Opinion on "the US democratic party is like an european center-right party"

[buritobr]

Do you think that, according to ideology, the american democrats look like CDU (Germany), Republicains and En Marche (France), PP (Spain), PSD (Portugal), OVP (Austria), VVD (Netherlands), Venstre (Denmark) and Moderate (Sweden)?

[PSOL]

Maybe more like the Radical movement in France or the European Green Parties

[Boobs]

A stupid person's idea of a smart thing to say, up there with "both parties are the same".

But more seriously: The Democratic Party is easily the most pro-immigration and pro-immigrant major party in the world - it has a strikingly different tone in this discussion than most European mainline centre-left parties, and easily more favourable than parties like Denmark's Socialdemokratiet; it is probably more supportive of immigrants than most far-left or green parties in Europe too (see Die LINKE's Sahra Wagenknecht for an example). Of course, one can say that this position is due to the United States' unique history, but then you'd have to excuse a lot of other positions that the Democrats take that aren't as left-wing as their European counterparts. And you could also say that openness to immigrants isn't by definition a left-wing trait. But even with non-immigrant ethnic minorities, Democrats are far more supportive than European leftists - just listen to a European centre-leftist (let alone anyone from the right side of the political spectrum) speak about the Romani. 

I'd concede that Democrats are, by and large, less left-wing on economics than their European counterparts. But it's a bit silly to say that they're the equivalent of centre-right establishment parties - since the Democrats (usually, on paper, etc) promote the expansion of the welfare state and government programs. The alignment of Democrats and European centre-rightists is most one of happenstance (the kind of  "UK Tories want to privatise the NHS which will make the system kinda sorta like what the Democrats are proposing with Medicare" that is extremely stupid) and one that I expect will disappear over time, if Democrats are successful.

And finally, the history of the Democratic Party is radically different from that of various socialist/social democratic/labor parties in Europe, but also from that of establishment centre-right movements. Add in the factor that US politics are much, much more personality-based (due to its system of government )  than party-centric, and you get a Democratic Party that doesn't perfectly resemble the European centre-left, but certainly does not resemble the European centre-right.


 

[thumb21]

Its true that there are many issues where, as a function of America's smaller welfare state, the welfare state a European centre right party is willing to tolerate is larger than the welfare state that the Democratic Party is pushing to expand to. The crucial difference is that the Democrats are pushing to expand it (even if often by a small amount) whereas European centre right parties are pushing to roll back or stop the growth of the welfare state.

And as the post above explained quite well, on many other issues the Democrats are not just to the left of European centre right parties, but even centre left parties.

I think the most important thing to understand is that what is left wing or right wing is not free of the context and is not just based on what specific policies you support at any given time but also your broader philosophy about how society and the economy should be.

[Dr. MB]

Objectively, Joe Biden would be a fascist if he was a politician in Europe. This is because the two major parties are now indistinguishable from each other. The only difference between them is their ideology, and Joe Biden is ideologically aligned with Democrats like Hillary, Bernie, and Obama. Biden may still be a moderate in this sense, but he is not the moderate in Europe.

In Europe, the left and right have become indistinguishable. The "new left" of Jeremy Corbyn and Nicola Sturgeon is indistinguishable from the right wing of Nicolas Sarkozy. The "new right" of Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders is indistinguishable from the "old right" of Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage. The "new left" of Syriza and Podemos is indistinguishable from the "new right" of the UKIP and Nigel Farage. And yet, the "new left" of Corbyn and Sturgeon is not even a socialist party. It is a party of anti-socialist movements, the left wing of the Labour party, which is an ideology indistinguishable from socialism. So we can say the two major parties are the same in Europe, but the two major parties are not the same in the UK. This may be a good example to demonstrate the difference between what I call "conservative parties" like the Conservative party and "socialist parties".


