The democrats in the US are the republicans of the 80s policy wise because the Overton Window has shifted way right due to 20 years of war and nationalism in our sports and media.
We have maybe a handful of soft left dems.
The republicans are now a full-on fascist cult with members of the old guard ditching the scene because of the craziness. The world better hope sane Americans keep his ass out of the White House, because if fascists get full control over the U.S Military and the weapons they now have, you’ll see death on a scale that will make WWII seem like a minor hiccup.
As someone who has been following politics since the 90s, do you really believe the Democratic party of today is to the right of the Democratic party of 1996? I just completely disagree with that. The Democratic party today has way more progressive voices than it did back then, and the average politics of the party has obviously moved left over that time.
Your complaint is that it’s not as far left as you want it to be, which is a completely different conversation.
And comparing today’s Democratic party to the Republican party of the 80s demonstrates a fundamental unawareness of history.
So, in most political parlance, there’s “to the left of” and “Left”. “Left” generally refers to some general socialist, pro worker, anti established capital party where the exact specifics vary from region to region and don’t matter for this conversation.
The Democrats are definitely to-the-left-of the Republican party, and they’re definitely viable.
They are not Left though, because they favor policies typically associated with other political descriptors in other regions (I will use Liberal with no specific connotations), like a preference for things like tax rebates instead of entitlement programs. A Leftist solution to rising housing prices might be a government program to build more houses in urban areas, price caps, and government subsidies. A Liberal policy might give tax breaks to housing developers to use market forces to encourage them to increase supply, and tax rebates to certain groups to increase their effective purchasing power for housing.
That’s why people say the US lacks a viable Left party. We have a viable party to-the-left-of the other viable party, but they are not “Left”.
There is crossover, and these lines are not sharp.
A good example, and particular to this context, is how a leading Democratic proposal for instituting universal healthcare was to create a health insurance marketplace that the government would then put a public option into and subsidize for people in certain demographics, with a legal mandate for everyone to purchase or be provided with healthcare through said marketplace. The hope being that competition would increase efficiency and people would still have choice for their insurance if they wanted.
A Leftist solution would be to assert that everyone is now covered by government insurance and you can go to the doctor and the doctor can bill the government, who will handle various price negotiations as the defacto monopoly on paying for medicine. This would gut the medical insurance industry.
People who are unemployed should:
Be given a living wage from the government.
Be given subsidized food and housing as long as they can show they’re looking for work.
The democrats actually trend left of major labor and social democratic parties around the world but why let actual policy comparison get in the way of the narrative?
The democrats actually trend left of major labor and social democratic parties around the world but why let actual policy comparison get in the way of the narrative?
Yeah, in Europe there are also right wing parties and Nazis. Not sure how this would prove that Europe’s left wing parties are not to the left of american Democrats, although very small.
The existing of more than 2 parties and the historical political tradition makes this quite a natural fact to be honest. Besides, a lot of left politics is anti-imperialist and it’s hard to be left when you are governing an hegemonic country like US…
All in all though I would agree that the mainstream socdem parties in Europe are very similar to the Dems, also because of 30 years of influence, policies, pushes for “two party system to get stability” and so on.
It’s like… most of the developed world outside of North America & Australia. Japan and SK’s “left” ruling parties might both seem fascist in comparison to the US Democrats, and the UK’s may be about on par if not worse, but the same can not be said about most of first-world Europe, or even Australia and Canada really. Even in many less developed countries – like Argentina, Syria, Palestine, and much of Africa – you’ll generally find that the “left” parties are actually left, socialist or syndicalist or some other anti-capitalist, and not liberal. But I’d say developed countries are a lot more relevant to comparisons with American politics than ones which are not developed.
Ah yes, the pinnacle of developed democracies. China, India, Saudi Arabia, and Russia. You managed to pick some of the most corrupt authoritarian countries I could think of. A one-party “democratic dictatorship”, a theocratic absolute monarchy, and a regular dictatorship.
The only somewhat relevant comparison might be India but it’s still not part of the developed world and it’s known for its fascist corruption, comparing its politics to developed countries’ doesn’t exactly work. Even then, their only left-wing party is the Communist Party of India (obviously more leftist than the Democrats) – the AAP leans left I suppose, so they’re comparable to Democrats maybe, but AFAIK they’re far more “leftist” in their policies and anti-crony-capitalism than American Democrats even though they consider themselves centrists.
