Which commonly made sage talking point is more annoying?

[All Along The Watchtower]

The American political reality doesn't allow Democrats to be what they should be, but that doesn't make them further to the right than conservative parties (who, I might add, would also be more right-wing if they could, usually).

This.

[All Along The Watchtower]

You could actually make a case for just about every western government being economically right wing as the PC basically does, but it uses some very clumsy logic. If one has an economic spectrum consisting of North Korea/Khmer Rouge style collectivism and total government control on end and Rothbardian anarchocapitalists and the Galt's Gulch type society on the right, the Scandinavian style social democracy does kind of seem to sit in the middle. But this is a really stupid spectrum to use as a measurement. To simplify it even further, if one argue that 100% of the economy be government controlled is the leftmost position and 0% is the rightmost, and thus 50% of the economy being government controlled is the center, then even Nordic social democracy would be right of center and someone like Hugo Chavez as an actual centrist. So using that standard then yes the Democrats and European conservatives have little distance, but there's also little distance between the Republicans and European left wing parties as well relatively, and they all sit on the right. But it's quite obvious why that's such a ridiculous model to use.

First and foremost, because the idea of government control of the economy being the fundamental criterion for being left-wing is nonsense.

but muh libertarianism

[All Along The Watchtower]

IMHO, both the Democratic and Republican Parties are comparatively centrist (or center-right) , ideologically Liberal parties. They both come from the tradition of "classical" (ie before the 20th century) Liberalism, so they really don't have a whole lot of fundamental disagreement about the goals of politics and public policy.

As I've said before, the United States is pretty much a country of ideological consensus-with the differences between the parties being largely based on a list of practical, specific policy "issues" that fit the sensibilities of Mass Politics.

I mean-who would publicly argue with these statements, in America?

"We want freedom of speech."

"We want equality of opportunity."

"We want strong social mobility."

"We want a strong middle class."

"We want people to play by the rules, in both the public and private sectors."

"We want a well-educated citizenry."

"We want America to be a place where immigrants come to make a better life for themselves."

'We refer to the Constitution for guidance."

And so on and so forth. The vast majority of politicians from both parties in the United States would agree with most, if not all of these statements (and others).  That is how broadly speaking, the United States is a place of remarkable ideological and philosophical consensus.

Rhetoric aside, there really is not much out of the mainstream (far-left or far-right) that is viable or even imaginable in American politics. And while the Democrats are pretty clearly the "left-wing" party in America's two-party system while the Republicans are "right-wing", that doesn't mean that either party is defined by foundational ideological differences with the other.

 

[All Along The Watchtower]

By the way, the US has the most progressive tax regime on the planet among developed nations.

And one of the least generous social safety nets.