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this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2023
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Watching from a far (The Netherlands), it always amazed me how the political scale in the US is described. Even the democrats in the US feel more to the right, then positioned in the US. Some people go as far to call democrats communist, but I don't think these people know what communist really is, in the same way that Americans don't seem to know what (neo)liberal actually is. It is both entertaining and concerning to watch.
Yeah, the idea that Democrats are center-left is hilarious - by the standards in most of Europe, they're not even center-right, just plain rightwing, whilst the Republicans are pretty much far-right (given their heavy religious, ultra-nationalis, anti-immigrant and warmongering - amongst others - rethoric).
The Overtoon Window has moved to the Right everywhere but in the US it did way much further than in most of Europe.
As for the whole neoliberalism stuff, it's pretty easy to spot the neoliberal parties even when they've disguised themselves as leftwing or (genuine) conservatives: they're the ones always obcessing about what's good for businesses whilst never distinguishing between businesses which are good for people and society and those which aren't: in other words, they don't see businesses (and hence what's "good for businesses") as a means to the end of being "good for people" (i.e. "good for businesses which are good for people hence good for people") but as an end in itself quite independently of what that does for people.
The Democrats are more socially left wing than the vast majority of European parties.
Don't confuse Identity Politics, aka "We care only about that inequality which doesn't involve the priviledges of wealth" as leftwing.
Those who disregard the biggest inequality of treatment there is by a HUGE margin (that of wealth) and only care about those inequalities which can be "fixed" without putting their own inherited priviledges (usually from being born in the high middle-class and above) at risk aren't lefties as they're not really fighting for the greatest good for the greatest number.
The kind of liberalism that ignores the power of money and ownership to constraint others' freedom of action is incompatible with getting the greatest outcome for the greatest number because they see restrictions of accumulation of wealth and resources and anti-freedom and it's been painfully obvious for decades that maximization of the greatest good for the greatest number is the exact opposite of the direction of concentration of wealth and ownership we have been travelling on.
Turning the other way while migrants drown in the Mediterranean isn't "Identity Politics" and the insistence on cultural homogenization and labeling plurinationalism "Identity Politics" is very typical of European right-wing social ideology that pervades the parties in power.
Now you're just using an "appeal to emotion" falacy.
A person who genuinelly wants to help others LOGICALLY starts by the ones most in need, and those are mainly those living in horrible conditions in refugee camps, not those who have a few thousand dollars to pay a trafficker.
Your barelly disguised neoliberal take on Equality with "oh so obvious" late XXth century marketing shaped appeals to emotion and eternaly repeated unthinking slogans which are fashionable within certain tribes (and hence social tokens of group membership amongst that crowd, who really are just in it for the sweet social ego-stroking) isn't left-wing, it isn't even a genuine want to do good by others, since it doesn't obbey even the basic logic of "to do the most good you start by those in most need" something which would force looking at wealth inequality.
The internal-inconsistencies needed to exclude wealth inequality from that bundle of easilly parroted marketing slogans that portrays to be a political theory that fights Equality are so large, that even the idea that help should be allocated by need not by "insert easilly visibly characteristice people were born with" is seen as a threat.
Caring about migrants' lives isn't an appeal to emotion.
Your very first sentence on your post was about how those who disagree with your politics are "ignoring people dying".
People making genuine, logical and well-founded arguments don't start by claiming that those who disagree with them are closing their eyes to the death of others.
Yours wasn't just an Appeal to Emotion Falacy, it was a particularly bad taste and sleazy one.
It's particularly notable that you've spent a great deal of time accusing me of leveraging logical fallacies while you've spent basically no time denying my contention that across the political spectrum European parties are starkly against immigration whatsoever, with the farthest right wings of them arguing that there's no obligation to recognize the citizenship of colonial nationals.
If that doesn't work for you we can talk about how Romani are treated in Europe too.
I pointed out the error in your implit assumption in your "argument" that Identity Politics counts as being leftwing.
A self-proclaimed fight for Equality that doesn't address the worst kinds of equality out there (usually wealth-related) is at best a "theatre of equality" and at worst profound hypocrisy.
Now, if the Democrats more broadly weren't quite as lavishingly a "party of business" and "relaxed about wealth" one might say that perhaps it really was a party fighting for Equality and were Identity Politics was but a facet of a greater fight, in which case it would all count as leftwing, only that's not at all the case - if you loudly help a few whilst activelly fucking up the many (often covertly fucking up the very people you just loudly proclaimed you helped), that's just the far too common image management anchored on late XX-century marketing theories, not acting out of principle.
So there really isn't much leftwing-anything in the US Democrats.
As for your idea of the European politicial spectrum, it really doesn't match what I've seen having lived in 4 different countries in Europe and speaking the language of a few more - you might be confusing what gets shown about European politics in the English language media you frequent (which is usually the loudmouths saying outrageous things and a handful of government measures here and there which can be spinned - whether they really are or not - as anti-immigrant) with the actual totality of the European political spectrum.
From what I've observed, even now when there are a lot more anti-immigrant populists on the scene than in the heady pre-2008-crash days, they still represent maybe at most 1/4 of all the political spectrum (granted, I don't know the politics of EE that much, so maybe it's more there)
PS: And just for clarity, I'm not saying that in social terms the Democrats aren't more "fair" than a lot of Europe's political spectrum, what I'm saying is that because of their positions on every other angle of equality and on advancing the general principle of "the greatest good for the greatest number" (which they are not, at all, advancing, quite the contrary) their seemingly socially more fair side might very well be just theatre and even if it's not, it's not enough leftwing to make up for the broader concern with making the most people live better (as imperfect as it is) in most of the European Political Spectrum.
You're seriously misguided if you believe that.
Tell me how Romani are treated in Europe
You need to understand, our two party system is not part of the actual government as it was designed. They are basically a pack of oligarchs running a good cop-bad cop routine on the electorate.
Our voting system naturally favors this dynamic. Anywhere you see "first past the post", ask if the people feel like they're voting for the leaders they'd prefer, or against the candidates that scare them the most. Oligarchic duopoly is the dominant game theoretic strategy inherent to FPTP.
I actually come from a country with a mathematically rigged voting system (not quite as much as the US, but still the current guys in power got 41% of votes and have an absolute parliamentary majority with 52% of parliamentary representatives) but lived for almost a decade in The Netherlands (which has Proportional Vote) as well as about the same in the UK (which is more like the US in that regard than the rest of Europe) and my impression is that there are 2 things pushing that dynamic in countries with such rigged voting systems vs the ones with Proportional Vote like The Netherlands:
Most of our Dems voted to make it illegal for rail workers to strike.
I think our country is starting to look like the US more and more which is scary.
I dunno at least we switch leaders every eight years. The Rutte government is about to hit year 14, right?
Yeah, not fond of this situation either. Would love to have the same rule of capping the number of years someone could be in office. Additionally, I would also love to see a cap on the age someone could become (minister) president, something like max 10 years above nation average. I don't think someone at 80 could create the required policies, since that person will not have to live under them, nor will that person be connected to the average person in terms of values.
Not a big fan of explicit age limits encoded in law- it strikes me as a poor proxy for something you're trying to guard against (someone who can be (re-)elected despite being physically and mentally unfit to execute the office). One could also argue that a person at 80 is a great representative for elders who are very often abused and given substandard care.