For example, in the US, Republicans in government are identical to Democrats. It matters not if their policies are identical, just that they are ideologically identical with the Democrats. In Europe, the major parties are not identical to each other, so we can make a comparison between them, and it is not very flattering to them. In France, the conservative parties are identical to the socialist parties. If the Conservative party were a socialist party, it would be a socialist party. In Spain, the Socialist party is identical to the conservative party.

[Former President tack50]

A stupid person's idea of a smart thing to say, up there with "both parties are the same".

But more seriously: The Democratic Party is easily the most pro-immigration and pro-immigrant major party in the world - it has a strikingly different tone in this discussion than most European mainline centre-left parties, and easily more favourable than parties like Denmark's Socialdemokratiet; it is probably more supportive of immigrants than most far-left or green parties in Europe too (see Die LINKE's Sahra Wagenknecht for an example). Of course, one can say that this position is due to the United States' unique history, but then you'd have to excuse a lot of other positions that the Democrats take that aren't as left-wing as their European counterparts. And you could also say that openness to immigrants isn't by definition a left-wing trait. But even with non-immigrant ethnic minorities, Democrats are far more supportive than European leftists - just listen to a European centre-leftist (let alone anyone from the right side of the political spectrum) speak about the Romani. 

I'd concede that Democrats are, by and large, less left-wing on economics than their European counterparts. But it's a bit silly to say that they're the equivalent of centre-right establishment parties - since the Democrats (usually, on paper, etc) promote the expansion of the welfare state and government programs. The alignment of Democrats and European centre-rightists is most one of happenstance (the kind of  "UK Tories want to privatise the NHS which will make the system kinda sorta like what the Democrats are proposing with Medicare" that is extremely stupid) and one that I expect will disappear over time, if Democrats are successful.

And finally, the history of the Democratic Party is radically different from that of various socialist/social democratic/labor parties in Europe, but also from that of establishment centre-right movements. Add in the factor that US politics are much, much more personality-based (due to its system of government )  than party-centric, and you get a Democratic Party that doesn't perfectly resemble the European centre-left, but certainly does not resemble the European centre-right.


 [/font]

Unrelated, but for your effortposts please disable the weird font. You can keep it for your sh**tposts if you want.

But this was a really good post that was very hard and painful to read

[Wazza [INACTIVE]]

^Agree with Tack, it’s irritating and comes off as pretentious.

Anyway, obviously a terrible take. The Democratic Party was and is a Liberal party and thus resembles the Liberal parties of Europe. Though it differs with some of the relatively laizze faire Liberal parties (Though this divergence to a significant extent has to do with the Democrats needing to appease unions and its socialist/social democratic minority faction along with the differing political contexts of the two regions) such as the VVD, FDP and Venstre, they share a common philosophy and support for civil liberties, more direct and expansive democracy, internationalism, multilateralism, etc. This places it at the centre/centre-left in Europe rather than centre right which tends to encompass European conservative and Christian Democratic parties.

It reminds me of the takes about Bill Clinton being more right wing/conservative than Nixon or Eisenhower; A horrible simplification devoid of context.

[Mr. Smith]

A stupid person's idea of a smart thing to say, up there with "both parties are the same".

But more seriously: The Democratic Party is easily the most pro-immigration and pro-immigrant major party in the world - it has a strikingly different tone in this discussion than most European mainline centre-left parties, and easily more favourable than parties like Denmark's Socialdemokratiet; it is probably more supportive of immigrants than most far-left or green parties in Europe too (see Die LINKE's Sahra Wagenknecht for an example). Of course, one can say that this position is due to the United States' unique history, but then you'd have to excuse a lot of other positions that the Democrats take that aren't as left-wing as their European counterparts. And you could also say that openness to immigrants isn't by definition a left-wing trait. But even with non-immigrant ethnic minorities, Democrats are far more supportive than European leftists - just listen to a European centre-leftist (let alone anyone from the right side of the political spectrum) speak about the Romani. 

