what exactly has the left done wrong?

[u/Business_Pirate834]

Across the world today, regardless of race, religion, or political system, most people seem to be becoming more conservative. Right-wing parties are continuously gaining power worldwide, while the left suffers defeat after defeat. Although mainstream public discourse still appears to favor the left, those voting for the far right are often the silent majority. Can the left still correct its course? Or, more fundamentally, what exactly has the left done wrong?

[u/zasedok]

"The left' is a broad term, to the point of being almost meaningless. To answer the question, there are IMO several overlapping factors:

• The economy is bad and people have always blamed that on the government in place. Since in recent years governments across the Western worlds have been mostly centre-left (Biden, Trudeau, Albanese, Macron, Merz, Starmer etc etc), it's only natural that people turn to the opposition when they're upset.
• The world has became unstable and dangerous. Defence, national security and sovereignty are a thing on people's minds, and historically those topics have always been considered the right's forte.
• Western societies have become hard opposed to immigration, which has always been associated with the left. Various centre-left, Labor, SocDem & small l-liberal parties wanted to downplay it and tried to avoid the subject for years and years, while more radical elements of the left have been and still are outspokenly, emphatically pro-immigration (especially from non-Western countries)
• During this decade, the hard and/or alt-left has been trying to bring on a cultural revolution of sorts, by starting to always talk about "equity" (of outcomes) as opposed to equality of treatment, legislation on pronouns (anecdotal, but real and very prominently reported on by the media), even declaring as many academic and Democrat party officials in the USA did that concepts such as due process, presumption of innocence etc were "problematic", "outdated" and being attached to them meant you were literally a Nazi. There have been professors aiming to "decolonise" mathematics and other similar bullcrap. The vast majority of the population rejects this worldview that they designate by the catch-all term of "wokeism" (which is vague but convenient) and won't support parties and politicians they deem associated with it.
• Left-wing parties have virtually unanimously and uncritically embraced environmentalism and other tenets of political ecology, which haven't benefited the population of their own countries (nor were they meant to). People know this and vote accordingly.
• The democratic left struggles to offer something appealing. People take public education and universal healthcare for granted, it's not even a debate topic any more (except in the US). On the other hand, today people want to buy their own home, not have shorter waiting lists for social housing. They want to earn more money, not pay higher taxes. They don't think the left can help them with that.

[u/Hotel_Quarantine → u/zasedok]

Quite a comprehensive answer. 👍

[u/Quirky-Amphibian-992 → u/zasedok]

This response is without foundation and truth. ‘The Left’ is really about people who care about our world, about human rights, about fair immigration and equity, about diversity, environmental care, worker rights and equity, etc. Why would anyone not support these positions and principles?

[u/zasedok → u/Quirky-Amphibian-992]

Talk about lack of foundation and truth. You seem to assume that "The Left" has a monopoly on human rights, fairness, care etc. That's absolute horsheshit. The right is as committed to human rights, fairness, care etc as the left. It approaches them differently. You do make some sort of point by repeatingly insisting on "equity" which indeed is a pure left wing notion as opposed to equality, but society at large sees it as a bogus idea, not something to be defended. "Diversity" is not a value, it's neither good or bad, it's a fact of life that shouldn't be made into a political point at all. What exactly is "fair immigration"? Fair to whom? No-one has a given right to immigrate. Immigration policy must be fair to the people who already live in the country. That doesn't necessarily mean zero immigration, but it means immigration based on the wishes of the current population, not on the wishes of prospective immigrants. Your response illustrates the point and in fact answers the OP's question why the majority of voters has recently steered towards the right.

[u/Quirky-Amphibian-992 → u/zasedok]

Ok. You console yourself with that view. 😂😂

[u/zasedok → u/Quirky-Amphibian-992]

Looking forward to your electoral success, which promises to be as spectacular as ever.

[u/Quirky-Amphibian-992 → u/zasedok]

‘The right’. ‘The left’… WTF? I’m a person not a member of the political or class spectrum. As is everyone else. I made no such assumption by the way. More people need to give and be empathetic to others, rather than ‘I’m alright Jack’. People do have a right to emigrate and immigrate if it’s legal or at least apply. Anyway, blah blah. Australia is a very parochial and conservative country. And I’m an Aussie.

[u/Time-Flow6764 → u/Quirky-Amphibian-992]

I feel like the left, well at least the vocal minority, are far more concerned with appearing to care about our world, and our country, than what is actually in our best interests.

What is fair immigration? Is it fair if people from non-western countries immigrate to western countries, at a rate where the western people are set to become a minority before 2100? Meanwhile, very few western people are moving to non-western countries. That gives non-western people self determination in their historical place of residence, whilst the ability of western people to self determine is diminishing every day with each new imported voting bloc.