Keep it polite people. 🙂
Two-party voting systems babyyyyyy
See also: the UK, most ex-British colonies
Because the American left would be considered right wing in most of the world.
It’s really as simple as this. The left in countries like the UK and Ireland would be radical to the US.
The Democrats would be the conservative party in my country. The Republicans would be watched by law enforcement for fascistic tendencies, or already outright illegal.
Which country?
Germany. We learned our lessons about fascism. The US didn’t, and if they don’t get their acts together, they soon will. Then may God help us all.
Didn’t the CDU dominate Germany for decades? Christian Democrats are much more socially conservative than the American Democratic party. Weird flex, not okay.
I would not rate the German CDU as more conservative than the US Democrats, at least not significantly.
CDU is center-right.
and yet we both have a significant problem with neo-nazis and right wing fascism.
and its because, despite laws and common sense, media goes easy on them and gives them a soft hand.
What leftist party is there in the US that is centered around some form of Socialism that controls any meaningful amount of the State?
That’s only a meaningful question if the only “true Left” is a Leftist political party that is centered around some form of Socialism that controls a meaningful amount of a State.
Not necessarily. A Syndicalist or otherwise Anarchist-derivative party doesn’t exist either, and no similar coalition exists on the ground with widespread impact on the Capitalist status-quo, yet.
I really hope you’re not trying to insinuate that the DNC are somehow left wing.
It’s simple really : the US left is liberal, thus it is not truly the left.
Who are “they”? This is the first time I’ve ever heard that statement.
“they” is commonly used and understood as being a general reference to ‘people’, whether a specific area (politics) or society.
Ah ok, I’ll rephrase the question: Which “people” are saying this? This is the first time I’ve ever heard that statement.
I’ve said it before, and many others on discussion forums who are not from the US but have knowledge of the system and its characters.
The left in the US are doing the best they can with what they have. This kind of “holier than thou” elitism from abroad does nothing to help the situation.
It isn’t elitism or such an attitude to point it out.
I used to live in the US but I’m not from there. Am I allowed an opinion on something which has wider ranging consequences?
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but that doesn’t make it any less judgemental or snobbish though.
That’s my opinion anyway
On the other side, the US thinks it has a left yet, as this comment encapsulates, to most of us outside of the country, it clearly does not. It’s not snobbish to point it out, it’s factual.
Not everyone is entitled to an opinion, that’s why we don’t put up with racists and Nazis.
Easy: even if you vote for Bernie that’s still at best center-left. The US just really, really leans right overall: there’s center-right (democrats) and far-right (republicans) and that’s about it.
You guys are so afraid of socialism no party dares venture the true left.
Americans being afraid of socialism is proof that propaganda works. It’s literally for the people.
Joe Biden is now the Nickelback /Big Bang Theory of Presidents.
There’s nothing really bad about him, nothing really great, but they’ve been told to hate on him, so that’s what they’ll do.
nothing really bad about him
Uh, except his racism? FFS, we can demand better.
Ill hate his fucking guts as long as I live for his handling of Israel and Gaza
Fair enough.
I think your statement is true in a purely national sense. We’ve had better but we’ve had worse. Globally, he’s majorly dropped the ball and caused too much suffering to ignore.
the genocide doesnt count?
As does decades of systematically defunding education. The decades of leaded gas/paint by prior generations probably weren’t helping…
Here in Czechia, we had socialism a few decades ago. Pretty much everyone old enough to remember it hates it.
Socialism is not a ‘one thing’ . It’s a concept as a whole. You can have good or bad socialism and everything in between.
The world is far more nuanced than that.
Do you have working examples of good socialism?
I’ll give some examples of great implementations of socialism that drives welfare in today’s democracies, as I personally believe that socialism can’t exist without democracy, as it’s one of the core values of the concept, that’s it’s controlled by the people.
One of socialisms ultimate goals are also equality, which my examples will show.
- Free education
- UBI if you get fired
- UBI for old people
- UBI for students
- Free health care (duh)
- Free dental (normally only till age of 18 today)
- Basic insurance paid by the government
These are just the big ones that really helps to make sure that very few people are actually poor and are getting desperate because of it.
Also, it’s always important to say that socialism and capitalism are NOT mutually exclusive. It’s perfectly normal to have all these concepts from socialism in a capitalist country.
I think we can agree that a country with 100% capitalism or socialism is not the best way to go.
Good explanation. Just one nit to pick over word choice: “Capitalism” is not a synonym for “free market”.