I'd concede that Democrats are, by and large, less left-wing on economics than their European counterparts. But it's a bit silly to say that they're the equivalent of centre-right establishment parties - since the Democrats (usually, on paper, etc) promote the expansion of the welfare state and government programs. The alignment of Democrats and European centre-rightists is most one of happenstance (the kind of  "UK Tories want to privatise the NHS which will make the system kinda sorta like what the Democrats are proposing with Medicare" that is extremely stupid) and one that I expect will disappear over time, if Democrats are successful.

And finally, the history of the Democratic Party is radically different from that of various socialist/social democratic/labor parties in Europe, but also from that of establishment centre-right movements. Add in the factor that US politics are much, much more personality-based (due to its system of government )  than party-centric, and you get a Democratic Party that doesn't perfectly resemble the European centre-left, but certainly does not resemble the European centre-right.


 [/font]

Unrelated, but for your effortposts please disable the weird font. You can keep it for your sh**tposts if you want.

But this was a really good post that was very hard and painful to read

Oh, don't knock it until you try it.

[GeneralMacArthur]

On top of all the other complaints (in particular, this analysis is cherry-picking a small handful of issues) I always find it annoying that people only discuss a subset of the most left-leaning European nations as if they are representative of Europe as a whole.  It's usually England, France, the Scandinavian nations, and The Netherlands.

The Democrats would be considered pretty far left in nations such as Austria, Hungary, Ukraine, Spain, Italy, Estonia, Latvia, etc. not to mention nations like Poland and Russia that are far-right.

Germany is the most powerful nation in Europe and its politics are pretty similar to those of the United States.  Even its health care system is extremely similar to the public option and prescription drug pricing plans proposed by Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden.

[parochial boy]

I would also add that the Democratic party is a much bigger tent than any European party, in part down to the way that US parties are organised which is completely unlike the way they are in Europe. There are very, very few European parties that would ever have, say, Michael Bloomberg and Bernie Sanders choosing to seek to stand under their banner, let's put it that wy

On top of all the other complaints (in particular, this analysis is cherry-picking a small handful of issues) I always find it annoying that people only discuss a subset of the most left-leaning European nations as if they are representative of Europe as a whole.  It's usually England, France, the Scandinavian nations, and The Netherlands.

The Democrats would be considered pretty far left in nations such as Austria, Hungary, Ukraine, Spain, Italy, Estonia, Latvia, etc. not to mention nations like Poland and Russia that are far-right.

Germany is the most powerful nation in Europe and its politics are pretty similar to those of the United States.  Even its health care system is extremely similar to the public option and prescription drug pricing plans proposed by Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden.

You need to really think about things beyond just healthcare. Germany has a much more comprehensive welfare state, stronger social security system, stronger worker rights (harder to get fired, stronger unions...) than the USA. Suffice to say it very clearly has a more "left wing" economic order than exists in the USA.

As for the rest I mean, you really need to do some research on Spanish politics is all I can say; and likewise with the Netherlands and England which are far from being among the most left-leaning relative to other Western European countries in so far as the way they run their economies or the electoral success of left wing parties.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Biden is a right winger who's also a far-leftist.

[President Johnson]

I would also add that the Democratic party is a much bigger tent than any European party, in part down to the way that US parties are organised which is completely unlike the way they are in Europe. There are very, very few European parties that would ever have, say, Michael Bloomberg and Bernie Sanders choosing to seek to stand under their banner, let's put it that wy

On top of all the other complaints (in particular, this analysis is cherry-picking a small handful of issues) I always find it annoying that people only discuss a subset of the most left-leaning European nations as if they are representative of Europe as a whole.  It's usually England, France, the Scandinavian nations, and The Netherlands.

The Democrats would be considered pretty far left in nations such as Austria, Hungary, Ukraine, Spain, Italy, Estonia, Latvia, etc. not to mention nations like Poland and Russia that are far-right.