I also somehow doubt that the CCP is more right-wing than the American Democrats. Somehow. Either way, when it comes to states without competing parties it becomes kind of hard to have a “left” party and a “right” party. This also applies when the non-ruling party has its politicians jailed, killed, or otherwise purged whenever they challenge the ruling party. So basically all of them except India…
I would like to see what exactly you’re referring to. Outside of the UK and Japan/SK, there’s not a whole lot of supposedly “leftist” parties which are right of America’s Democrats when it comes to the developed world.
German Social Democrats are going anti-refugee, Melanchon is hardcore putin supporter on the grounds of realist geopolitical policy, which until it was useful to say America bad was rightly decried by the left as just a rhetorical justification for continued western imperialism, even breathe of gender neutral language use in most European countries and you’ll be treated like a pariah if not outright accused of trying to destroy the culture, Greece’s actual goddamn socialist party is one of the most corrupt organized parties in the world, the NDP in Canada are lead by a man who says all the right things until you ask him about that plain hijacking by a terrorist organization founded on the interests of a racist class of landed elites, Russia’s still active communist party is a captured opposition for the fascist Putin regime, Erdogan’s rise to power in Turkey was paved by how wildly islamophobic the system of secularism was that the social democratic party Ataturk founded lifted from France (remember the shitstorm over Burkinis?), and oh yeah, all over the english speaking world and in much of western europe the guillotine is regularly held up as a symbol of revolution of leftist power while everywhere else mostly recognizes it as the preferred means of criminal execution of the Nazis.
That doesn’t necessarily make them less left than American Democrats. I mean many Democrats literally are supporting the genocide of countries some of those refugees may be coming from right now. Immigration policy & treatment of refugees, although having some correlations with the left-right divide in the modern day, don’t wholly decide whether you’re left or right.
Melanchon is hardcore putin supporter on the grounds of realist geopolitical policy,
Calling Melanchon right of the Democrats is certainly… something alright. He is literally a socialist, or borderline socialist depending on your view. Democrats don’t even come near socialism. Having shitty views on international politics and diplomacy doesn’t exactly qualify you as “less left”.
even breathe of gender neutral language use in most European countries and you’ll be treated like a pariah if not outright accused of trying to destroy the culture,
Based off of context I can only assume that you’re referring to when people who have no idea about how linguistics works try to go to speakers of other languages and tell them to just chop off part of their grammar (in this case, noun class) because they think “grammatical gender” is actual gender, or that it’s comparable to pronoun use in English. But regardless, language features on its own doesn’t necessarily mean anything when it comes to political leanings, and you can find gender neutral language use all across Europe, even in comparatively backwards places like Italy (sorry Italians).
Greece’s actual goddamn socialist party is one of the most corrupt organized parties in the world,
Greece itself is unfortunate in every meaning of the word, but being corrupt doesn’t say anything about its political leanings.
the NDP in Canada are lead by a man who says all the right things until you ask him about that plain hijacking by a terrorist organization founded on the interests of a racist class of landed elites,
I don’t get your point here. Although racism is usually right-wing, the lead guy being a racist doesn’t change the fact that the NDP still favors far more leftist policies than the US democrats, including on peace, the environment, transportation infrastructure, and (obviously) healthcare. Half of the stuff that the NDP pushes for would be absolute crazy talk to US Democrats.
Russia’s still active communist party is a captured opposition for the fascist Putin regime,
I wouldn’t exactly call Russia a developed democracy, it’s very clearly a far-right authoritarian country.
Erdogan’s rise to power in Turkey was paved by how wildly islamophobic the system of secularism was that the social democratic party Ataturk founded lifted from France (remember the shitstorm over Burkinis?),
… secularism is islamophobic? Keeping religion out of government, including government buildings, isn’t exactly right-wing, in fact I find it perfectly fits much of leftist thought throughout history. Keeping all religion out of government isn’t “islamophobic”, even in a majority muslim country.
and oh yeah, all over the english speaking world and in much of western europe the guillotine is regularly held up as a symbol of revolution of leftist power while everywhere else mostly recognizes it as the preferred means of criminal execution of the Nazis.
