6 ms·

I'm no expert on RBG, but I always pegged her as a Neo-Lib, rather than a Leftist.

cultus 6y ago
This is really an important distinction. Social issues like gay marriage and things like this are completely orthogonal. The Democratic Party as a whole is very much neoliberal or liberal as opposed to left. Liberal judges are much the same.
- pessimizer 6y ago
  Both parties are liberal. Republicans deviate from liberalism when pandering to their religious base, and Democrats deviate from liberalism when adding to the social safety net and labor rights, pandering to their left base. Neither party takes their deviations from liberalism seriously, and both parties have an interest in not resolving those (wedge) issues to keep voters from drifting to the other party.
- neves 6y ago
  The Democratic Party would be considered center-right in any other country of the world, but the USA.
  - drstewart 6y ago
    The DNC would be center right in Saudi Arabia? By what metric? What is with the ridiculous hyperbole that's so common when talking about America on the internet, especially by non-Americans? Talk about "American exceptionalism" - just in a different way.
    - typon 6y ago
      I think OP implied "any democratic western nation".
      - tathougies 6y ago
        Ah right, the soft ethno-nationalism of implying that the only 'real countries' are the western democratic ones.... great...
    - Gibbon1 6y ago
      If the House of Saud tried to impose Obamacare there would be a revolt.
      - Gibbon1 6y ago
        Stay classy HN
    - secondcoming 6y ago
      Well, what's going on in America is being pushed down the throats of everyone in the world. You can hardly read an article without someone mentioning Trump and US politics in general. We may as well join in too!
    - tathougies 6y ago
      Indeed it's quite ridiculous. What they mean to say is that the DNC would be center-right in Europe, which is an incredibly Euro-centric way to look at the world. In reality, if you consider the actual bulk of the planet, which would include mainly China and India, the DNC and RNC dichotomy is rather unclassifiable.
  - rayiner 6y ago
    It depends on how you define things. For example, do you measure by where Democrats end up in practice, or where they want to go? For example, the United States is to the right of Germany in terms of universal healthcare. But Medicare 4 All, where many Democrats appear to want to go in the long term--though they disagree about how quickly they want to get there--would be quite to the left compared to the multi-payor mandatory insurance system currently in place in Germany. It also varies quite a bit by subject-area. In Germany, the constitutional court held (around the same time as Roe) that legalized abortion was unconstitutional, violating the fetus's right to life. Today, it is technically still illegal, but decriminalized up to 12 weeks. (Shorter than in almost every state in the U.S.) The abortion rate in Germany is much lower. The Democratic party's views on abortion would not be considered center-right in Germany. On gay rights, Germany got legalized same-sex marriage a couple of years after the U.S. And things like surrogacy, which gay male couples often rely on to have kids, is illegal. Or, consider that Merkel, a member of the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has called for a ban on burqa. To my knowledge, even Trump has not said anything like that. Similarly, on immigration, while Merkel allowed Muslim refugees, her successor declared that a "mistake" which the country had "learned from." Democratic favorability to refugees would not be a center-right position in Germany. In the area of religion, the U.S. is extremely left wing compared to every country but France. In the U.S., teaching religion (as such) is banned in public schools. In the U.K., Germany, Italy, and Spain (four of the five largest EU countries) it's actually required, either by statute or by the constitution. Children have a right to receive a religious education at the public expense in these countries. In the area of taxes, the Democratic Party is center-right in some ways but quite left win in others. Merkel has championed Germany following along with Trump's corporate tax cuts. The Democrats' proposal to repeal that would not be a center-right position in Germany. The Democrats' proposal to tax capital gains as ordinary income is quite left wing. Most Western European countries, including Germany, have preferential treatment for capital gains taxes. In general, the U.S. has the most progressive tax code in the OECD: https://opportunitywa.org/u-s-federal-income-tax-structure-most-progressive-in-the-world-more-than-offsets-regressively-of-state-local-taxes/ https://opportunitywa.org/u-s-federal-income-tax-structure-m... But Democrats' tepid support for labor unions, for example, would be considered center-right or even right-wing in Germany. On the whole, on social, religious, and immigration issues, the current Democratic Party is solidly to the left compared to western Europe. On labor issues, it's to the right. On corporate and investment taxation, it's solidly on the left. On healthcare, its to the right, but mainly for reasons that have to do with minimizing disruption to peoples' current private insurance. Where they want to end up, single payer public insurance, is solidly on the left. Our next Vice President will very likely be a Democrat who, in 2019, supported single-payer public healthcare, treating capital gains as ordinary income, a 35% corporate income tax rate, a financial transactions tax, publicly funded abortion with no compromises such as waiting periods, Green New Deal, free healthcare for people who immigrate illegally, etc. If she actually believed those things, she would be a solidly mainstream left politician in most European countries.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > The Democratic Party would be considered center-right in any other country of the world, but the USA. Any other Western democracy (including some Western-model democracies outside of the West proper), sure. But then the left-right axis is not really readily transferrable to outside of that domain, anyway.
beerandt 6y ago
Sure- but then you have to be careful defining labels. Trying to peg a generic one dimensional (left-right) or even two dimensional (social/fiscal) political position on justices is difficult, even with loosely defined labels/ categories. It's much easier to look at justices relative position/ rank on a per-topic basis. Alternatively, and less useful to the general public, but very useful to SCOTUS junkies, is looking at cross tabs of how often a particular justice votes with others. Especially when they break from the publically perceived left/right voting block, which is more often than most think. Scotusblog is full of this type of analysis for those interested: https://www.scotusblog.com/category/empirical-scotus/ https://www.scotusblog.com/category/empirical-scotus/ https://www.scotusblog.com/statistics/ https://www.scotusblog.com/statistics/
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  And this is, in fact, precisely how the court is theoretically supposed to work. The two-dimensional partisan framing—which, unfortunately, is very real in other domains—is what's causing the court to break down.
  - pessimizer 6y ago
    Is the court breaking down?
    - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
      Kind of, yeah. Supreme court justices aren't elected, are appointed for life, and collectively have veto power over basically any law, should they choose to break (or gradually discard) historical norms. I think it's telling that neither Biden nor Harris was willing to rule out court-packing at the presidential debates, and at this point I think they're right to leave it on the table! But, it really would mark the beginning of the end of the Supreme Court. It's easy to predict what would probably happen the next time power changed...
      - solipsism 6y ago
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