Germany is the most powerful nation in Europe and its politics are pretty similar to those of the United States.  Even its health care system is extremely similar to the public option and prescription drug pricing plans proposed by Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden.

You need to really think about things beyond just healthcare. Germany has a much more comprehensive welfare state, stronger social security system, stronger worker rights (harder to get fired, stronger unions...) than the USA. Suffice to say it very clearly has a more "left wing" economic order than exists in the USA.

As for the rest I mean, you really need to do some research on Spanish politics is all I can say; and likewise with the Netherlands and England which are far from being among the most left-leaning relative to other Western European countries in so far as the way they run their economies or the electoral success of left wing parties.

Agree. Germany as also maintained more consensus-oriented politics than the US. There severe disagreements between the major party, but putting the right-wing populists aside, the discourse is more civil and far less petty. During the pandemic, all major parties have relatively acted in concert by passing economic reliefs and imposing lockdowns/restrictions.

When it comes to the orginal question, the Democratic Party on average is much closer to traditional Social Democratic Parties as opposed the conservative parties like the Torries, Les Republicans or the CDU. That said, they're all much more reasonable than the Republican Party.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

It's not remotely like either - and comparisons to developing world countries, even those I have made before (like the Indian National Congress), are limited by the very differing nature of American Society. The closest is the Canadian Liberals, but even then, there are significant differences.

[Omega21]

The Democratic party never stood for 100% healthcare coverage (whether that's single-payer or a dual system), really cheap or free higher education (like in most of Europe), 5 weeks off, 6+ month maternity leave or most other things people here, left or right, take for granted.

So, yeah, they most likely will never achieve the things the old Social Dems achieved here.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Show me a European center-right party that has a significant faction and some elected officials calling to "defund the police".

[urutzizu]

Show me a European center-right party that has a significant faction and some elected officials calling to "defund the police".

UK Tories. Actually did it, the absolute madlads.

[Mr. Illini]

En Marche may be a fair comparison, as it is a centrist liberal party, but American Democrats can’t be compared to parties like CDU and OVP. They are solidly center right parties that oppose gay marriage/abortion and favor privatization of public services (in their countries) like healthcare.

[politicallefty]

The Democratic party never stood for 100% healthcare coverage (whether that's single-payer or a dual system), really cheap or free higher education (like in most of Europe), 5 weeks off, 6+ month maternity leave or most other things people here, left or right, take for granted.

So, yeah, they most likely will never achieve the things the old Social Dems achieved here.

That's not true. President Truman proposed a national, universal program when he was in office. Unfortunately, interest groups like the AMA fought back hard. If Democrats had won in 1968, I think it could have happened then as well. Ironically, probably the closest this country came to universal healthcare was probably during the Nixon years. If it wasn't for Watergate, I imagine something could have been negotiated and would have been the foundation for decades.

It's not remotely like either - and comparisons to developing world countries, even those I have made before (like the Indian National Congress), are limited by the very differing nature of American Society. The closest is the Canadian Liberals, but even then, there are significant differences.

That's what I've always thought as well. Isn't the saying about the Canadian Liberals that they campaign from the left and govern from the centre? Also, in a minority government as is right now, the NDP holds the key to the majority and can currently act as a pulling force to the left.

I think one of the major things that's happened in recent years is that the Democratic Party has shed its Southern conservative wing. The Democratic Majority in the House is nothing like its previous incarnations. It can truly be called a party of the centre-left. If Democrats can win a big victory this year and nuke the filibuster (let's say 53-55 seats in the Senate and 245+ in the House), I would expect a very aggressive centre-left legislative agenda.

[Former President tack50]

Like others said, it is really history what explains this. The history of the US democrats does not resemble the history of the parties of the left in Europe at all.

The parties of the left in Europe were born from the socialist and social democratic tendencies of the late 19th or early 20th century, and in fact that is when most of them were founded.

