Support Gun Rights: "The more CIVILIZED countries don't even have guns, stupid!"

It's a pretty confusing time. I will admit that the us vs.them, the 'you're either for me or against me' stuff is disheartening. Used to be, no matter who won the Presidency, we were all Americans at the end of the day. It's not that way anymore. That makes me really sad.

I would like to see more moderate politicians get their foot in the door. My ideal 2020 race is Weld vs. Klobuchar, but it looks like it will be Trump vs. Biden

The center is being hollowed out, plus we've come to see anger as a virtue:

https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/blog/why-people-today-get-so-angry-about-politics

My main point of disagreement with the Big Two is with the economy. If I were to make a run for the presidency, my economic policy would center around regional and industrial development planning. It would involve vigorous investment in lower-performing regions, and helping reduce overdependence on one industry (ex: Detroit and the automotive industry, Appalachia and coal, etc.), while promoting sustainability. Education and housing would be two other issues I would highly address.

My father is English , but has lived in the USA since 1981. In England he was a Tory voter. In the USA he's pro Democrat and anti Trump, though I'm not sure he can vote.

What would be 'left wing' by USA standards would be solidly 'centrist' by UK standards .

Now, I am not from your country, so anything I say should probably be taken with grains of salt, but I think you maybe need a change of perspective, and outside of your corporate news sources, along with radicals. I actually do follow American news, and do so via internet based networks or channels: The Young Turks, David Pakman, and Secular Talk. Yes, these are Left leaning sources, but they are ones without the corruption of big money and elites, and are not afraid to own up to hypocrisy on the Left, and often very forward with criticising corrupt media on either side. These guys actually care about progress, and looking at things with nuance view that you might not even be aware of. You could probably subsidize more with several philosophy channels with specific topics.

I don't want to be kind of pushy to tell you who to vote for, but I think that you will be doing a great disservice to vote no one, as much enabling the glaringly awful person that turned has turned you country into a bit of an international joke. You really should vote on the person by their own merits, not on tokenism, which is why your Bernie Sanders guy would actually be very good, with his Medicare for all stuff being what all us other big countries have, with a lot less things like not being able to afford healthcare or bankruptcy from medical costs. From actually what I am aware of, a good deal of your Democratic party are what would be called centrists, a lot of people that would be plenty happy for things to stay the same, but they are better than the people that want to actually put you guys backwards, and play on fear.

You might see some of the Left crying the things like racist or something, but it is window dressing to the important things like economic matters. From my Macroeconomic studies, I can tell you that many such Right wing ideas for economy are absolutely awful, where they think that giving out tax cuts are always the best way to stimulate the economy, and this is entirely incorrect. A good government should be there to try and mitigate too wild economic growth by taxing higher, and then distribute those taxes to specific parts of the economy that need the boost. Ensure that those on the bottom have the economic freedom to spend, and they do so, which keeps all the wheels turning, not give all the money to the top, more than it will ever need, and hope it gives it away to those bellow it to keep the economy going, rather than give the bare minimum.

Yes, some more Left leaning economies can fail, such as Venezuela, but these are places that caused other problems such as relying too heavily on a single industry, such case being the oil industry, but a large country that has diversified itself, that if one failed help from another industry could help another recover, this should hold little to no risk. It might not always be the correct thing to always go Left regardless, but as things stand it is the far better choice that actually care about the people instead of building up boogiemen, and would even be better economically than the group that try to rationalize whatever makes their people money. Not to say that some corrupt people may make their way up it.

On social issues, I don't know what much else to say other than you might not realize how certain groups are being disadvantaged. Sure, some people need to pump their brakes rather than throw around demeaning insults of people who are not automatically on their causes, but you have to understand these are people who have faced actual oppression. I would include people on the spectrum on this, so most of us on this site should be aware that the people on the Right as a whole are more likely to be unwelcoming to people with disabilities, and their should be little services for them, or sectioned off. Which side do you think is more likely to use the R word or use autistic as an insult?

For me, I rather some civil discussion where the different people can sit down and try to explain different sides to come to an understanding, a good deal of YouTube channels I watch do exactly that, and is usually how I become more informed on any given subject. Sometimes it is messy, you have to swallow some uncomfortable truths, and be prepared to change your view. But I also come across a good deal of people on the Left that have become so frustrated with methods by people on the Right, people that are so unwilling to evolve their point of view, and play the Ben Shapiro method of using dirty tricks to "win debates" rather than actually come to some improved understanding. These are the people that often end up yelling at those who do not already believe in their side, and create umbrella terms to describe them, even if they are just simply uninformed rather than set on stay ill-informed. Which mostly leaves it to those who are able to hold some level of comedy about the whole thing, maybe willing to put jokes at their own expense to run with the idea of being the sort of deviants they are accused of. This is why something like Contrapoints got me more informed on a number of issues from gender or sexuality minorities, to how the Left can be perceived.


Another positive channel, just throw one in, is Philosophy Tube, won't push you to continue watching the channels I enjoy to, but just leave it in case you are interested in other sources that don't play the game of mindlessly going for their side. Here is a video on Liberalism.

When a liberal politician wants to take YOUR money.

Then everything gets real.

Until that day, isn't liberalism fun ?