Ask Lemmy

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.

A lot of people have left-leaning economic views ( tax the rich ) but there's basically no political or media representation of those views. ( because the rich run the media and government )

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.

Because the American left would be considered right wing in most of the world.

Because there is no party available to elect, who care for the workers/people.

You have a system that is designed to take money from the poor and lower class and give it to the rich. You don't have proper workers rights, spend about twice the amount for healthcare compared to an European person and get substantially less out of it. People work more than 40h/week in more than one job and can't make ends meet... There are vast rural parts that look more like a third world country. Everything is made for commerce and nobody cares for LGBT people or women unless there's some money or publicity in it.

And you have about 2 parties who both participate and stand for that scheme.

Google the term Overton window

Because liberals are just center of right. If you go too far left things become better for workers and not the ruling shit heads.

This image from 2020 sums it up decently...

https://imgur.com/a/WqMvpo0

Also: you guys messed up the colors for the parties, red is for left leaning parties, blue is for right leaning. But I guess that is just the US being the US, like temperature, weight and distance units.

Other people have already posted good answers so I just want to add a couple things.

If you want a very simple, concrete example: Healthcare. It depends on how you count, but more than half the world's countries have some sort of free or low cost public healthcare, whereas in the US, the richest country in the history of countries, that's presented as radical left wing kooky unrealistic communist Bernie idea. This isn't an example of a left-wing policy that we won't adopt, but of what in much of the world is a normal public service that we can't adopt because anti-socialism in this country is so malignant and metastasized that it can be weaponized against things that are just considered normal public services almost like roads in other countries.

A true left wing would support not just things like healthcare, but advocate for an economic system in which workers have control over their jobs, not the bosses. That is completely absent.

Also, this meme:

It's glib, but it's not wrong. Both parties routinely support American militarism abroad. Antimilitarism in favor of internationalism has been a corner stone for the left since the left began.

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.

Because all the true is gone.

There's no leftist party, nothing Socialist in the least. The furthest "left" you go is the DNC, which is liberal, and therefore right wing. The furthest right you go is the GOP, which is fascist.

A few years ago I would have agreed with this statement. But lately, I've seen a change described in several press articles and news pieces. The younger generations in the US demand true social justice and aren't afraid to say they're socialists, against capitalism or consumerism. It's a burgeoning revolution of course, since the establishment is still in control of traditional political parties. But this crack in the old broken system could bring about positive change in the long run. At least I hope so.

Compared to the rest of the first world countries, our farthest left candidates are relatively moderate.

Politics is about power structures. Both of America's parties support the same structure, capitalism.

If one were to gather political parties from around the world and sort them as left-leaning, center, or right-leaning, one could do so. However when it came time to compare the left-leaning parties of other developed nations with the left-leaning parties of the united states, it would quickly become apparent that the "most-left" party in the united states aligns with center-right and far-right parties of other developed nations. So, doing such analysis you quickly come to realize that the united states has no true left-wing party. We have conservative and conservative-light. It should also be noted that the conservative party in the united states is much further right than most other developed nations.

Also, remember, right-left is a duopoly, much like Pepsi and Coke. There are so many more dimensions to politics than right-left, there's a thousand different parties for every ideology. For more info on this, check out the podcast linked at the end. Support ranked choice voting if you want to take steps to end this duopoly. What do you have to lose? Entrenched life-long, un-removeable politicians. What do you have to gain? Choice. Variety. More direct democratic representation and politicians that better reflect their voter's interests.

Freakanomics
Episode 356
America’s Hidden Duopoly
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/americas-hidden-duopoly-2/

@[email protected] One way to think about "the left" is that it values freedom from domination. Who in the US is fighting to reduce the level of domination we experience in important areas of life (health care, education, food, housing to name a few)? Should we really have to pay and put ourselves into debt--thereby becoming dominated--to go to school, live somewhere, or maintain our health? Even the so-called left in the US supports this arrangement generally; at best they fight over the details, not the structure itself.