The US democrats really derive themselves from the Liberal tendencies of the same time period. So the comparison should not be with the German SPD or the Spanish PSOE, but more with parties like the British Lib Dems for example. The closest to the US democrats internationally is indeed the Canadian liberals, except unlike in the US, there is a socialist party in the NDP. The UK Lib Dems also come close.

[jaymichaud]

No, they're more in line with the centrist/ALDE parties.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

It's a stupid thing said by stupid people who don't understand anything about U.S. history, society, or the legislative process. I was a member of the Democratic Party and now am a member of the Social Democratic Party in Sweden and honestly they're pretty similar once you adjust for the context-specific things.

But let's play this game, but this time let's do it from the other direction: let's list all the ways various left-wing and mainstream conservative parties in Europe have been more right-wing than the U.S. Democratic Party on a multitude economic issues.

Since Sweden is held up as the pinnacle of left-wing utopia, an example of everything the U.S. Democratic Party could be if they'd just stop being a bunch of filthy neolibs, let's go through the ways the Social Democrats and Moderates are so much more right wing than the U.S. Democrats on economics:

- in 1985, it was under Olaf Palm (PBUH), hero of the left-wing, that Sweden radically deregulated its banking sector, which paved the way for the Swedish banking crisis of 1991-1992 which blew a massive hole in the economy and the state budget and consigned Sweden to nearly a decade of economic stagnation and high unemployment.

- in 1989, under the Social Democrats, Sweden passed sweeping supply-side tax cuts including slashing the top tax rate from 72% to 55%. In 2004, the Social Democrats followed up on this by delivering another round of tax cuts for the wealthy by abolishing inheritance taxes, gift taxes, and the wealth tax. And because the hits don't stop coming, this very year the Social Democrats repealed the 5% income tax surcharge on those who make above $75,000 per year.

- Meanwhile, the evil center-right U.S. Democrats had their last two Presidents raise taxes on the wealthy by $500 billion and $1.1 trillion respectively, and their last nominee (y'know, that neoliberal corporate sellout warmongering wh*re) proposed an additional $1.5 trillion tax increase, and the current nominee (neoliberal corporate Democrat with dementia) is proposing over $4 trillion in tax increases on both earned income and investment income as well as raising corporate taxes. The Democrats have pretty much always supported higher inheritance and gift taxes, and some are even muddling a wealth tax now, while no one in Sweden is talking about bringing those three taxes back (no, not even the Left Party, which voted for its repeal).

- Oh speaking of which, under the Social Democrats, they continued to implement the Moderates' agenda regarding corporate taxes over the past six years by cutting the corporate income tax rate from 24% to 22%, and further to 20.6% from next year. Even evil centrist sellout Bill Clinton was fine with raising corporate taxes in his 1993 budget, what's the SAP's excuse for being more right wing than Bill Clinton? Turns out that the Social Democrats are the party of tax cuts for the rich, while the Democrats manage to even outflank the Left Party on inheritance and gift taxes! So by this logic, the Social Democrats and Left Party would be a right-wing party in the U.S., while the Democrats would be a communist party in Europe.

- it was under Ingvar Karlsson and Göran Persson that Sweden implemented incredibly strict unemployment and sickness benefit restrictions from 1995 to 1998 that have never been reversed, and actually, tightened further since under both Moderate and SAP governments. Meanwhile, the U.S. Democratic Party has actually been debating whether the 1996 reforms went to far, and state-level initiatives have been undertaken to try to expand these benefits. The SAP on the other hand seems just fine to continue embracing further tightening.

- it was under Göran Persson that the "black zero" balanced budget policy was implemented, and the SAP leadership refuses to change this and still clings to it dogmatically. Meanwhile the U.S. Democratic Party has learned to love deficits and massive spending again, and their plans grow with every election cycle.

- In 1994, the Social Democrats lent their votes to the center-right government to privatize the pension system, a proposal they helped shape and actually initiated with their pension reform committee in 1990. None of the Democrats' reforms in the U.S. come anywhere close to this.

