Today's hot take is something I've said before–but was reminded of today: The Democratic Party is not 'Leftist' or even 'Liberal'. The party leadership is best described as 'Center-Right''.
Yes there are liberal Democrats. But they don't have much say over things, which makes them rather (and understandably) angry. They bring in the voters, after all.
But the only thing putting the Democrats in general on the 'Left' is the contrast with a Republican party pushing against the limits of 'Right'.
@jackwilliambell
Yes. Both are on the right. Same as here in canada where the libs and cons are both on the right with the libs merely being slightly social left of the conservatives.
Our only saving grace is that the ndp (socialists), greens and the bloc quebecois have a significant number of seats in the house.
My home province had a bare coalition of socialist and greens for a few years, now it is majority socialist. Still a couple of green seats, but the cons were cut by half.
@vfrmedia
I don't know much about Canadian politics, but I've spent considerable time in Europe; and I can say US politics is shifted one whole slot right from European politics.
Basically, what the US calls 'Communists' would be 'Socialists' in Europe; US 'Socialists' would be European 'Liberals'; and so on.
Thing is, most people in both places don't know this, so political conversations between ordinary US and European citizens get weird really quickly.
@jackwilliambell
> Basically, what the US calls 'Communists' would be 'Socialists' in Europe
Yeah, it makes me crazy when you guys do that. Well, no you specifically, obviously! :-)
@gemlog @vfrmedia
Also, European citizens of all political strips have a good understanding of Liberal and Socialist agendas, whereas most (nearly all) US citizens have no clue. Even the ones who consider themselves liberal.
The amount of political misinformation in the US is monumental. And most of us aren't even aware how disconnected from political reality we actually are.
It's really frustrating for me to have nearly the same arguments with 'Liberals' as I do with 'Conservatives'.