Not exactly sure how this is relevant as to whether or not the US Democrats are actually more leftist than real leftist parties.
Most of your arguments seem to be about nationality/religion, and while stance on things like immigration or Ukraine are relevant, they don’t overshadow being a socialist, which US democrats are far from.
Democrats reject socialism, they fear being labelled a “communist”, they don’t like being “leftists”. I find it silly comparing them to actual socialists or parties/people which border on being socialist, maybe with a few positions uncharacteristic for socialists but in general still being socialists, and then saying that the Democrats are more left-wing. I mean Biden literally said that he wouldn’t sign a universal healthcare bill, he’s giving Israel a ton of aid, he still fully supports capitalism even if he has made advancements on making corporations less powerful. He, and the institution he represents, are NOT leftist, even if we say position on healthcare is irrelevant and position on foreigners is very relevant.
I pointed out that most of the stuff you said is mostly irrelevant to Democrats’ leftness relative to worldwide political parties. I’m sorry that you’re so immature that your immediate response to someone pointing out that you’re wrong is randomly calling them racist against Roma for whatever reason.
You can’t take literal socialists with socialist policies, and compare them to US democrats, and say “yea capitalist liberals are more leftist than socialists/syndicalists/social democrats”. It goes against the entire divide of left and right. Even if they have an immoral stance on immigration or Ukraine or something, leftism is still leftism.
Unless you wanna argue that Lenin was actually more right-wing than US Democrats or something for some shitty beliefs he held (although he was generally a pretty good guy when it came to racism, actually he was a pretty good guy in general usually). Or Che Guevara (now he has some far more spicy views). Or Tito. In fact, there are many notable leftists throughout history with problematic views, who are still quite undeniably leftists. “Leftist” doesn’t just mean “good person”. It, broadly, means anti-capitalist but can encompass some bordering ideologies which still exist within capitalism yet lean heavily into the worker’s democracy stuff and are strictly anti-corporatism. That kind of stuff has no place in America, and Democrats definitely don’t even come close despite being “the better choice” for workers.
It’s a variant of both sides bad, and if you get an honest answer it’s probably for Jill Stein. But the odds are it’ll just be a drive-by snark about biden committing the jenosides.
Block user is an available option, but only after you’ve had the pleasure of several essentially identical responses.
So . . . Republicans? That would be weird. Oh you mean no one. No one who’s in office. Right right. Well uh that’s not exactly true, there are office holders who support that. Aren’t there?
Is his administration talking directly with Netanyahu and telling them to stop it? (Can we at least agree Trump would not be, even doing the opposite?) Is it possible foreign relations is maybe more complex than a lightswitch for some reason? How does politics work, it sounds interesting.
Well here’s a genius thought i bet no one’s had- call them up and say no more money until you stop and pick up the mess you made you genociders! Right? It’s so simple anyone could understand. And hey if their feelings or whatever get hurt, we don’t care! Screw them forever! Ha!
Man I’m better at this than Jared. Maybe the Saudis need my expensive help too.
a viable left party will emerge when the republicans are long gone from politics, just the way the whigs went the way of the do do bird. i don’t know why people can;t see this. it’s a duopoly. everybody knows this. how can a viable third party exist in that format? yes, ranked choice voting would be ideal, but what if it never happens? vote blue no matter who until the choice becomes vote radical left no matter who. this is how you achieve change without resorting to violence.
Within the US’ system of Liberal Democracy, the only parties that can afford campaigns are ones that can secure funding from the people and corporations with the most money.
Therefore, whichever party replaces the Republicans will be another right wing party.
Too bad USA doesn’t have a viable left party
Hard to have a left party when we’re making new grounds of what a right-wing party can look like.
You do not think that democrats are not left? Or that they are not viable?
The democrats in the US are the republicans of the 80s policy wise because the Overton Window has shifted way right due to 20 years of war and nationalism in our sports and media.
We have maybe a handful of soft left dems.
The republicans are now a full-on fascist cult with members of the old guard ditching the scene because of the craziness. The world better hope sane Americans keep his ass out of the White House, because if fascists get full control over the U.S Military and the weapons they now have, you’ll see death on a scale that will make WWII seem like a minor hiccup.
