Political parties with misleading names

[Phony Moderate]

Liberal Party of Australia (neither classical liberal nor modern liberal but a standard mainstream conservative party)
Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (hyper-nationalist fanatics who are fairly economically interventionist)
The two main Jamaican parties - Labour and People's National. Actually it is the latter that is social democratic and the former that is conservative.

Feel free to provide other examples.

[afleitch]

The Labour Party

[DavidB.]

The Portuguese Social Democratic Party.

[/]

The GOP

The Republican Party

[DavidB.]

Let's please not make this thread a hackery thread.

[politicus]

Denmark:

The Radical Left (aka Social Liberals) - bland Moderate Hero centrists with a centre-right tilt.
The Left - Denmaks Liberal Party (aka Liberals) - our mainstream centre-right party, which is increasingly a generic Conservative party.
The Progress Party - racist pseudo-Libertarians

Norway and Iceland:

Both countries have a Progress Party, that is not exactly progressive. PP in Norway are quasi-libertarian xenophobes turned generic Conservative and populist. Icelandic PP are rural populists, fairly SoCon and Nationalists.

Virtually all Liberal parties in Africa also belong in this category. Hard to think of an exception, really.
Also lots of African parties with Democratic in them that are authoritarian (but that goes for other continents as well).

[Gunnar Larsson]

The Portuguese Social Democratic Party.

as well as their Brazilian equivalent. Brazilian elections are fairly confusing with the three important presidential candidates in the last election coming from the Workers' Party, the Brazilian Social Democracy Party and the Brazilian Socialist Party.

[DavidB.]

The Progress Party - racist pseudo-Libertarians

Could you elaborate on why you think they are racist? Do SD, DF, and PS also qualify as such for you If not, what is the difference between these parties and Frp in regards to racism? I know about their economic right-wing views, but I haven't noticed any remarkable racist stances. I'm genuinely interested (though this is probably slightly off-topic).

[SWE]

Parti Socialiste
Communist Party USA

[Gunnar Larsson]

The Progress Party - racist pseudo-Libertarians

Could you elaborate on why you think they are racist? Do SD, DF, and PS also qualify as such for you If not, what is the difference between these parties and Frp in regards to racism? I know about their economic right-wing views, but I haven't noticed any remarkable racist stances. I'm genuinely interested (though this is probably slightly off-topic).

I think Politicus is refering to a Danish party (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_Party_%28Denmark%29) , rather than the Norwegian one, which is described as "quasi-libertarian xenophobes turned generic Conservative and populist." :-) It still exists, but is more important historically, as the predecessor of DF. As the predessor of DF it had and have many shared views, though with a stronger focus on lower taxes rather than less foreigners.

[DavidB.]

The Progress Party - racist pseudo-Libertarians

Could you elaborate on why you think they are racist? Do SD, DF, and PS also qualify as such for you If not, what is the difference between these parties and Frp in regards to racism? I know about their economic right-wing views, but I haven't noticed any remarkable racist stances. I'm genuinely interested (though this is probably slightly off-topic).

I think Politicus is refering to a Danish party (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_Party_%28Denmark%29) , rather than the Norwegian one, which is described as "quasi-libertarian xenophobes turned generic Conservative and populist." :-) It still exists, but is more important historically, as the predecessor of DF. As the predessor of DF it had and have many shared views, though with a stronger focus on lower taxes rather than less foreigners.

Aaaah. Got it, thanks. I know about the Danish Progress Party, just thought politicus was talking about the Norwegian Frp, which was obviously not the case.

[politicus]

The Progress Party - racist pseudo-Libertarians

Could you elaborate on why you think they are racist? Do SD, DF, and PS also qualify as such for you If not, what is the difference between these parties and Frp in regards to racism? I know about their economic right-wing views, but I haven't noticed any remarkable racist stances. I'm genuinely interested (though this is probably slightly off-topic).

Well, it was placed under "Denmark:" as the end of a three party list - and I went on to talk about Iceland and Norway after that.
I think Politicus is refering to a Danish party (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_Party_%28Denmark%29) , rather than the Norwegian one, which is described as "quasi-libertarian xenophobes turned generic Conservative and populist." :-) It still exists, but is more important historically, as the predecessor of DF. As the predessor of DF it had and have many shared views, though with a stronger focus on lower taxes rather than less foreigners.

Aaaah. Got it, thanks. I know about the Danish Progress Party, just thought politicus was talking about the Norwegian Frp, which was obviously not the case.

