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> You can't just redefine the political spectrum every four years and pretended there's no history or global context. You shouldn't, but you certainly can. It'

> You can't just redefine the political spectrum every four years and pretended there's no history or global context. You shouldn't, but you certainly can. It's why so many Americans don't realize that their country's politics doesn't even have a left.

rayiner 6y ago
Maybe this was true in 1995, when Bill Clinton killed the left wing of the Democratic Party. But that refrain has become obsolete. Progressive democrats’ brand of socialism plus open borders is probably one of the furthest left mainstream ideologies in a western country. Green New Deal would be massively to the left of anything that has happened in Europe since the continent flirted with actual socialism in the 1970s. Implementing Warren’s or Sanders’ proposals would push government spending as a percentage of the economy past Sweden into Denmark territory. (And Denmark current social democratic government is far to the right of American democrats on immigration issues.)
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- KirinDave 6y ago
  What? EU members (a broadly popular and enviable status) have much more open borders and broader refugee responsiblities that anything that has gotten out of draft status in the house or Senate. What's more, leftists are split on the actual subject of borders. Communists like them, everyone else hates them, excepting decolonialists who essentially want them enforced only for indigenous peoples. It's very odd to suggest that the EU open immigration policy and One Currency is somehow not an open borders policy.
  - rayiner 6y ago
    The EU system is not an open borders policy any more than the US system is one. EU countries have made the deliberate decision to enter into a political union. Membership into that union is an arduous process that involves meeting myriad benchmarks. EU citizens are one polity, governed by supreme EU law, and who vote in EU-wide elections. Legally, it’s not much different than the US federal system. But the EU’s external borders are no more porous, and the politics of guarding those borders is significantly to the right of US progressives. The EU took more refugees, sure, but that’s within the framework of otherwise low undocumented immigration. Adjusted for population, the US has had many illegal border crossings per month as the EU did all of last year. For example, US progressives want to decriminalize illegal entry. But illegal entry is a crime in the three largest EU countries (France, Germany, and the U.K.) and all of the Scandinavian countries: https://www.loc.gov/law/help/illegal-entry/chart.php https://www.loc.gov/law/help/illegal-entry/chart.php. Likewise, progressives want free healthcare for people here illegally. That’s left-wing even by European standards. Spain’s socialist government restored universal healthcare for undocumented immigrants, which a previous conservative government had eliminated. Macron is trying to reform France’s universal healthcare to restrict benefits for illegal immigrants. And Germany and most of Scandinavia only provide undocumented people emergency services, just like in the US. Countries like Denmark and New Zealand have recently combined left-wing economics with right-wing immigration policy. New Zealand’s Ardern, a darling of American liberal media for her liberalism in healthcare and women’s and LGBT issues, campaigned in reducing legal immigration, and came to power by forming a coalition government with the “New Zealand first” party. Denmark’s new social democrat PM is to the right of Trump on immigration issues. The platform espoused by people like Sanders and Warren is very liberal in comparison to mainstream ideologies in other western countries. Not only do they want to spend 50-60% of GDP on the government, like the Scandinavian countries, but they want to enable massive immigration, which the Scandinavian countries generally do not support. They are also anti-corporation and anti-free markets, which the Scandinavian countries generally embrace.
    - justin66 6y ago
      You're both talking about the Schengen Area. There's a lot of overlap with the European Union but members of one aren't necessarily members of the other. The peculiar part about the comparisons you're making is that even the German AfD, who are regarded by everyone outside the AfD as only slightly to the left of the Nazi Party, would back away from putting as many immigrants in camps and prisons as we've done. The Fox News/AM radio listener demographic will experience a lot of heartburn in the months and years after the Trump administration as we unwind our current immigration policy and replace it with something sane - and literally anything we do will probably be viewable through a certain kind of lens as a move "leftward" - but none of that should be regarded in isolation as a measurement of the country's political leanings. It will just be about repairing damage.

rayiner 6y ago

Maybe this was true in 1995, when Bill Clinton killed the left wing of the Democratic Party. But that refrain has become obsolete. Progressive democrats’ brand of socialism plus open borders is probably one of the furthest left mainstream ideologies in a western country. Green New Deal would be massively to the left of anything that has happened in Europe since the continent flirted with actual socialism in the 1970s. Implementing Warren’s or Sanders’ proposals would push government spending as a percentage of the economy past Sweden into Denmark territory. (And Denmark current social democratic government is far to the right of American democrats on immigration issues.)

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
KirinDave 6y ago
What? EU members (a broadly popular and enviable status) have much more open borders and broader refugee responsiblities that anything that has gotten out of draft status in the house or Senate. What's more, leftists are split on the actual subject of borders. Communists like them, everyone else hates them, excepting decolonialists who essentially want them enforced only for indigenous peoples. It's very odd to suggest that the EU open immigration policy and One Currency is somehow not an open borders policy.
- rayiner 6y ago
  The EU system is not an open borders policy any more than the US system is one. EU countries have made the deliberate decision to enter into a political union. Membership into that union is an arduous process that involves meeting myriad benchmarks. EU citizens are one polity, governed by supreme EU law, and who vote in EU-wide elections. Legally, it’s not much different than the US federal system. But the EU’s external borders are no more porous, and the politics of guarding those borders is significantly to the right of US progressives. The EU took more refugees, sure, but that’s within the framework of otherwise low undocumented immigration. Adjusted for population, the US has had many illegal border crossings per month as the EU did all of last year. For example, US progressives want to decriminalize illegal entry. But illegal entry is a crime in the three largest EU countries (France, Germany, and the U.K.) and all of the Scandinavian countries: https://www.loc.gov/law/help/illegal-entry/chart.php https://www.loc.gov/law/help/illegal-entry/chart.php. Likewise, progressives want free healthcare for people here illegally. That’s left-wing even by European standards. Spain’s socialist government restored universal healthcare for undocumented immigrants, which a previous conservative government had eliminated. Macron is trying to reform France’s universal healthcare to restrict benefits for illegal immigrants. And Germany and most of Scandinavia only provide undocumented people emergency services, just like in the US. Countries like Denmark and New Zealand have recently combined left-wing economics with right-wing immigration policy. New Zealand’s Ardern, a darling of American liberal media for her liberalism in healthcare and women’s and LGBT issues, campaigned in reducing legal immigration, and came to power by forming a coalition government with the “New Zealand first” party. Denmark’s new social democrat PM is to the right of Trump on immigration issues. The platform espoused by people like Sanders and Warren is very liberal in comparison to mainstream ideologies in other western countries. Not only do they want to spend 50-60% of GDP on the government, like the Scandinavian countries, but they want to enable massive immigration, which the Scandinavian countries generally do not support. They are also anti-corporation and anti-free markets, which the Scandinavian countries generally embrace.
  - justin66 6y ago
    You're both talking about the Schengen Area. There's a lot of overlap with the European Union but members of one aren't necessarily members of the other. The peculiar part about the comparisons you're making is that even the German AfD, who are regarded by everyone outside the AfD as only slightly to the left of the Nazi Party, would back away from putting as many immigrants in camps and prisons as we've done. The Fox News/AM radio listener demographic will experience a lot of heartburn in the months and years after the Trump administration as we unwind our current immigration policy and replace it with something sane - and literally anything we do will probably be viewable through a certain kind of lens as a move "leftward" - but none of that should be regarded in isolation as a measurement of the country's political leanings. It will just be about repairing damage.