Defining political terms to help those who touch grass
Confusingly many terms have completely different meanings in political discourse, so here is an explainer for all of them.
Political discourse is one of the least welcoming places known to mankind. From the constant arguing, to the lying and confusing meaningless terms; it is like an extreme version of a family gathering with relatives you normally choose to avoid.
Many of the following definitions make no logical sense as they were decided by the political and media class who most benefit from the broken systems and terrible discourse; but it is crucial for understanding the world and avoiding arguments.
For example to most people ‘politics’ means the constant photo-ops and bickering between rich powerful political parties that thrive in a system that leaves the rest of us suffering; however to politically obsessed people it means literally every issue in the world.
So by that definition when regular people say they ‘hate politics’ what politically obsessed people hear is ‘I love inequality, want the planet to burn and want to take your rights away’. A confusion caused simply by definitional weirdness and an assumption from the minority of people who studied Politics 101 that everyone has studied it.
To avoid more tiring arguments, here are some other political definitions so anyone can pay attention to the hellscape that is political discourse:
‘Left Wing/Progressive’
Claiming to want a better future, ‘Lefties’ strive for a glossier status quo that doesn’t scare the ruling class or substantially help those in need.
‘Right Wing/Conservative’
Described as the ‘safer side’ of politics, these people are pro-inequality as long as they are the beneficiaries of the inequality. Tends to lean towards making societal problems a bit worse.
‘Sensible Centrist’
Known as the most smug people in politics, these people claim that the majority of people (despite mountains of evidence that claim otherwise) are in-between the two prior definitions, they fight for the status quo and claim it makes them ‘intellectually superior’ to do so.
‘Far Left’
Described as ‘woke lunatics’, the far left demand that the political class actually address the issues the world faces in ways that research shows tends to be popular with most people, however their passion does come at a cost of being annoyingly right.
‘Far Right’
A term used when legally speaking you aren’t sure you can straight up call them Nazis due to their strongly held pro-discrimination beliefs.
‘Mum and Pop investors’
The top 5% of earners who hoard all the wealth and recourses, including literally everyone in the political system.
‘Young Voters’
Anyone under 40 who is politically engaged. This group is to be praised for their views as ‘the future of the world’, until a view doesn’t completely match with your own then they become ‘naïve fools’ who need to be quiet.
‘Fiscal Responsibility’
Described as an admirable quality by the media, it is when a government is willing to not support those in need in order to not have to stop giving all their resources to the rich in order to get a good headline.
‘Realistic solutions’
Doing less than the bare minimum needed to start actually solving a problem but just enough for a good headline claiming you are solving the problem.
‘Spin’
Lies and manipulations that a marketing person was paid thousands of dollars of taxpayer money to come up with in hopes of a positive headline.
‘Corruption’
When lawmakers act in underhanded ways to benefit themselves or their friends, but only when it breaks the laws that the corrupt lawmakers made.
‘Action’
When you talk about doing something but don’t actually do it.
‘Minority groups’
People who aren’t cis-straight white people, usually seen as a political tool or weapon instead of a human being.
‘Integrity’
When you ‘bravely’ refuse to acknowledge or correct mistakes and continue to make the broken systems more broken no matter how many regular people you hurt.
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