Patience is a virtue

I’m not sure what I am any more.

Political labels are pretty junk, especially after centuries of mass media and propaganda in the mix. I find it helps to learn to convey your values specifically if you want to avoid that whole mess.

The 'left-right spectrum' is subjective and relative which makes it pretty useless without having a ton of context. "Leftist", by itself, is mostly a meaningless term. To socialists, a progressive liberal is usually considered center or even right wing. Some socialists even call other socialists right-wing. It's just pointless.
What the US mass media calls 'liberals' is a progressive liberal in political science. What the US mass media calls a conservative is usually a conservative liberal aka right-liberal, that's why they constantly prize liberty and freedom. The US libertarian is simply a classical liberal. They're all liberals!

Useful video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nPVkpWMH9k - "Why the political compass is wrong", explaining how vague and ultimately ineffective the left-right auth-lib models of politics are.

I don't like progressive used that way because historically progressivism was just about an ideology that was results driven and often independent of other labels. There were progressive conservatives like Teddy Roosevelt and the Nelson Rockefeller Republicans in America (though the progressive conservatives in Canada are anything but). They were fundamentally centrist liberals though, essentially a watered down evolution of the historical French radical liberalism/radical whigs. Merkel, for example, called herself a progressive and she was a Christian Democrat.

Liberalism is the ideological aspect of Capitalism, Leftists support some form of Socialism.

So you concede that social democrats are leftists?
- Social Democrats support Capitalism with enlarged safety nets, they don't support Socialism. So, no.
  
  You just said leftists support some form of socialism. According to the Wikipedia page, a social democracy is a social, economic, and political philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy and a gradualist, reformist and democratic approach toward achieving limited socialism.
  
  So social democrats have to be leftists then
  
  No, not really. First of all, Wikipedia is not some holy text. Many Social Democrats consider themselves open to working towards a collectivized economy, but the facts remain that
  
  Such a path has historically proven to be impossible
  
  Such a definition of Socialism used on that Wikipedia page generally equates it to "Socialism is when the government does stuff."
  
  So what is an acceptable level of socialism required for a government or ideology to be considered leftist in your view?
  
  Also, don't you think the emphasis on public control over resources or greater economic equality in social democracies reflects some socialist principles, even if it’s not socialism in the Marxist sense?
  
  Finally, even if social democracies don’t meet the Marxist criteria for socialism, wouldn’t you say that they represent a critique of capitalism and an attempt to address its contradictions, even if they don’t go far enough?
  
  Good questions.
  
  I don't think it makes sense to classify Socialism as a quantitative measure, but qualitative. If you recall from Politzer's work, there's really no such thing as a "pure" system, ergo when deciding if an ideology is Capitalist or Socialist we need to see what it does and what it works towards.
  
  Social Democracy definitely borrows from Socialism and Socialists, certainly in aesthetics and many supporters genuinely believe in Reformism as a tactic (even if I personally think it obviously disproven at this point). However, the basis of Social Democracy is in not only maintaining markets (which are found in Socialist countries as well), but Bourgeois control and the present institutions formed in Bourgeois interests, such as the US 2 party system. Without doing anything to truly assert proletarian control over the economy and leaving the Bourgeoisie uncontested besides the "democratic" institutions they set up and approve of, I don't consider it truly Socialist.
  
  In a way. If we are being serious, all ideologies are critiques of the present system in some way, even libertarian Capitalists believe in significant critiques of modern Capitalism. What matters more is the manner and character of the changes. In Social Democracy, even if adherents think social safety nets need to be expanded, they don't typically think we should work towards collectivization and public ownership, and wish to "harness Capitalism." In addition, the Nordic Countries many seek to replicate only exist via Imperialism, they fund their social safety nets largely through massive IMF loans and other high interest rate forms of exploiting the Global South. It's like if Chase Bank were a country.
  
  Ok, so essentially a social democracy can be considered leftist if it seeks to overthrow bourgeois hegemony and shift power dynamics in favour of the working class over time is what I'm getting from this? Everything is relative.
  
  On your second point, i agree that bourgeois institutions remain largely intact in social democracies, but what about historical examples like Sweden in the mid-20th century, where labor movements and socialist parties significantly shifted power dynamics in favor of the working class? Couldn’t social democracy, under certain conditions, be seen as a stepping stone toward proletarian control ergo making it leftist? At least if we're going by Politzer's view that there are no pure systems.
  
  I also agree that the Nordic model has benefited from imperialism, but this same critique could be applied to the USSR as well who engaged in exploitative practices in its satellite states. Doesn’t this suggest that imperialism isn’t exclusive to capitalist systems, but rather a feature of powerful states under various ideologies?
  
  Such a Social Democracy isn't Social Democracy anymore and becomes "Reformist Socialism," which is historically a failure and theoretically a failure.
  
  Per Sweden, concessions came as a combination of strong labor organization internally, and a successful Socialist neighboring country to look towards. The ruling class made concessions, rather than risk losing control entirely. Such systems have eroded now that the USSR isn't there anymore, and to adopt Social Democratic tactics without such a neighboring Socialist State has not really worked out.
  
  As for the USSR, it wasn't Imperialist. It did engage in widespread planning, and certain more populous regions recieved more support and development. However, this was not done for profit, and the goal remained widespread development. If you want to get into Leftist critique of Imperialism, Lenin's Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism really is necessary reading to understand the basics. If you truly want to see Imperialism and how it evolved over time, a dense and academic but nonetheless fantastic resource is Hudson's Super Imperialism is great.
  
  I'm not going to address your first claim, because I'm not aware of the context surrounding how reformist socialism is "a failure".
  
  I'll skip to your last point and just say i disagree with your framing of the way things happened under the Soviet Union and you are once again defending the Soviet Union's failed practices to protect ideological purity. Imperialism isn't only done for profit y'know.
  
  What about cases where resource transfers or forced economic realignments harmed satellite states? For instance, East Germany was heavily exploited post-WWII to pay reparations, which stifled its recovery for years. Wouldn’t the imposition of Soviet control and extraction of resources qualify as imperialist, even if it wasn’t driven by capitalist profit motives?
  
  What about the Hungarian Revolution in 1956? The Soviets responded with military intervention killing thousands. This doesn't seem any different from what Putin's doing with Ukraine today.
  
  These same satellite towns were also used as buffer zones to protect against Western aggression. The result? They were dragged into Cold War conflicts they had nothing to do with.
  
  You can provide sources or that try to explain how these actions only served to contribute to development, but that doesn't take away the practical implications of these actions. I haven't even mentioned COMECON yet. The USSR was largely imperialist.

If you're looking for a label, I recommend not. Soon after you pick one, the definition for that label will change and no longer fit your ideology. This change might be due to your own understanding improving, or due to societal shifts, or both.

Write out your ideology in long form. People tend to support good ideas when not attached to politically charged labels.

O yea I'm not worried about it, just saying I don't know what I am considered anymore. Still vote democratic for pres because my god since I've been 18 Republicans have put up straight garbage, but I've never been happy about it.
- Well are you pro or anti capitalist? If the former, you'd be a liberal (though a heavily left leaning one), if the latter, you're a leftist.

If you're not conservative, you're liberal.

Kids are trying to pretend the term is more complicated than that.

No, leftists are not liberal. And, in fact, conservatives are.
- Well, many flavors of conservatives are. Not the fascists though.
  
  That's true, though I genuinely don't know if fascists fall under the umbrella of "conservatives".
- This is what I'm talking about 😅