Except we have established that they are fascists, even if they haven’t realised it yet. Let’s go back to the first French Revolution, where the concept of left and right came from.
The reactionaries are the far right, they are opposed to change and want things to go back to what they imagine the past was. In the 1790s this was monarchism, now it includes fascism. This is where the modern Republican party are
The conservatives believed that change was inevitable, but that it should be slow and careful. These were the constitutional monarchists and Girondins, now I’d say it is the right wing of the Democrats (I don’t just mean Manchin and Simena, it’s wider than that.). Republican conservatism is all but dead, with just a few leftovers like Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, but they would be here too.
The centre was to the left of these groups, trying to find balance between the left and the right. Unlike centrism in the US, this was a mild form of liberalism that was more progressive than the conservatives, but they still wanted to control progress. This would be the majority of the Democratic party today.
Things start to diverge heavily here, because one of the key features of progressivism is that it embraces change. The left wing of the Democratic party and the Democratic Socialists are not similar to the Montagnards (thankfully), Hérbertists, Enragés or the Conspiracy of the Equals, other than they are on the left of their political spectrums.
The point is that modern politicians portray themselves as being to the left of where they actually are, so they seem more presentable. The right wing will try to claim the rhetoric of those to their left, but not their ideals and goals. It doesn’t seem to happen the other way round that often, and usually when it does it is because of political suppression of the left.
The Before-Times was 50-60 years ago, and the Republican Party has been slowly changing for the worse all this time. Still, we shouldn’t use their impoverished language unless we want to end up unable to describe what we actually believe (See Newspeak in Nineteen Eighty-Four).
And they are now freaking out because, after 50 years of calling everything they don’t like socialism, they now have a plurality of under 40s who think that socialism is a good idea. They have nobody to blame but themselves.
