The Fall of the Left...

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

So... as we watch the hard left governments in the EU are moving farther and farther to the Right. Canada suddenly has a Right leaning government... infact the Left went from majority to only getting 1/3 of the vote...

Perhaps... with this change we might actually see someone try to fix the economy...

[creatureofthenyte]

So... as we watch the hard left governments in the EU are moving farther and farther to the Right. Canada suddenly has a Right leaning government... infact the Left went from majority to only getting 1/3 of the vote...

Perhaps... with this change we might actually see someone try to fix the economy...

I wish this would happen in my state. All of the neighboring states, mostly run by Democrats, are cutting spending and not raising taxes. But here in CT, depending on how the house of reps votes, we will be well on our way to the highest tax increase in our state's history. Our dumbass governor just doesn't get it.

[Troy Spiral (13)]

I'd agree that at least in the EU the more leftist leaning organizations have lost plenty of ground. But the fact that the entire political spectrum on the order of decades-centuries offsets this on a larger timescale.

The vast majority of what we would give the term "right wing" or "left wing" these days would most all have all been called leftest in ages past or the equvilant term as "left and right" would have been unknown terms prior to the 1780s. Todays mainstream "moderate" right wing Conservatives would have been considered near-unconscionable to the right wing parties of previous times.

Just depends on your historical viewpoint/timescale.

For instance to give an american example, just becasue I can speak to it a little more intelligently without having to go look things up: pre-civil war parties: Whigs, "Know-Nothings", The Free Soil Party, Republicans (a new party at the time) the Constitutional Union, the Democrats all which were at the time considered across the range of left-right , would all be considered fairly hardcore right-wing in modern times. The "leftist liberals" of the 1850s-1860s would be unrecognizable bible thumping die hard conservatives to the leftists of today.

The long view over lets say the last 2000 years has been an evolution toward more and more liberalism not less. With short term shifts in all directions (on the order of decades/centuries). It's possible that any recent shifts toward conservatism are the start of a long term trend against the majority of human history, but it feels unlikely.

[phee]

The vast majority of what we would give the term "right wing" or "left wing" these days would most all have all been called leftest in ages past or the equvilant term as "left and right" would have been unknown terms prior to the 1780s. Todays mainstream "moderate" right wing Conservatives would have been considered near-unconscionable to the right wing parties of previous times.

Just depends on your historical viewpoint/timescale.

.

+1