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this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2024
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I don't understand how the Democrats in USA can be considered left-wing. Sure, they are more left than the Republicans, but in my eyes they certainly not left-wing.
Easy. We set the FBI on all the actual leftists decades ago. So the movement is having to slowly rebuild itself in the US. As a result Progressives are the farthest left things most Americans have experience with.
basically, the US is a one party system, but it has two parties
"The United States is also a one-party state, but with typical American extravagance, they have two of them." - Julius Nyerere
I don’t know what country you are from or how your voting system works. But I will guess that your country has many parties and after the election, a governing coalition is formed.
In the US voting system, similar parties get punished by stealing votes from each other. So, in effect, we have to form our coalitions before the election and choose the single candidate that will stand for all of us. So, you can think of the Democratic Party as the Democratic Coalition, made up of some truly left-wing factions, as well as some not very left-wing or even centrist factions, and so our candidate will be much more watered down than what you’d see in a different system.
Calling the democratic party a "coalition" is extremely generous. It's historically been a corrupt patronage network since Van Buren and any attempt to make it represent the will of its voters is thwarted internally. Its history is a graveyard of progressive movements.
There are also Right-wing factions in the "Democratic coalition" you mention like The Cheney's.
I am from Sweden. You are correct that my country has many different parties that together form a governing coalition.
Thank you for making it a bit clearer to me! I appreciate it.
You said it yourself, they are less far-right than Republicans, so Liberals get to pretend they are punks and rebels despite supporting the status quo.
In the American sensibilities, the Democrats are left wing.
I know we've shat on Americans too many times that Democrats are not leftists and Republicans are far-right, but there is a place and time for doing so and I learned to cut Americans some slack. Americans simply have different Overton window because of different history and culture (I have explained before as to why, but I cannot be bothered to write another wall of text about it). Other countries don't even follow a left and right political dichotomy. Many places, especially in developing countries, vote on personalities than policies. But few of us crap on people from developing countries for not following policy-based discourse, or not following the European-originated sensibilities of "left or right" politics.
Americans are heavily propagandized and are politically illiterate. Generally speaking, they do not even know there is a world beyond "liberal" (Democrat) and "conservative" (GOP). It is considered nerdy and wonkish to even know very much about the two party bourgeois electoral system. So their sensibilities only mean as much as propaganda has eliminated any possibility of political education, let alone capacity for action in solidarity with humanity (even when empathy is there, correct analysis is not) for the vast majority of them. That requires developing projects dedicated to political organization and education outside and away from the two bourgeois parties.
Americans should only be cut slack to the extent that they are ignorant. They should not be cut slack for their knowing embrace of war, domination, racism, and so on. And when you simply inform them of the existence of such things, they will rapidly educate you in their commitment to the project. Perhaps they will momentarily feel bad, but most of the time they will quickly find a psychological salve for cognitive dissonance, lest they act outside of the tracks laid down for them by reactionary and genocidal capital. Our work on the left is to peel off more and more from those tracks and turn them into fellow track-peelers, this is naturally an opportunity for exponential growth if we can consistentlu break past what keeps them on-track.
Americans also like to wave off the roughly 1/3 of eligible voters who don’t vote at all as if they just forgot or were too lazy to vote or something. A lot of people are disillusioned with the whole thing, but the partisans are the loudest and the media mostly cares about them so it makes it sound like it’s 50/50.
According to the latest gallup data about 27% identify with each of the two major parties and about 43% as independent (of major parties).
Yes, this is absolutely true. And comparing those who say, "why should I even engage?" with those who overemphasize electoralism I have a hard time saying the latter are more correct. There is a visceral truth to someone who votes for X to get positive change all of with all their friends, then doesn't see that change because X sold out, screwed them over, told them a line, etc. That is more valid and politically astute than mental gymnastics for why those who campaign on something don't fight for it once in office.
We don't currently have our own special political spectrum.
We can make a new one for you so you can feel better about this whole situation. Let's call it the "the imperial political spectrum". I'd be happy with that solution. Then you can say you're left on the imperial political spectrum and it's all good.
Because American politics is weird and partisan a f.
Anything even remotely left will get you labelled a Commie or tankie by the right, while anything remotely right will get you labelled a Nazi by the left.
Yeah it’s crazy how attacking the White House just cuz you can’t deal with the results like an adult gets a group a bad rep. What an unfair world what with actions having consequences and all that.
To be fair, a Left wing revolution is necessary. The Jan 6ers weren't Nazis for trying to do a coup, but because fascism is Capitalism in decay, and an alliance between the Petite Bourgeoisie and Bourgeoisie. Most Jan 6ers were small business owners and the like.
Oh it's been like that long before January 6th, and long before Trump even stepped foot in the Republican primaries eight years ago.
That wasn't me defending Jan 6th either. Trump's little Beer Hall Putsch was frankly inexcusable, and the fact that he's likely not going to face any kind of criminal repercussions for it makes the US look weaker than the Weimar Republic.