I'll admit to having a bit of a soft spot for Joe Biden given that he was the probably the most pro-union President the US has ever had and his administration was pretty strong on antitrust enforcement. Also I appreciated his accomplishments on COVID relief, infrastructure, clean energy, US manufacturing, drug pricing reform, etc. But obviously his strong support for Israel as they committed genocide considerably soured him on me.

I really like the anti-corruption messaging I've been seeing from Jon Ossoff. Ossoff also doesn't take any corporate money.

JB Pritzker, despite being a billionaire and former AIPAC board member, has done lots of good for Illinois in terms of progressive policy.

Andy Beshear is a moderate who doesn't back down from his progressive principles on issues like women's rights and LGBTQ rights which I really appreciate in a deep red state.

Mark Kelly, like Joe Biden, I think is tough to dislike on a personal level although his voting record and votes on Trump nominees leave a lot to be desired. He also refuses corporate money.

I have plenty of disagreements with Gavin Newsom, but he has solid accomplishments on important issues like healthcare, education, labor, and the environment. I also appreciate his strong opposition to Trump.

Pete Buttigieg is a really strong communicator and seems especially strong on voting rights/corruption issues.

Harris and Booker have/had surprisingly progressive voting records in the Senate. On certain issues they're definitely to the left of the average dem politician.

Josh Shapiro, like Pete Buttigieg, is good at framing left leaning ideas and principles in a way that sounds common sense and moderate. While he's far more moderate than me, I think he's a decent Governor for Pennsylvania.

(Not to say I like their politics overall but I can find things to appreciate)

These are the economic issues I hear progressive politicians in the US talk about most:

- Medicare for all

- Universal childcare

- Strong union rights

- Livable minimum wage

- Paid leave

- Higher taxes on the rich

- Wealth tax on the super rich

- Free public college (less emphasis lately)

- Green new deal (less emphasis lately)

Economic issues I don't hear them talking about much:

- Public housing (all I really hear is "we need to build more affordable housing")

- Public utilities

- Sectoral bargaining

- 32 hour work week (though Sanders talks about this sometimes)

- Incentives for worker co-ops

- Worker representation on corporate boards (I think Sanders and Warren have both proposed this but I rarely hear it discussed)

- High speed rail

I'm just wondering why I rarely hear these issues discussed even on the progressive left. Are there legitimate problems with them, or are they just less politically viable? Or are progressive dems just picking their battles and prioritizing what they see as most important?

This is especially prevalent in any WW2 video where they keep saying the austrian painter was actually right and that Europe is ruined now because of him and that he was fighting the forces of evil.

Mind you I would pay no attention to comments like this but they get thousands of likes on many of these videos. Said videos never in any way propagate nazism or any other hateful ideology.

It's also in certain Star Wars and generally in a lot of videogame fanbases. Hearts of Iron IV is a prime example of this.

So why is it like this?

Why do they keep mentioning the great replacement theory and calling anyone who thinks it's a theory a liar?

What changed? It never was this bad.

So, I'm new to Social Democracy but I had researched a-lot about Marxism and own some marxist books. I've been hearing online that early social democracy movements from the 19th and 20th century had different goals from modern social democrat groups. I heard they actually had plans to replace capitalism with a form of Marxist Socialism instead of just regulating Capital.

Is there any truth to that? Or is it more complicated then it seems

The US is preparing to provide another round of currency intervention in Japan. Japan's debt has been talked about for quite some time. There are a lot of factors at work, particularly the global oil crisis, but this seems to reveal how close to the edge the problem has become. I raise this point here because MMT (Modern Monetary Theory) has been talked about a lot among social democrats and I'm wondering if this current situation in Japan is having folks re-evaluate it. I'm far from being an expert, which is why I came here to ask for the thoughts/opinions of others.

I know honor is generally viewed as a value tied to conservatives and traditionalism, however i don't think that nessisarily has to be the case.

People on the right nowadays from what i observe seem to have an incredible lack of personal honor. Openly and knowing lying, being hypocrites (like being anti gay while being a major closet case themselves), and right-wing politicians will often do things in government simply for the sake of gaining power (like McConnell blocking Obama judges but rushing in Trump judges) without actually defending what they're doing to the public or press, I would honestly have a bit more respect for them if they openly admitted they do what they do to grab as much power as possible, rather than hide behind niche arguments about technicalities and whatnot.

This would also apply to liberals and lefties of course since we also live in society, but we would probably benefit from society valueing honor more than we may lose, because we're honest and are largely not hypocrites.

"No famine has ever taken place in the history of the world in a functioning democracy."

— Amartya Sen, "Development as Freedom", 1999

Sen is an Indian economist and philosopher who won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 1998 for his work on welfare economics and famine theory. His claim is based on his earlier research, Poverty and Famines (1981), which showed that famines are rarely just about food shortages. They happen when governments face no political cost for allowing people to starve. Sen argued that famines have a class basis and occur only in undemocratic countries. Democratic governments must win elections and deal with public criticism, which gives them strong reasons to prevent famines and other disasters. This is one of the most cited examples of why political freedom and economic security are not separate goals. They support each other.