- in 2007, the Social Democrats lent their votes again to the center-right parties to almost totally abolish property taxes, which has been one of many contributing factors (along with low interest rates) in the housing crisis from the skyrocketing housing prices over the past 12 years, and the Social Democrats' proposals for housing are pitiful. Meanwhile, the U.S. Democrats over the past 5 years proposed significant increases in housing funding and Biden (right-winger and all) now wants to make Section 8 an entitlement, which would expand affordable housing greatly.

- all of the above has taken place while the Social Democratic-Green government has presided over increasing strain on county and municipal budgets and more or less ignored this issue, and in the 2018 municipal and regional elections, suffered enormous losses in many of their traditional strongholds to protest parties such as the Healthcare Party in Norbotten County. Last year, the Social Democrats agreed to privatize the Public Employment Agency, one of the most fundamental pillars of the Swedish welfare state and a key part of its active labor market policy. Meanwhile, the U.S. Democrats distributed funds to states and cities as part of the stimulus package in 2009 and at this very moment are trying to get fiscal aid to states and cities who are struggling with the pandemic's effects on their budgets. Furthermore, the stimulus that was shepherded through Congress by Nancy Pelosi (another evil corporate Democrat) was one of the most generous, stimulative, and redistributive in the world; it's main flaw was the rickety state unemployment computer systems which couldn't handle this once-a-century crisis.

- Sweden, under the SocDem-Green government, has been one of the "frugal four" who insist on twisting the knife into the back of southern European countries during one of the greatest crises of the past 75 years, and despite the fact that the debt crisis of the past decade has been an enormous drag on the entire European economy (including Sweden) and condemned tens of millions of people to poverty, unemployment, evisceration of welfare states, and all-around general suffering. How's that international solidarity? Meanwhile even neoliberal right-winger Bill Clinton could rush to provide countries like Mexico and Russia, and the terrible right-wing United States has been one of the biggest providers of emergency financial stabilizing aid and humanitarian assistance in the world.

- while the top leadership of the Democratic Party has been pro-free trade, the rank and file members of Congress are much more skeptical. Meanwhile, the Social Democrats have been one of the most militantly pro-free trade parties in Europe, and Stefan Löfven was a major cheerleader for the TTIP when even many other SocDem and Green parties around Europe were more skeptical.

- now let's bring the Moderate Party into this, which is considered to be one of the most "centrist" of all the mainstream conservative parties in Europe. You would think these "durrrr the Democrats are a right-wing party in Europe durrrrr" people would think the Democrats and Moderates would basically be identical, right? Well you're dead wrong. The Moderates privatized a great deal of Sweden's primary and secondary education system in 1992, and today over 30% of of Swedish high school students attend private, for-profit schools that are owned by private equity companies. Not a single state in the U.S. comes anywhere near that figure, and even in many deep-red Republican areas, voters have revolted over cuts to education and privatization efforts, whereas it is so accepted in Sweden, not even the Social Democrats want to reverse it. The Moderate Party's current agenda states they wish to privatize public services such as SVT and Svergies Radio; the U.S. Democratic Party does not stand for privatizing and defunding services such as PBS and NPR. The Moderate Party is very right-wing on economics, and wants to continue privatizing just about everything in Sweden and pass massive, regressive tax cuts, whereas the U.S. Democrats do not.

But let's also look outside of Sweden, to other supposedly more progressive countries. The SPD, one of the OG socialist parties, introduced some of the harshest labor market reforms for a left-wing party as part of its Agenda 2010, and created the infamous Euro Jobs designed to humiliate the unemployed and punish them into taking any job at all. The U.S., for all of it's problems with workers' rights and pay, does not have mandatory Dollar Jobs for receiving unemployment benefits. The SPD also went along all gung-ho about privatizations such as Deutsche Bundespost, whereas the U.S. Post  Office is literally enshrined in our national constitution and you can see what a visceral reaction the slowing down of the mail had over the past few months, not just from partisan Democrats. Most countries in Europe don't have gift and inheritance taxes (but to be fair, the greater role of family-owned Mittelstand companies plays a role in this), and those that do are cutting them as fast as they can.