Capitalism is a separate ideology that champions (even romanticizes) the acquisition and hoarding of wealth at all costs. It leads to trusts, monopolies, stifling of competition and, eventually, the death of the free market.
In other words: Socialism and free markets are compatible. Socialism and Capitalism are not.
And a good chunk of our parties are now far far right.
Added bonus: it’s not just socialism that we’re afraid of. We fear tons of things now. We’ve become a nation of fear and boiling hate under the hood and it’s truly toxic.
Yes, I’ve been working to leave for a few years now. My children shouldn’t have to grow up in a culture of barely surviving, anxiety & fearful people scrabbling over scraps left to us by the ultra wealthy.
I left 6 years ago and don’t regret it for a minute.
Where did you move to?
Netherlands
Because what the US considers left (universal health care, helping the poor, school lunches and affordable education) is considered middle of the road normal stuff in Europe and other developed countries.
As a proud American wingnut, I vehemently denounce these so-called “benefits” that you claim are merely considered middle-of-the-road in other parts of the world. Let us break it down for the sake of argument.
First off, Universal Health Care is nothing more than a government-controlled monopoly on healthcare services. This is the first step toward socialized medicine, which has proven to be detrimental to the medical industry worldwide. In the name of equality, doctors will no longer strive to excel in their fields, as their paychecks will not reflect their efforts. The result? A decline in quality of care, longer wait times, and diminishing innovation in the field. This is how the slippery slope begins!
Next on your list is ‘helping the poor.’ While this sounds like a noble cause, it must be understood that government intervention is neither necessary nor effective when it comes to uplifting individuals out of poverty. It’s time we stop enabling dependence on handouts. Instead, we should promote personal responsibility and self-reliance—core American values, after all. Only by standing on one’s own two feet can a person truly gain an appreciation for life’s hardships, and ultimately, its rewards.
Moving onto school lunches, let us examine our Founding Fathers’ vision for the country. They cherished individual freedom above all else. By providing free meals to students, we’re essentially stifling entrepreneurship by removing the incentive for young people to start businesses that could potentially provide lunch services to schools. Additionally, such measures only serve to deepen the divide between the haves and have-nots. Why should children who are fortunate enough to receive these free lunches continue working hard if they know they’ll always be provided for?
Last but not least, affordable education is nothing more than a clever Trojan horse for communist brainwashing. When the cost of higher education is reduced, the barriers to entry for subversive ideologies also decrease. We cannot sit idly by while our youth are corrupted with socialist propaganda. In fact, the price tag of college tuition serves as a natural selection process that ensures only those who value their education will pursue it, consequently maintaining the quality of graduates entering the workforce.
In conclusion, I implore you to reconsider your support for these so-called “middle of the road” concepts. These policies may sound pleasant in theory, but make no mistake; they’re merely disguised stepping stones toward a godless society where individuals cease to think or act independently. The American Dream would die a slow and painful death under this system. First, free lunches, next COMMUNISM!
This hurts to read.
I know it’s satire, but this is like… 5% more satirical than actual beliefs on the topic at some points. The helping the poor section in particular.
I guess the downvoters either didn’t get the joke, or completely agree with what you typed and noticed the sarcasm. 🤷🏻♂️
I’m tempted to downvote because the “parody” is also literally what a lot of people on the right literally think. There’s zero difference between this comment written in jest and the same comment written totally honestly. That means this potentially spreads that idea, however absurd it sounds to us.
In the end I didn’t downvote because I think if people are here they probably understand how stupid it is for it to be serious. If this were Reddit I would probably downvote because odds are some right-wing idiots would think it agrees with them and see the upvotes as confirmation of their ideas.
This post is more reasonable and well written than plenty of stuff I have seen from actual right wingers. I worry when people cosplay too hard, sometimes it becomes real.
Even the historical, biggest right wing party in Denmark would not remove any of the things you mentioned, except school lunches.
Compared to the rest of the first world countries, our farthest left candidates are relatively moderate.
What is the left to you? Does a major party that wins election advocates and brings bills for this platform on a national united scale?
Because the opposite of evangelical fundamentalism and nationalism isn’t free healthcare and taxes. It’s communism, where there is no private ownership of property. That doesn’t exist as a political party in the U.S.
Well, that’s not true.
We say it because both US parties are very similar, and both of them are very right leaning compared to the rest of the western world.
It also indicates that’s there’s no democracy in the US, because there’s only really one choice.