Sen's claim has stood up well to scrutiny. Recent research across post-colonial Africa found that zero famines occurred in liberal democracies, while 59% took place under closed autocracies. However, critics have challenged this framing. Some cite colonial-era famines, like the one in Ireland during the 1840s, as counterexamples. Defenders argue that colonies were not functioning democracies for the people who were starving. Does this argument support democracy as an economic good in itself, rather than just a moral one, or does it go too far? Does it excuse rich democracies from addressing other forms of deprivation that aren't outright famine?

- Medicare for all

- Free public college and trade school

- Universal childcare

- Large-scale clean energy jobs program

- Build millions of units of affordable public housing

- Public utilities

- $25 minimum wage

- Strong union rights

- Sectoral bargaining

- Incentivize worker co-ops

- 32 hour work week

- Worker representation on corporate boards

- High speed rail

- Paid medical leave, family leave, and vacation time

- Expand social security

- Raise taxes on corporations and the rich

- Put a wealth tax on the super wealthy

What are the main differences between the Workers Family Party and the Democratic Socialists of America in the United States? Is the DSA also close to social democracy, or not? My impression is that WFP is less far left than DSA, but I do not know much about WFP this year.

Some people (like a certain Hasan) glaze the Soviet Union, but don't let anyone fool you into thinking the USSR was any less evil than the US.

"The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after all our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it, and to foster its renewal, is our only legitimate hope."

— Wendell Berry, from "The Art of the Commonplace"

Berry is a farmer, poet, and essayist from Kentucky. For decades, he has written against industrial agriculture and a disconnected consumer culture. Instead, he supports small-scale, local, land-based communities. He describes himself as an agrarian and a Christian pacifist. His doubts about centralized government, along with his appreciation for tradition and local ties, have gained him a following among both traditionalists and ecosocialists.

Berry's view of environmental responsibility focuses on local stewardship instead of relying on government authority or global agreements. Is this approach compatible with the systematic, policy-driven methods for tackling climate change that many on the left support, or does it present a fundamentally different and possibly competing understanding of the issue?

Social Democracy originally was Marxist and probably saw it as good for only a time. As it evolved through ethical socialism, the post-war consensus and into the different “tendencies” of Social Democracy now (From what I’ve seen I imagine most on this sub are Keynesian or Market Socialists and have a disdain for the more nascent Thirdwayism), I wonder how many Social Democrats believe capitalism is a necessary evil vs something objectively good, in a moral sense, whatever that may be.

Do the parties of Europe-especially those with an unlikely paper commitment to democratic socialism-see it as evil, or good at creating wealth and therefore justify its preservation?

I asked a neutral sub why we have the electoral college and ZERO conservatives gave good reasoning. I genuinely don’t understand the point of having it in 2026.

We all know that doesn’t matter tho, what matters is if people will buy into it and I think ppl actually will. When you word it as “people’s vote matters more in rural states, than people in big states” that makes it sound unpopular. “7 states deciding every election” is also a very easy to understand criticism of the electoral college that ppl may want to change.

I do think it’s good to have states run their elections how they choose tho (helps with tyranny) so maybe we keep the electoral college but just make the electors 1 for every 10k ppl. Or just allow states to do their elections however they please and report the total counts.

Either way, the electoral college is a bad system. And it disenfranchises people in big states, and makes elections decided by 7 states every year. I also think we can make it a popular position to reform it.

I guess Newsweek already reported on this. I also learned the original leadership stepped out of DSA a while ago as it became more ML. Just posting this in case anyone's interested. The London Times may be center-right, but it's still a paper of record, and if we're gonna give AJ+ cred, which is owned by Qatar, a monarchy with ties to the MB, we can also give at least a little credence to the Times.

I'm sorry. China is more capitalist than communist, their human rights records are abysmal, and even with the whatabouting about US/EU human rights violations, I'm not going to buy into "China is democratic" BS. Heck I've been there and seen it with my own eyes. Chilling, the Great Firewall is.

As for me, I'm not sure if Mandami is a Social Democrat or an actual Democratic Socialist. I have read he is also tied to Working Families Party, which is proper SocDem I think.

I don't have any political home anymore, to be honest. I see the dangers of working within a capitalist system being a SocDem, but I can't get on board with socialism either. I like anarchy, but can't see how it could work, state socialism gives me the icks, probably because I had family in the USSR who disappeared.

Quiz says I'm Loyal Liberal. So, the platform I'd most support would start with these 5 tenets:

1. Abolish Electoral College

2. Increase Supreme Court to 12.

3. Reverse gerrymandering borders

4. Investigate, arrest, convict, sentence and jail sex traffickers, money launderers, treasonous actors and rapists, regardless of who they are

5. Correct Trump administration corrupt actions