But what of these new rightwing populist parties? Aren't they more left-wing on economics than the U.S. Democrats? Well if you actually look at the actual policies that these populists support, usually the only left-wing policy they espouse is higher pensions, which is very obviously designed to bribe older voters into supporting them. They talk a lot about how immigrants are stealing our welfare, but when you actually look at their proposals and the policies they support when in office, they are pretty universally right-wing on almost every economic issue. The Finns Party supported the massive austerity, privatization, and anti-worker policies under Juha Sipilä's government from 2015 to 2019 in Finland, the Sweden Democrats consistently vote to plunder municipal budgets whenever they get the chance and vote with the Alliance parties quite often, Lega Nord's fiscal federalism would plunge central and southern Italy into abject poverty and third-world status while delivering massive tax cuts to the wealthiest in the North, AfD is also just a more vulgar version of your standard right-wing party, the list goes on and on.

Their "populism" is just bribing older voters with more pensions, while still supporting standard right-wing economic policies, and this is backed up by voter surveys showing these parties tend to get their support primarily from small business owners, the self-employed, white collar workers, and THEN blue collar workers.

The U.S. Democratic Party would fit right in with most mainstream center-left European parties. They might be a bit to the right of those parties on average but that does not make them "center-right" or even "centrist". Social democratic parties in Europe were much more successful in implementing welfare states in the 1945 - 1980 period because the parliamentary system allows just simple majorities, whereas in the U.S. we have far more legislative roadblocks. Furthermore most Europeans, whether on the left or the right, have more communitarian views and are more tied to a sense of nationhood, and they value national solidarity and shared sacrifice for their own kind only, whereas the U.S. has always been about the individual believing in The Dream.

The Democratic Party, going back to its classical liberal roots, also prefer to enact its redistributive agenda via the tax code, rather than sweeping government policies and agencies. The tax system in Europe is progressive, yes, but it is also extremely regressive, with the heaviest tax burdens falling on the middle and working classes through heavy income and consumption taxes. The Democrats prefer to utilize things like the EITC to stimulate work and redistribute income, and this again relates back to the American ideal of individualism: if you are poor and you get a check in the mail from the government, people will say, "Oh look, you're a taker", but if you get that same amount of money back as part of your tax refund after submitting your tax return in the spring, people will say, "The government is giving me back MY hard-earned money!". So that's how the Democratic Party chooses to enact its redistributive agenda, because that's the context they operate in.

But those same social democratic parties in Europe who were so successful since 1980 have also been some of the biggest perpetrators of rollbacks of these very welfare states they helped create in the first place; we saw this very strongly over the past decade where SocDem parties in Europe suicidally stick with austerity, practically merging with conservative parties on this issue, and they have paid a heavy electoral price for it. Meanwhile the Democrats have embraced Keynesianism again

The U.S. never had a landed aristocracy, a reactionary monarchy, a ethno-religious identity. We never faced the overpopulation that led to mass famine, poverty, and associated revolutions and uprisings. We never had religious wars that influenced society and government to the extent of Europe. We never had a multi-party system that allows cleaner ideological parties; instead the big tent two-party system forces people who don't fit either of the parties perfectly to make tough choices about which to join. Look at how many conservative minorities end up in the Democratic Party simply because of the GOP's antagonistic, nativist identity politics. Europe lacks the history of modern slavery and having a large population of former slaves like much of the New World, which adds an entirely new host of issues, like racial resentment and having a f-ing civil war over the issue. We were never Catholic enough to have Christian democratic parties, but rather remained dominated by Western European Protestants as well as people who sought freedom from religion, which is why you see both extremes regarding religion here.

