Too bad USA doesn’t have a viable left party
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.
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.
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.
- Die.
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?
In any other nation, they’re far-right.
Edit: Amerikkka is the only nation, apparently
Interesting. Which “other nation” has a party the is left enough for you and regularly hold power?
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?
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.