… One is far right, the other is far left. When you’re talking about the political spectrum, which is what this post is covering, it’s absolutely true.
I thought it was pretty obvious I wasn’t saying they are literal opposites in all contexts
Which major US party is far left (on a global political scale)? I must have missed them somehow.
Our Overton Window is crazy right at this point.
There is no far left mainstream political party in the US.
Deleted because people can’t fucking read, apparently.
I was literally saying the exact same thing as what is in the replies.
I’ll simplify:
USA no have real left party. Real far left party communism. No American communists. America bad. Communism good.
Do I pass the purity test now?
Way to ruin a discussion and appear even worse than you did while discussing. How old are you?
There was no discussion. There was me saying “America has no communist party” followed by several people saying “you’re wrong, there’s no far-left party in America”
It was a giant misunderstanding and distraction, not a discussion
Ok. You still ruined the thread by removing your replies. This is disrespectful of the ones you had the misunderstanding with and any others joining in afterwards.
… Why would I allow a misunderstanding to be perpetuated? People don’t have a right to read something just because it was there at one time. And it kept happening because people were only reading one comment in isolation without reading the prior context. Like, I replied with “in this context one of those is far left and the other is far right” and a third person came in with “there is no far left in us politics” which is exactly what I was saying, they just failed to read the prior comments.
It was only getting worse so I simply decided to stop it from progressing because I wasn’t about to sit there explaining over and over again the same damn thing.
Politics is about power structures. Both of America’s parties support the same structure, capitalism.
I’ve never heard this before. The US has “left” and “right” like everyone else, not that I don’t consider those terms entirely based on imaginary association. I always found it intriguing “left and right” is a scale but policies themselves are seen as binary. Just because the “left” does not come across as represented in this particular culture does not silence them, at least not at the moment.
This is because there is no true left in the US.
The American left has moved so much towards the right that it is mostly centre to right
You say that as if there aren’t people of every political view in almost every country and/or that the US is weeding them out. What the representation trends say do not speak for whether there has always existed those of viewpoints further down a scale. Marxists, Communists, and Socialists, both appreciated and not, can be found scattered across US traditional history and coloring the geography of some of the fifty states, such as parts of New York and Vermont and in Louisiana where Huey Long was once a governor who fell just short of being considered Communist. There is indeed a community in the US that one might call “the true left”, even if the people who end up elected are generic politicians. It sounds much like the “non-Roman-pagan philosophies didn’t exist in Rome” view.
Because “there is no true left” is a lot shorter than “while individuals with strong left-wing ideologies exist in the US, the current political power structure leaves them almost full disenfranchised, forcing them to either vote for right-wing parties or forego their vote” is really not very catchy.
I mean, the US is a democratic republic, the whole point is that the most resonating choice for ruler becomes the ruler… that a section of the political sphere wouldn’t become the one represented by the ruler is nothing striking and nothing to be ashamed of. Equally there being “no true right” is a common shortener because nobody in office ever advocated (true) Fascism beyond what could be found trending in other political crowds at certain times in history.
I’m not so sure. The US sure is a democratic republic by 18th century standards. But you still retain that system that makes someone win the presidency who doesn’t have the absolute majority of votes. And some of the states don’t really count in the campaigns since it’s obvious if they’re blue or red.
I’ve watched too much George Carlin. I think the system with the two parties is more to give you the illusion of having a choice. Same with the theoretical availability of ‘left’ individuals.
And I mean we have enough examples of systems suppressing people. A theoretical possibility doesn’t help if there’s no real choice. And you can keep the masses uneducated and occupied with lots of work so they don’t have time to get to power. I think that’s some of the dynamics in the USA that keep the system as is. Also, Putin also was elected somewhat democratically. It’s just that he got rid of his opposition. And the USA is more or less doing a similar thing. Just that they provide the people with a second choice, some illusion of choice that gives the people something to keep busy arguing about. In practice they both are a slightly different hue of the same color.
Even if it’s a clunky system, what I meant is it’s still an evened out system, equally fluid for everyone even if some of that fluidity manifests more often for some than others. It should also be remembered the US is a nation where the leadership is not the whole of control. To those whose complaint here is that things seem preselected against their wishes (and against mine, I want to stress I’m not implying I disagree with them policy-wise), there is still at least some element of choice before things are narrowed down to the two choices. The US is not using a “loud/might makes right” approach at the moment, just a bumpy process, which sets it apart from Russia for example which is arguably de facto quasi-feudalist.
