Actual left, true left, is when you start spending money at the cost of efficiency to further improve quality of life…

On that point, you're falling for right-wing propaganda. The extreme ends of any spectrum have some pretty asinine views held by profoundly stupid radicalized people; absolute collectivism gets just as ugly and destructive as absolute individualism. Neither represents "true" anything. Heck, even centrism has no pure form, because there is no middle, no single point that marks the right balance for all contexts.

I do agree that we have a big problem with false dichotomies and pseudo-absolutism being used to divide us. The real "them" puts great effort into minimizing and misrepresenting the values and interests that are actually widely shared. And even they would be one of us if better raised or rehabilitated away from the wealth that has captured and corrupted them into such extreme individualism.

Breaking down that assumption is step 1 to fixing things, you have to abandon the concept to fully realize that truly being actually fiscally conservative is synonymous with being pro human rights, pro abortion, pro lgbtq, pro immigration, pro science, pro education, pro healthcare.

In general sure. But you make it sound like there are never hard choices nor compromises to be made. Sometimes we genuinely cannot afford to do right by someone or something. When it comes to new problems, the frontiers of medicine and science, etc. we very often don't know what is economically efficient or even viable. But I think that's a little off topic. I don't think anyone is honestly confused by sometimes needing to spend money to save money.

Individualists love the idea of spending money to either save or make money, which is why they like starting businesses, investing, building passive income, building self-sustaining non-financial supports (a personal favorite), and any grift ready to unburden them of the means to exercise that greed to which it appeals. They just can't be up front about what it is they really don't understand: spending money on other people (without a direct personal connection). It is their concept of society itself that is limited/constrained in scope, and that has nothing to do with money.

That's still just fiscal responsibility (which also gets used as a code phrase, but that's hard to escape entirely). Given that "fiscal conservative" is an established term widely understood to represent a certain specific set of beliefs and principles, I don't know why you'd want to identify with that term based on something else that only matches the general, apolitical meaning of the label and in an incredibly generic manner that offers no real distinction from anything else.

It kind of plays right into the the doublespeak that right-leaning movements love so much -- and this is exactly why they do. It's to trick people into believing they are aligned and and then represent that alignment to others. You make them look good.

I'm going to reiterate a prediction I first made about 5 months ago, that Poilievre was going to win at least a minority but it would actually be very tight. He campaigned hard for 2 years off-season while receiving little to no journalistic scrutiny -- just propaganda from the right-wing rags. I always believed his lead would be heavily eroded when the general public started paying attention to him, rather than just his base built on grievance politics.

I never could have dared hope I'd be this wrong. But the factors I identified are still in play, and the difference largely amounts to strong circumstantial reinforcements. I.e. the new elements are the undercutting of his fake issues and Dumpster showing us what not to do so much more clearly (understandably to a wide audience) than I anticipated.

Having serious stakes really amps up how tired many of us actually are with politicians running on vibes. I don't think it's accurate to call Carney's behavior vibes when it's marked by things like answering questions and fulfilling promises. Vibes are a big part of what's getting rejected so hard with both Poilievre and to a lesser but still significant extent Singh. And it's because this time we can't afford to just play the usual "it's time for something else" whack-a-mole.

At this point I wouldn't reduce anyone's views and choices to being vibes based. Even the really bad ones are rooted in deeply held ideology and deliberate movements to radicalize people by appealing to/infiltrating those ideologies.

Seconding GICs. I think market uncertainty is pretty much at peak right now, and there are a lot of GIC options that trade between guarantee and potential -- but the closest they come to "risk" is having the money locked in for some period. Short of civilization collapsing, your money will grow.

Perhaps you'd be so kind as to tell me what you think I'm telling you. I'm struggling to see the gotcha in making a choice while preserving skepticism.

While there may be a nicer way to say it, I'm bothered by the downvotes you're getting. Fiscal conservatism is the motivated reasoning that bridges or abstracts values and logical steps people often cannot even consciously admit to themselves.

It's like how moralizing homelessness and feelings of disgust toward them protect oneself from the fear of becoming homeless, by manufacturing a distinction.

Nobody doesn't believe in spending money wisely and sustainably.

It must be even harder pretending the CPC was ever about fiscal anything. The Overton window moves and dictates how much quiet part gets said out loud, but human nature does not change.

We're all going to have to grapple with the fact that in very unfortunate ways we are America-lite. A red wave might push social conservatism back in the closet, but we must not forget that a full 30% of us still went mask off after watching where those values lead -- twice. That's a problem that's going to require active collective leadership across Canada for the foreseeable future.

It's dangerous to like a leader as much as I like this guy. There's much in his world view that inspires ambivalence. But then every actual move is just so on point that it's hard to ignore this nagging doubt -- because it's just too good to be true.

Like what's the absolute worst thing he's done so far? In my book it was scrapping the carbon tax; it was defusing something that could cost the election, in a way that can even be easily reverted, at a time when it's about the least important short-term concern.

In my riding, the only candidate registered so far is for the CPC. 😑

Fair point. It also highlights why I consistently will use any other words than upper and lower (though I don't think I've consciously acknowledged or analyzed that before). I never really had a reaction to middle because it is largely defined in terms of relationship to those between which it sits anyway. But upper and lower carry so little information about the power dynamic as to be deliberately vague.

And while I don't think "class" as a designation of social status is really meant to imply no hierarchy of power, it certainly does downplay and obscure the underlying mechanism. I think the reason I like keeping it is that it ties the social hierarchies people recognize (and with "capital" the economic system they at least acknowledge) to the actual mechanisms giving one control over the other.

I think most might be overstating it. Maybe it isn't in the forefront of most people's minds, but that's a reflection of who dictates what gets traction in public discourse. I'd wager most people over 40 who aren't zealous conservatives have figured it out.

While there is no established, traditional definition, I'm pretty comfortable with the one I invented (claiming no originality, but so far not finding it elsewhere):

the intersection of working class and capital class

I think it captures the underlying idea that a middle class person is somewhere between the two real classes (rulers/owners and subjects/workers) in a way that dovetails with democratic ideals: collective self-rule/governance and economic self-determination/independence.