this post was submitted on 04 Jun 2026
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I'm gonna go ahead and ask you to define liberal for me and we'll see if American Conservatives fall under the umbrella. Not your personal definition, the actual definition.
Nonconfrontationally, of course, I imagine 😉
I'm not talking about an actual dictionary definition. I'm talking about how I've seen different groups use the term. English is descriptive, not presecriptive.
Since you have a lemmy.ml handle, please correct me if I'm wrong. I think Marxist-Leninists use the term to describe adherents to political philosophies that emphasize personal liberty over communalism - which lays the groundwork for a social order heavily influenced by market economies and thus capitalism. That aligns strongly with American conservative ideals of free-market economics and small government and deregulation.
Why conservatives align capitalism with Christian fundamentalism is a whole other discussion that we can have.
Also, I think American conservatives use "liberal" in the small-L sense, as in someone who adheres and promotes a broad view of social norms, including LGBTQ lifestyles, looser definitions of gender roles and family structures, and non-Christian faiths and creeds. (And a boogeyman that conservative news outlets paint as a threat to American ideals.)