It isn’t evened out for everyone. That’s like saying “now taxes are a flat 100k each year and it’s correct because it sucks for everyone”. When a milionaire (a party with a following) wouldn’t care, someone who is starting out (and could for instance gain 5% of the vote in this election) would get dumpstered and prevented from gaining more votes next election, since they’d be “on the board” and people would see them
I don’t think it’s an evened out system. It’s that on paper. I think we can agree on that. But the proper question is: Is that paper worth anything, anymore?
the whole point is that the most resonating choice for ruler becomes the ruler…
Do you actually believe that the political establishment/ruling class of this country has ever “resonated” with the majority of people?
At least in recent times, there is much more evidence to the contrary.
To an extent. They might artificially thrust some people into the game, and the system is clunky, but as far as votes go when votes are offered, they are listened to. If the person in charge was a cheat, it would technically prove my point even more, because it would imply it’s not a true game of representation and that those of us who may be considered adherents to “left” streams of thought are on more street corners than the “they’re a demographic minority” view might suggest.
The only options people have to vote on are what are offered to them. The problem is, that in the US, you need money to become an option. That money comes mainly from corporations. Corporations won’t back a left wing party or politician.
Look up the Overton window.
Sure individuals exist! I am even sure that many would vote for the left if they could. But because the US political system is what it is, they can’t vote for a politician or party that will represent their ideology. Hence, there is no left in the US even though people might actually want it to be.
they can’t vote for a politician or party that will represent their ideology.
Says who? Nobody can guarantee they’ll succeed, but everyone can be guaranteed an honest vote. We’re not living in the Hollywood Blacklist era anymore. I’ve seen Marxist mayors win mayoral seats.
Were they genuinely Marxist? Or did people just call them Marxist because they had more liberal policies than the norm for the area? Liberalism ≠ socialism, and socialism ≠ Marxism.
Some did identify as Marxist. Not sure how to square that with what counts “as objectively Marxist” since political labels tend to act as a sum of the policies. If a nation that’s canonically supposed to be “Marxist” has a policy out of place, is it “not Marxist”, as opposed to two, three, four, etc.? Without a doubt many nations in the fold of Marx were more unbecoming of Marx himself that the towns I’m thinking of.
I think that we keep misunderstanding each other and i can’t figure out if its intentional. I am pretty sure that this is about the two party system and none of them being on the left
I thought the gist was about the supposed deterrence of potential “left” aspects of American culture as present in the individuals, which is mutually exclusive from the situation in the American leadership (especially if they don’t fully represent the people, which I don’t disagree with), especially if they aren’t the only positions of influence.
There is a similar discussion in Mexico… you have the leadership which is historically “left” while the grand majority of the population is historically “right”, all before they get mixed up with America’s “left” because that’s the association they have when you run into debates about closed or open borders. Several EU countries come to mind as well, many have locked-in systems that contrast with the people. The two parties in Canada (because most countries have two parties) are both significantly more “left” that the people, but nobody there is saying there’s “no true right”, so why do we say America has “no true left”?
What the OP’s question is referring to is whether or not there is an organized political movement of any real size or structure that represents leftist ideology (which at minimum I describe as anti capitalist). In the 2 major parties, there is not. Full stop. Of the lesser parties which have a snowballs chance in hell of actually getting real power? Probably not. Greens bad Dem Soc are not explicitly anti capitalist as far as I’m aware.
There are certainly what might be called organized political movements of that kind, even if they aren’t at the top of their game, which like I said resembles the Roman analogy I gave. There will always seem to be something that sticks to the leadership, something that sticks to certain commoners, and things that are unlike either one to do. It’s a democratic republic, there will always be the unsung people, this isn’t striking or anything to be ashamed of. All have different supposed degrees of conceptualizations of capital, which isn’t uncommon even in Marxist countries, many of which retain some aspects of that policy sphere, something I say in connection to where I mention how intrigued I am that “left and right” is a scale while each individual policy is built on “yes” or “no”. You may have heard the common adage “China is becoming more capitalist while America is becoming more socialist”, and the American Democrat Party was in fact in one of the Communist Internationals if I’m correct.
If the party I vote for in Germany would be one in the US they probably would be banned for being communists or something like that while here they’re a widely accepted part of the goverment.
Which party is that?
Lol, and it’s not even our leftest party :D
Good choice thoughIt doesn’t feel like a good choice, just the least bad one
Examples of true left would be codeterminisn in Germany and banning tuition fees in Finland.
