5 ms·

Take a list of countries in the world that have the best HDI rankings, press freedom rankings, universal healthcare and so on. Almost all are run by parties wh

Take a list of countries in the world that have the best HDI rankings, press freedom rankings, universal healthcare and so on. Almost all are run by parties who are described primarily as being center-right or center-left.

ideamotor 6y ago
Thank you. Do these people not realize that centrist basically means stable and successful? Probably just sad sacks who want things to go sour. And I want to be clear, in the U.S. Dems are a center-left party and GOP is a (increasingly) far-right party. You can see this objectively by the percent of the time each member flips. Approx. around 80% GOP never flips versus only 20% Dems.
- secondcoming 6y ago
  Really. Everything I've read and heard about US politics would seems to suggest that the Dems are being pulled increasingly towards the extreme left.
  - peteretep 6y ago
    > Everything I've read and heard about US politics would seems to suggest that the Dems are being pulled increasingly towards the extreme left We are either reading very different news, or your use of “extreme left” is highly out of sync with anything approaching common usage. Wake me me up when they start nationalising pensions
  - kalleboo 6y ago
    The Democratic party as an institution is not very left at all. There are people who identify as Democrats who could be described as extreme left, and they may get a lot of airtime, but they do not represent the party and do not influence it's policies.
    - secondcoming 6y ago
      AOC et al? She'll be leading the party in 5 years.
      - secondcoming 6y ago
        I'm not sure if I'm being downvoted by Republicans who don't like her, or Democrats who think I think I'm a Republican!
      - edgyquant 6y ago
        This is a bad uninformed take. AOC would be a literally who without Conservatives pushing her as a villain in their media.
  - Nursie 6y ago
    > Everything I've read and heard about US politics would seems to suggest that the Dems are being pulled increasingly towards the extreme left. Have you been using Fox news exclusively to form those opinions? From a British perspective, the Democrats are to the right of all the major parties in our parliament.
    - secondcoming 6y ago
      No. I'm not American and have lived in Britain for over 15 years.
- viridian 6y ago
  What do you mean by flips?
avar 6y ago
> Almost all are run by parties who are described primarily as being center-right or center-left. They're described like that by the local standards of the country they're in. But if you were to transplant e.g. some "right wing" parties in certain European countries to a country like the US you'd have an extremist left wing party by local standards. So it's no more evidence that things move towards the "center" in general than people in Venice and Mexico city saying "uphill" and "downhill" being evidence that those two cities are situated at the same altitude.
- edgyquant 6y ago
  The idea that right wing Europeans are American leftists is an untrue and ridiculous meme.
  - avar 6y ago
    Most developed European countries have a tax to GDP ratio 10-15% higher than the US. Fiscally conservative right wing parties in those countries typically run on a platform of at most reducing that by 3-5%. If you then take what they'd do to military spending (at most 1/2 or 1/4 what the US spends per capita), social services (maybe a bit less spending, but not dismantling it), the state's regulatory role, fuel taxes etc. I don't think this is a far-fetched assertion.

ideamotor 6y ago

Thank you. Do these people not realize that centrist basically means stable and successful? Probably just sad sacks who want things to go sour. And I want to be clear, in the U.S. Dems are a center-left party and GOP is a (increasingly) far-right party. You can see this objectively by the percent of the time each member flips. Approx. around 80% GOP never flips versus only 20% Dems.

secondcoming 6y ago
Really. Everything I've read and heard about US politics would seems to suggest that the Dems are being pulled increasingly towards the extreme left.
- peteretep 6y ago
  > Everything I've read and heard about US politics would seems to suggest that the Dems are being pulled increasingly towards the extreme left We are either reading very different news, or your use of “extreme left” is highly out of sync with anything approaching common usage. Wake me me up when they start nationalising pensions
- kalleboo 6y ago
  The Democratic party as an institution is not very left at all. There are people who identify as Democrats who could be described as extreme left, and they may get a lot of airtime, but they do not represent the party and do not influence it's policies.
  - secondcoming 6y ago
    AOC et al? She'll be leading the party in 5 years.
    - secondcoming 6y ago
      I'm not sure if I'm being downvoted by Republicans who don't like her, or Democrats who think I think I'm a Republican!
    - edgyquant 6y ago
      This is a bad uninformed take. AOC would be a literally who without Conservatives pushing her as a villain in their media.
- Nursie 6y ago
  > Everything I've read and heard about US politics would seems to suggest that the Dems are being pulled increasingly towards the extreme left. Have you been using Fox news exclusively to form those opinions? From a British perspective, the Democrats are to the right of all the major parties in our parliament.
  - secondcoming 6y ago
    No. I'm not American and have lived in Britain for over 15 years.
viridian 6y ago
What do you mean by flips?

avar 6y ago

> Almost all are run by parties who are described primarily as being center-right or center-left. They're described like that by the local standards of the country they're in. But if you were to transplant e.g. some "right wing" parties in certain European countries to a country like the US you'd have an extremist left wing party by local standards. So it's no more evidence that things move towards the "center" in general than people in Venice and Mexico city saying "uphill" and "downhill" being evidence that those two cities are situated at the same altitude.

edgyquant 6y ago
The idea that right wing Europeans are American leftists is an untrue and ridiculous meme.
- avar 6y ago
  Most developed European countries have a tax to GDP ratio 10-15% higher than the US. Fiscally conservative right wing parties in those countries typically run on a platform of at most reducing that by 3-5%. If you then take what they'd do to military spending (at most 1/2 or 1/4 what the US spends per capita), social services (maybe a bit less spending, but not dismantling it), the state's regulatory role, fuel taxes etc. I don't think this is a far-fetched assertion.