As someone who has been following politics since the 90s, do you really believe the Democratic party of today is to the right of the Democratic party of 1996? I just completely disagree with that. The Democratic party today has way more progressive voices than it did back then, and the average politics of the party has obviously moved left over that time.
Your complaint is that it’s not as far left as you want it to be, which is a completely different conversation.
And comparing today’s Democratic party to the Republican party of the 80s demonstrates a fundamental unawareness of history.
Democrats in 1996 believed black children were super soldiers incapable of feeling pain.
Anybody who says the Democrats have shifted rightward has one legitimate excuse for thinking so: they are 12.
Most people here seem to be kids, tbf
More like the Republicans of the early 2010s at this point.
So, in most political parlance, there’s “to the left of” and “Left”. “Left” generally refers to some general socialist, pro worker, anti established capital party where the exact specifics vary from region to region and don’t matter for this conversation.
The Democrats are definitely to-the-left-of the Republican party, and they’re definitely viable.
They are not Left though, because they favor policies typically associated with other political descriptors in other regions (I will use Liberal with no specific connotations), like a preference for things like tax rebates instead of entitlement programs. A Leftist solution to rising housing prices might be a government program to build more houses in urban areas, price caps, and government subsidies. A Liberal policy might give tax breaks to housing developers to use market forces to encourage them to increase supply, and tax rebates to certain groups to increase their effective purchasing power for housing.
That’s why people say the US lacks a viable Left party. We have a viable party to-the-left-of the other viable party, but they are not “Left”.
There is crossover, and these lines are not sharp.
A good example, and particular to this context, is how a leading Democratic proposal for instituting universal healthcare was to create a health insurance marketplace that the government would then put a public option into and subsidize for people in certain demographics, with a legal mandate for everyone to purchase or be provided with healthcare through said marketplace. The hope being that competition would increase efficiency and people would still have choice for their insurance if they wanted.
A Leftist solution would be to assert that everyone is now covered by government insurance and you can go to the doctor and the doctor can bill the government, who will handle various price negotiations as the defacto monopoly on paying for medicine. This would gut the medical insurance industry.
People who are unemployed should:
Left, Liberal, Right.
They’re no where near left compared with other countries: the US Democrats are centre-right.
Bernie Sanders is the only one I know of who’s actually left-wing.
This is because US politics’ overton window has shifted right since the 1980s. And will likely remain that way for the foreseeable future.
The democrats actually trend left of major labor and social democratic parties around the world but why let actual policy comparison get in the way of the narrative?
Why make original comments when you can just spam the same garbage over and over?
I could ask “BeRnIe WoUlDa BeEn A rIgHt WiNgEr In YuRoP” spammers the same thing, and with far more counts to answer for.
🙄
[citation needed]
If the US political parties joined the international stage –
Republicans would be in extremist far right. Democrats are right or centered.
Bernie Sanders (who is democrat only because there’s no “left”) would be left, for pushing for things like 4-day workweek, etc.
In any other nation, they’re far-right.
Edit: Amerikkka is the only nation, apparently
The democrats actually trend left of major labor and social democratic parties around the world but why let actual policy comparison get in the way of the narrative?
TFW Europe doesn’t exist
Removed by mod
🙄
Yeah, in Europe there are also right wing parties and Nazis. Not sure how this would prove that Europe’s left wing parties are not to the left of american Democrats, although very small. The existing of more than 2 parties and the historical political tradition makes this quite a natural fact to be honest. Besides, a lot of left politics is anti-imperialist and it’s hard to be left when you are governing an hegemonic country like US…
All in all though I would agree that the mainstream socdem parties in Europe are very similar to the Dems, also because of 30 years of influence, policies, pushes for “two party system to get stability” and so on.
Europe =/= whole world
Shocking, I know
It’s like… most of the developed world outside of North America & Australia. Japan and SK’s “left” ruling parties might both seem fascist in comparison to the US Democrats, and the UK’s may be about on par if not worse, but the same can not be said about most of first-world Europe, or even Australia and Canada really. Even in many less developed countries – like Argentina, Syria, Palestine, and much of Africa – you’ll generally find that the “left” parties are actually left, socialist or syndicalist or some other anti-capitalist, and not liberal. But I’d say developed countries are a lot more relevant to comparisons with American politics than ones which are not developed.
