• OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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      6 months ago

      “Libs” is short for “liberal,” meaning a supporter of capitalism. Those on the American right who aren’t fascists are generally liberals, though they often don’t know what it means. When I criticize liberals, it’s from a leftist/anti-capitalist perspective.

    • papertowels@lemmy.one
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      6 months ago

      Society in general understands it the way you do, the term is just different here on Lemmy lol.

      • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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        6 months ago

        And in the entire rest of the world outside of the US. See the Liberal Democrats of the UK for example. Or, like, formal/academic discussion even within the US. John Locke was a classical liberal, Ronald Reagan was a neoliberal, etc.

        It’s only informally, when the right started using it as a scare word, that people started using it differently, and that was relatively recent considering the history of the word.