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FrustratedMonky04/03/20256 repliesview on HN

That's what really blows my mind. Growing up as Reagan Republican. When did Republicans go from law-and-order, to anarchists?

Traditionally anarchism is a left-liberal idea. Now the far-right is same as far-left. Left-Right is now a circle.


Replies

gruez04/03/2025

> Now the far-right is same as far-left. Left-Right is now a circle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory

giraffe_lady04/03/2025

This is a very strange view of it. Anarchism is extremely far from liberalism. "Anarcho-capitalists" are more or less just extreme libertarians, they share no history or ideology with any other anarchist movements, no other anarchist movements recognize them as anarchists.

The far left and the far right are not the same either where do you even get that! A far left party in the american context is something like democratic socialism, or sure why not actual marxist-leninism. While the far right is proud boys, groypers, literal neonazis, christian integrationists. You may have equal distaste for both but that doesn't mean they share anything else.

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razakel04/03/2025

Anarcho-capitalists are not anarchists. They share no history or ideology with any of the other variants of anarchism.

They're extreme libertarians/neo-feudalists.

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CalChris04/03/2025

Reagan’s administration was very corrupt. So that law and order evidently didn’t apply to them. It was also very profligate. So that fiscal conservatism didn’t apply to them. I don’t see a lot of difference between the actor Ronald Reagan and the actor Donald Trump. Maybe in degree but not in kind.

I’ve been a left liberal my whole life. We haven’t gone anywhere.

rayiner04/03/2025

It’s not “anarchism” it’s simply rolling back the bad parts of Reagan’s legacy: free trade, immigration/amnesty, and foreign empire.

When Democrats embraced free trade and globalism with Clinton, most of the liberal Reagan republicans and neocons became Democrats. What MAGA is today is what the bulk of the GOP has always been: a coalition of social conservatives and business owners.

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api04/03/2025

It's because the far left and the far right are both made of up of people deeply disaffected by the status quo, and when those people talk they often find that at the very least many of their grievances overlap.

In terms of today's landscape there is a list of things like LGBTQ issues, race, gender equality, abortion, religion, etc., and if you avoid things on that list you'll find a huge overlap between the views of the far left and the far right. Both are broadly opposed to what's popularly called neoliberalism, the post-Reagan/Clinton post-cold-war order, and the reasons for this opposition overlap quite a bit if you again avoid the topics that I listed. From that perspective, blowing up the system is the goal. When they see trade policies like these crash the present system, they view that as a success because they think the current system is such a mistake that it must be smashed.

(I am not making a judgment in this post, just explaining the landscape.)

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