Well, it was placed under "Denmark:" at the end of a three party list - and I went on to talk about the Progress Parties in Iceland and Norway below that. So it should be clear, but yeah, it is the old party of 0-tax lawyer and provocateur Mogens Glistrup, who basically lost it in the 80s and went off the rails. The people left in it are extremely reactionary.

[DavidB.]

You're right, I didn't read it well.

On-topic: the Japanese Liberal Democrats might qualify, at least for a Westerner. Sure, they're free market liberals and they are in favour of a representative democracy, but when thinking of Lib Dems you don't immediately think of a nationalist big-tent right-wing party.

[Antonio the Sixth]

As much as I like him, Bernie calling himself a socialist kinda counts here.

[Hydera]

Liberal Democratic party of Japan isnt that Ironic at all.

If your using the idea of Liberal Democracy. of which they are for and just managed so many elections.

It only becomes problematic once you try to apply Classical Liberal/Socially Liberal into  its name.

Even the Liberal Party of Australia works if you just consider their Lean classical liberal economic stances.




Otherwise.


Conservative Parties - Maybe they'd made more sense if they had Classical Liberal Economics/Socially Conservative in their names.  But even for the UK, the conservative party there has pretty much abandoned even Social conservatism.

Social-Democratic Parties - Might want to change their name to Centre-left parties.  Most of them aren't very socialism-through-democracy anymore.

Venstre Parties - eh this is a bit obvious although that might just be because the traditional usage of those terms has fallen out.

Any left or left-of-centre economically using the term "Liberal" instead of "Socially Liberal" -  That word doesn't mean what you think it means.

Palmer United party - his party has fizzled out and his senators have registered as independents. Not very United at all.

Already mentioned but in France and Spain where they have a Socialist Party -   nahhhhhhh


Progressive named parties in Scandinavia seems to always be right-of-centre parties.

[TNF]

Communist Party USA is one of the best examples, along with the Portuguese Social Democrats, who are actually the center-right party, while the Socialists are the center-left party there, IIRC

[Chunk Yogurt for President!]

Economic Freedom Fighters in South Africa, a party that doesn't even support what's in its own title!

[politicus]

Economic Freedom Fighters in South Africa, a party that doesn't even support what's in its own title!

They just have a different definition of economic freedom than yours.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

I'm surprised that the Moderate party in Sweden hasn't been mentioned yet. They're sort of middle-ground these days, but they were the furthest right you could get in Sweden back when they adopted the name.

[The Last Northerner]

The Liberal Democratic Party of Russia

[The Free North]

'Workers Party of Korea'

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Obviously "Liberal Democratic" is a very vague term, but I find it very hard to describe the Japanese LDP - that weird, sprawling, authoritarian party which exists simply to maintain and consolidate power in those organisations that already have power (civil service, Yakuza, farmers) as a particularly liberal party. They're not even very free market - remember the crazy shenanigans when Koizumi agonisingly privatised the post office? More liberal and Democratic than the Russian lib dems to be fair.

Irish Labour has become ironic seeing as it is now the SocLib wing of Fine Gael. I would argue that Greek politics is victim to the same phenomenon - the Panhellic a socialists of what now? ; and "New" Democracy are very silly names all things considered in these bad times.

I think the Institutional Revolutinary Party is misleading. It brings to mind some sort of crazy awesome steampunk communist party, rather than the dull corrupt morose organisation than it is (oh yeah and their allies the Greens are, erm, definitely using the wrong name; they don't give two craps about the environment). Add to that the seriously badass translation of Fianna Fáil (Soldiers of Destiny!) which makes them sound more like a WoW guild than the horrendous reality (although I will admit, there is nothing misleading about that party containing the word "fail" in its name.)

Very fun fact: in India there is a party allied to Narenda Modi's party that calls itself something like "the Marxist-Lenininst Communist Party of Kerala". That that is misleading, and so very Indian.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Economic Freedom Fighters in South Africa, a party that doesn't even support what's in its own title!

Yes, your average impoverished South African black guy has probably not taken an AP PolSci class, so I think he would probably believe "Economic Freedom" to be something rather different than marginally lower tax rates and lower minimum wages.

[Simfan34]

I think the Institutional Revolutinary Party is misleading. It brings to mind some sort of crazy awesome steampunk communist party, rather than the dull corrupt morose organisation than it is (oh yeah and their allies the Greens are, erm, definitely using the wrong name; they don't give two craps about the environment).

That exactly what a "Institutional Revolution" brings to mind. Indeed, it's a ridiculously oxymoronic term.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Oh wow, that's what Fianna Fail means? "Soldiers of Destiny"... rofl. De Valera was quite the megalomaniac!

Anyway, someone's gotta mention the Macedonian parties.