China, India, Saudi Arabia? Russia?
Ah yes, the pinnacle of developed democracies. China, India, Saudi Arabia, and Russia. You managed to pick some of the most corrupt authoritarian countries I could think of. A one-party “democratic dictatorship”, a theocratic absolute monarchy, and a regular dictatorship.
The only somewhat relevant comparison might be India but it’s still not part of the developed world and it’s known for its fascist corruption, comparing its politics to developed countries’ doesn’t exactly work. Even then, their only left-wing party is the Communist Party of India (obviously more leftist than the Democrats) – the AAP leans left I suppose, so they’re comparable to Democrats maybe, but AFAIK they’re far more “leftist” in their policies and anti-crony-capitalism than American Democrats even though they consider themselves centrists.
I also somehow doubt that the CCP is more right-wing than the American Democrats. Somehow. Either way, when it comes to states without competing parties it becomes kind of hard to have a “left” party and a “right” party. This also applies when the non-ruling party has its politicians jailed, killed, or otherwise purged whenever they challenge the ruling party. So basically all of them except India…
I would like to see what exactly you’re referring to. Outside of the UK and Japan/SK, there’s not a whole lot of supposedly “leftist” parties which are right of America’s Democrats when it comes to the developed world.
German Social Democrats are going anti-refugee, Melanchon is hardcore putin supporter on the grounds of realist geopolitical policy, which until it was useful to say America bad was rightly decried by the left as just a rhetorical justification for continued western imperialism, even breathe of gender neutral language use in most European countries and you’ll be treated like a pariah if not outright accused of trying to destroy the culture, Greece’s actual goddamn socialist party is one of the most corrupt organized parties in the world, the NDP in Canada are lead by a man who says all the right things until you ask him about that plain hijacking by a terrorist organization founded on the interests of a racist class of landed elites, Russia’s still active communist party is a captured opposition for the fascist Putin regime, Erdogan’s rise to power in Turkey was paved by how wildly islamophobic the system of secularism was that the social democratic party Ataturk founded lifted from France (remember the shitstorm over Burkinis?), and oh yeah, all over the english speaking world and in much of western europe the guillotine is regularly held up as a symbol of revolution of leftist power while everywhere else mostly recognizes it as the preferred means of criminal execution of the Nazis.
That doesn’t necessarily make them less left than American Democrats. I mean many Democrats literally are supporting the genocide of countries some of those refugees may be coming from right now. Immigration policy & treatment of refugees, although having some correlations with the left-right divide in the modern day, don’t wholly decide whether you’re left or right.
Calling Melanchon right of the Democrats is certainly… something alright. He is literally a socialist, or borderline socialist depending on your view. Democrats don’t even come near socialism. Having shitty views on international politics and diplomacy doesn’t exactly qualify you as “less left”.
Based off of context I can only assume that you’re referring to when people who have no idea about how linguistics works try to go to speakers of other languages and tell them to just chop off part of their grammar (in this case, noun class) because they think “grammatical gender” is actual gender, or that it’s comparable to pronoun use in English. But regardless, language features on its own doesn’t necessarily mean anything when it comes to political leanings, and you can find gender neutral language use all across Europe, even in comparatively backwards places like Italy (sorry Italians).
Greece itself is unfortunate in every meaning of the word, but being corrupt doesn’t say anything about its political leanings.
I don’t get your point here. Although racism is usually right-wing, the lead guy being a racist doesn’t change the fact that the NDP still favors far more leftist policies than the US democrats, including on peace, the environment, transportation infrastructure, and (obviously) healthcare. Half of the stuff that the NDP pushes for would be absolute crazy talk to US Democrats.
I wouldn’t exactly call Russia a developed democracy, it’s very clearly a far-right authoritarian country.
… secularism is islamophobic? Keeping religion out of government, including government buildings, isn’t exactly right-wing, in fact I find it perfectly fits much of leftist thought throughout history. Keeping all religion out of government isn’t “islamophobic”, even in a majority muslim country.
Not exactly sure how this is relevant as to whether or not the US Democrats are actually more leftist than real leftist parties.
Most of your arguments seem to be about nationality/religion, and while stance on things like immigration or Ukraine are relevant, they don’t overshadow being a socialist, which US democrats are far from.
