Do the terms “progressive” and “conservative” still make any sense?

Shouldn’t a conservative want to conserve the status quo instead of radically altering society against the will of the majority?

Progressives right now are mostly busy defending what they accomplished over the last decades, so theoretically they should be called conservatives.

Conservatives are busy with burning down the world, so at least a significant amount of them would need to be called something less flattering.

      • Square Singer@feddit.deOP
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        2 years ago

        This is so weird, isn’t it? I can’t talk about american politics, but at least over here in central europe, the left has been traditionally pro-russia, while the right was against it. Now this has completely flipped.

        • Neato@kbin.social
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          2 years ago

          That’s because the ussr convinced people it was Communist and therefore leftist. When in reality it used those terms to become an communist flavored authoritarian state and redefined the term Communist.

          • Aux@lemmy.world
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            2 years ago

            Communism is inherently authoritarian. USSR was the perfect rendition of communism.

  • originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com
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    2 years ago

    youre not wrong though. todays democrats absolutely are conservatives in every sense of the word. they fear any change, theyve done fuck all for the last 30 years.

    we cheer on obama cuz he got a Republican health care plan stripped down and barely passed. yay.

    its really about the money, always follow the money. if you notice, the real democrats (labeled leftist progressives, aoc/bernie) are constantly barking about the common man being shit on by rich people. do they ever get any traction? nope.

  • ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca
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    2 years ago

    Yes. The terms used by political parties and in common discourse rarely match their actual definitions.

    Progressive means the person is open to changing rules.

    Conservative means the person isn’t open to changing rules.

    Liberal means the person’s main concern is providing rights/liberties to everyone.

    Reactionary is rarely used but should be. It means someone who wants to go backwards because they believe recent changes have caused a bad outcome. I’d say most people calling themselves conservative today are actually reactionary. They don’t want status quo, they believe things were better back in the day and want rules to go back to that time.

  • Neato@kbin.social
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    2 years ago

    Correct. Keeping the rights and slowing change is the definition of conservatism. Pushing for new change is progressivism. Trying to rolling back change and rights is regressivism. Today’s conservatives…aren’t. They’re regressives.

  • thisfro@slrpnk.net
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    2 years ago

    It has never been about conserving anything. Only money, racism and misogyny.