The far-right relies on fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) to push their platform. But as FDR said, 'all we have to fear, is fear itself'. This was for good reason - fear is harnessed by the right-wing to push for a malicious agenda. Anecdotal stories of people of [protected liberal cATEGORY, #triggered] doing something bad (news flash: every system has cheaters. We should be angry at the biggest cheaters, not the small fry, keeping a critical eye for when media outlets reflect this bias). The right relies on divide-and-conquer strategies and unfounded conspiracies, supported at best by anecdotal evidence and mistaking correlation for causation. Instead of turning to the darkness, the left looks to the light - furthering the purview of democracy in all domains.
First, let's be clear - politicians that have relied on FUD and bigotry have done nothing but make the world worse. The Confederacy, anti-black racism and the KKK, racism against Italians, Irish, and other 'have-to-earn-your-whiteness' Europeans, fear and hatred of gay people and transgender people - always the claim is that somehow we are saying these people are okay too fast, and that somehow they aren't working hard. But that has never fixed anything - only hurt people. What has fixed things is workers coming together, and demanding a better life - child labor laws, the weekend, the 40 hour work week, the minimum wage, civil rights for people of all races; we ended the violence of Prohibition and won the Second World War under one of top one or two most far-left president in American history (which isn't saying much, but still), and catapulted into the space age as a unionized nation (albeit with debilitating racism, which we still have). Likewise, the decline of America, the hyper-politicization of the media, lowering of taxes on wealthy, gutting of jobs, eroding of workers rights, collapsing infrastructure, a Drug War, corporatizing of farms, and the rise of a destabilizing financial sector, was heralded by explicit deregulatory policies championed by the Reagan GOP and the Clinton Dems, cheered on by Capital. Rather than look how America succeeded in similar straights before, taking a page from FDR's book, the Republicans are resorting to rhetoric reminiscent of the Nazis, and the Democrats are, well, they've turned on the tap and the house is on fire.
Because here's the thing - in a Capitalist world, Capitalism is king. The person to be mad at, the person to make demands of, is the boss, the capitalist whos wealth and power grows and grows on the backs of their workers (the people who work the least, are the people the right never blames). The people to organize with is everyone else in the working class - don't let anyone fool you with divide-and-conquer tactics, the working poor are never your enemy (unless you profit off of the masses' blood sweat and tears). It's economics which fuels the non-economic (and economic) antagonisms of our day, and to fix them, we must fix the economics. For the sane people in the world, what platform can we use to best leverage our electoral power?
The position of the left, even non-anti-Capitalist 'leftists', is that Capitalism accretes wealth and power at the top. So to fix the problem, we have to do something about that. Policy must be made to address this - this policy must be able to reign in the outsize power of companies over the destinies of nations and lives of workers. On this issue, Republicans are pretty hopeless. Even if they did institute regulations against Big Tech (since they hate them so much now, and I'm sure it would be ugly), they are so beholden to other Capitalists, particularly oil, that they are unlikely to do anything to fix things. So what about the typical Democrat? At best, Biden is a weak social democrat. Unlikely, but it's at best. Cause otherwise Biden does almost nothing, which is better than Republican deregulation and attacks on rights, but it is obviously insufficient. Although we'll see how things unfold in the interim, I'm not counting on Biden do half of what's needed. But we'll see - I hope I'm wrong.
A little further to the left you have 'progressivism' or social democracy (confusingly, different than democratic socialism) - the idea is to tax the rich more, and to establish a stronger social safety net - universal healthcare, childcare, etc. And I think these policies are necessary, but they're insufficient. We'll ultimately run into the same sociological problem, manifesting right now as turmoil in social democracies in Europe such as Germany and France - Capitalism still ultimately is in the service of making money for the wealthy, and isn't concerned with making money for the working class. But, besides spending time with friends and family and recreating, we humans want the freedom to create, to make, to innovate. But in our current system, to engage in these activities, the vast majority must work for a Capitalist(s), where the fruit of our labor is alienated from us. This means when you make something (be it on the factory line, or in the design room), you don't own the legal rights to that thing. Your corporation does. No matter how nice life is outside of work, you are still dependent on work - and that means you spend 40-80 hours a week working for a dictator.
The utopianism of social democracy is that government can regulate Capitalism. The problem is two-fold, but first, requires recognizing that in a market economy (which Capitalism is an example of), wealth is power. This is because wealth is the capacity to buy commodities, invest, to buy other businesses out, to afford expensive legal campaigns, and to lobby and corrupt - basically, an outsize advantage in any 'conflict'. Given this, the first problem is that (1) in Capitalism, power accumulation is positively enforced. The more wealth (power) you have, the more you are able to use your wealth (power) to bend the system in your favor, accelerating the subsequent accumulation of wealth (power). (2) As a result, whatever barriers a social democracy puts up, Capital will overcome. This may be by impoverishing communities by 'shipping jobs overseas', this may be by buying out media so that positions that are 'too left' aren't aired (and simultaneously convincing people that 'wokeism' is fundamentally what the Left is about), this may be funding the campaigns of preferred candidates. For example, France - a bastion of social democracy and workers rights - was forced to elect a banker because the other choice was a fascist. The results have been disastrous.
That is to say, social democracy is a respectable sloth trying to combat a jaguar (anyone who thinks controlling Capitalism is an issue of democracy vs dictatrship should take a close look at either the USSR (failed) or China (gave in to Capitalism)). And I'm happy to vote for a social democrat - I'd be enthused with our current choices. But it's extremely insufficient. So what's the solution? A radical plan to nationalize everything? No!
The plan is to increase worker say and ownership in the enterprises they work at. This has manifold good consequences, and chief among them are (1) decentralizing power away from a concentrated elite, and as a result creating a more tame-able market economy. (2) Giving workers ownership of their work. When they innovate something, a worker should get more payoff than just the potential pay raise. This is the easiest system to transition into that isn't fundamentally unstable. As we face immanent catastrophes of climate, we need to act now. Leftism is not only just, it is correct.
See also: Vaush: (Vaush) How Conservatives CREATE FAKE NEWS