Democrats reject socialism, they fear being labelled a “communist”, they don’t like being “leftists”. I find it silly comparing them to actual socialists or parties/people which border on being socialist, maybe with a few positions uncharacteristic for socialists but in general still being socialists, and then saying that the Democrats are more left-wing. I mean Biden literally said that he wouldn’t sign a universal healthcare bill, he’s giving Israel a ton of aid, he still fully supports capitalism even if he has made advancements on making corporations less powerful. He, and the institution he represents, are NOT leftist, even if we say position on healthcare is irrelevant and position on foreigners is very relevant.
Man that’s just a whole wall of someone who’d definitely respond to someone mentioning Roma folks with “That’s different they deserve it!”
I pointed out that most of the stuff you said is mostly irrelevant to Democrats’ leftness relative to worldwide political parties. I’m sorry that you’re so immature that your immediate response to someone pointing out that you’re wrong is randomly calling them racist against Roma for whatever reason.
You can’t take literal socialists with socialist policies, and compare them to US democrats, and say “yea capitalist liberals are more leftist than socialists/syndicalists/social democrats”. It goes against the entire divide of left and right. Even if they have an immoral stance on immigration or Ukraine or something, leftism is still leftism.
Unless you wanna argue that Lenin was actually more right-wing than US Democrats or something for some shitty beliefs he held (although he was generally a pretty good guy when it came to racism, actually he was a pretty good guy in general usually). Or Che Guevara (now he has some far more spicy views). Or Tito. In fact, there are many notable leftists throughout history with problematic views, who are still quite undeniably leftists. “Leftist” doesn’t just mean “good person”. It, broadly, means anti-capitalist but can encompass some bordering ideologies which still exist within capitalism yet lean heavily into the worker’s democracy stuff and are strictly anti-corporatism. That kind of stuff has no place in America, and Democrats definitely don’t even come close despite being “the better choice” for workers.
Interesting. Which “other nation” has a party the is left enough for you and regularly hold power?
Vietnam
What are you trying to say? That anytime a country gets too far left for business interests a certain country throws a coup party?
unexpected item in bagging area
It’s a variant of both sides bad, and if you get an honest answer it’s probably for Jill Stein. But the odds are it’ll just be a drive-by snark about biden committing the jenosides.
Block user is an available option, but only after you’ve had the pleasure of several essentially identical responses.
It’s a serious point though. Things like public ownership of utilities or a wealth tax aren’t supported by the vast majority of Dems.
Who are the vast majority that support it?
So . . . Republicans? That would be weird. Oh you mean no one. No one who’s in office. Right right. Well uh that’s not exactly true, there are office holders who support that. Aren’t there?
First I’ve heard of it.
Ah. Well sounds like a complete overhaul of the political system from scratch. Is five months enough time for that?
We’re denying genocide here now?
That biden committed? Yeah. Again.
Yeah his adminstration is arming and providing UN cover for Israel so yeah if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it’s genocide.
Is his administration talking directly with Netanyahu and telling them to stop it? (Can we at least agree Trump would not be, even doing the opposite?) Is it possible foreign relations is maybe more complex than a lightswitch for some reason? How does politics work, it sounds interesting.
Genocide is a complex foreign relations issue, got it.
I mean, gravity is a complex quantum mechanical issue. Isn’t it.
Here, fall backwards and check.
Well here’s a genius thought i bet no one’s had- call them up and say no more money until you stop and pick up the mess you made you genociders! Right? It’s so simple anyone could understand. And hey if their feelings or whatever get hurt, we don’t care! Screw them forever! Ha!
Man I’m better at this than Jared. Maybe the Saudis need my expensive help too.
Yes
Lmao.
a viable left party will emerge when the republicans are long gone from politics, just the way the whigs went the way of the do do bird. i don’t know why people can;t see this. it’s a duopoly. everybody knows this. how can a viable third party exist in that format? yes, ranked choice voting would be ideal, but what if it never happens? vote blue no matter who until the choice becomes vote radical left no matter who. this is how you achieve change without resorting to violence.
That isn’t true, actually.
Within the US’ system of Liberal Democracy, the only parties that can afford campaigns are ones that can secure funding from the people and corporations with the most money.
Therefore, whichever party replaces the Republicans will be another right wing party.
Change comes from outside pressure.