We have a totally different history and accordingly our political parties operate in entirely different contexts. If anything, it's not that the Democrats are a center-right party, it's that the Republican Party would be a very right-wing party in Europe, and the U.S. legislative system has many more roadblocks that slows and stalls change. We never had one-nation conservatism or the sort of welfare state-embracing conservatives who also embrace a sort of "soft" nationalism the way you see parties like the CDU and ÖVP. If the Republican Party genuinely had a One Nation phase ala the UK Conservatives, we probably would have gotten this done back in the 1945-1960 period as well; but the GOP's extremism is not the fault of the Democratic Party!

The Democratic party never stood for 100% healthcare coverage (whether that's single-payer or a dual system), really cheap or free higher education (like in most of Europe), 5 weeks off, 6+ month maternity leave or most other things people here, left or right, take for granted.

So, yeah, they most likely will never achieve the things the old Social Dems achieved here.

This is simply not true. Since 1947 the Democrats have tried to implement some kind of national healthcare system, and in the early 1970s it was widely expected that the U.S. would achieve that, whether it was the Democrats proposing a sort of single-payer system after the successes of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965 or the "Nixoncare" proposals of 1971 and 1973 that got derailed due to Watergate and the stagflation of the 1970s. Higher education has been in Democratic platforms since the 1940s as well, even Bill Clinton increased funding to universities in his 1993 budget after campaigning on affordability in 1992, while H. Clinton in 2016 proposed making public universities tuition-free for everyone making less than $125k per year. Furthermore it was a key plank of the 2016 campaign to introduce 12 weeks paid family and medical leave, and from what I remember, the proposals this year are even more ambitious.

Just because they haven't been as successful as implementing these policies over the past 75 years doesn't mean they don't support them. It's not as simple as getting a 50+1 majority in the U.S. Congress, unfortunately.

[Middle-aged Europe]

By European standards, the Democratic Party should probably be considered an insanely broad big tent party, stretching roughly from moderate center-right parties like the German CDU (although the CDU's most conservative wing would still overlap with the GOP) to most mainstream Green parties.

[Bootes Void]

They would be a center left to centrist party. Republicans would be center right to hard right

[Ferguson97]

It’s a common talking point by dumb people who think they’re smart.

“Both sides are the same” but from the left instead of the center.

[Battista Minola 1616]

Clarko95's post is simply amazing and definitely one of the greatest posts I have ever seen on here.

And while the detailed comparison between American Democrats and Swedish Social Democrats is probably the best part of it, I especially like the following:

But what of these new rightwing populist parties? Aren't they more left-wing on economics than the U.S. Democrats? Well if you actually look at the actual policies that these populists support, usually the only left-wing policy they espouse is higher pensions, which is very obviously designed to bribe older voters into supporting them. They talk a lot about how immigrants are stealing our welfare, but when you actually look at their proposals and the policies they support when in office, they are pretty universally right-wing on almost every economic issue. The Finns Party supported the massive austerity, privatization, and anti-worker policies under Juha Sipilä's government from 2015 to 2019 in Finland, the Sweden Democrats consistently vote to plunder municipal budgets whenever they get the chance and vote with the Alliance parties quite often, Lega Nord's fiscal federalism would plunge central and southern Italy into abject poverty and third-world status while delivering massive tax cuts to the wealthiest in the North, AfD is also just a more vulgar version of your standard right-wing party, the list goes on and on.

Their "populism" is just bribing older voters with more pensions, while still supporting standard right-wing economic policies, and this is backed up by voter surveys showing these parties tend to get their support primarily from small business owners, the self-employed, white collar workers, and THEN blue collar workers.

This can't be repeated often enough.

[Funnily the "bribing" doesn't exactly work here in Italy, since surveys have pensioners and voters over 65+ as some of the most left-leaning and less Lega-leaning demographic groups]