This is really an important distinction. Social issues like gay marriage and things like this are completely orthogonal. The Democratic Party as a whole is very much neoliberal or liberal as opposed to left. Liberal judges are much the same.

pessimizer 6y ago
Both parties are liberal. Republicans deviate from liberalism when pandering to their religious base, and Democrats deviate from liberalism when adding to the social safety net and labor rights, pandering to their left base. Neither party takes their deviations from liberalism seriously, and both parties have an interest in not resolving those (wedge) issues to keep voters from drifting to the other party.
neves 6y ago
The Democratic Party would be considered center-right in any other country of the world, but the USA.
- drstewart 6y ago
  The DNC would be center right in Saudi Arabia? By what metric? What is with the ridiculous hyperbole that's so common when talking about America on the internet, especially by non-Americans? Talk about "American exceptionalism" - just in a different way.
  - typon 6y ago
    I think OP implied "any democratic western nation".
    - tathougies 6y ago
      Ah right, the soft ethno-nationalism of implying that the only 'real countries' are the western democratic ones.... great...
  - Gibbon1 6y ago
    If the House of Saud tried to impose Obamacare there would be a revolt.
    - Gibbon1 6y ago
      Stay classy HN
  - secondcoming 6y ago
    Well, what's going on in America is being pushed down the throats of everyone in the world. You can hardly read an article without someone mentioning Trump and US politics in general. We may as well join in too!
  - tathougies 6y ago
    Indeed it's quite ridiculous. What they mean to say is that the DNC would be center-right in Europe, which is an incredibly Euro-centric way to look at the world. In reality, if you consider the actual bulk of the planet, which would include mainly China and India, the DNC and RNC dichotomy is rather unclassifiable.
- rayiner 6y ago
  It depends on how you define things. For example, do you measure by where Democrats end up in practice, or where they want to go? For example, the United States is to the right of Germany in terms of universal healthcare. But Medicare 4 All, where many Democrats appear to want to go in the long term--though they disagree about how quickly they want to get there--would be quite to the left compared to the multi-payor mandatory insurance system currently in place in Germany. It also varies quite a bit by subject-area. In Germany, the constitutional court held (around the same time as Roe) that legalized abortion was unconstitutional, violating the fetus's right to life. Today, it is technically still illegal, but decriminalized up to 12 weeks. (Shorter than in almost every state in the U.S.) The abortion rate in Germany is much lower. The Democratic party's views on abortion would not be considered center-right in Germany. On gay rights, Germany got legalized same-sex marriage a couple of years after the U.S. And things like surrogacy, which gay male couples often rely on to have kids, is illegal. Or, consider that Merkel, a member of the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has called for a ban on burqa. To my knowledge, even Trump has not said anything like that. Similarly, on immigration, while Merkel allowed Muslim refugees, her successor declared that a "mistake" which the country had "learned from." Democratic favorability to refugees would not be a center-right position in Germany. In the area of religion, the U.S. is extremely left wing compared to every country but France. In the U.S., teaching religion (as such) is banned in public schools. In the U.K., Germany, Italy, and Spain (four of the five largest EU countries) it's actually required, either by statute or by the constitution. Children have a right to receive a religious education at the public expense in these countries. In the area of taxes, the Democratic Party is center-right in some ways but quite left win in others. Merkel has championed Germany following along with Trump's corporate tax cuts. The Democrats' proposal to repeal that would not be a center-right position in Germany. The Democrats' proposal to tax capital gains as ordinary income is quite left wing. Most Western European countries, including Germany, have preferential treatment for capital gains taxes. In general, the U.S. has the most progressive tax code in the OECD: https://opportunitywa.org/u-s-federal-income-tax-structure-most-progressive-in-the-world-more-than-offsets-regressively-of-state-local-taxes/ https://opportunitywa.org/u-s-federal-income-tax-structure-m... But Democrats' tepid support for labor unions, for example, would be considered center-right or even right-wing in Germany. On the whole, on social, religious, and immigration issues, the current Democratic Party is solidly to the left compared to western Europe. On labor issues, it's to the right. On corporate and investment taxation, it's solidly on the left. On healthcare, its to the right, but mainly for reasons that have to do with minimizing disruption to peoples' current private insurance. Where they want to end up, single payer public insurance, is solidly on the left. Our next Vice President will very likely be a Democrat who, in 2019, supported single-payer public healthcare, treating capital gains as ordinary income, a 35% corporate income tax rate, a financial transactions tax, publicly funded abortion with no compromises such as waiting periods, Green New Deal, free healthcare for people who immigrate illegally, etc. If she actually believed those things, she would be a solidly mainstream left politician in most European countries.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > The Democratic Party would be considered center-right in any other country of the world, but the USA. Any other Western democracy (including some Western-model democracies outside of the West proper), sure. But then the left-right axis is not really readily transferrable to outside of that domain, anyway.

beerandt 6y ago

Sure- but then you have to be careful defining labels. Trying to peg a generic one dimensional (left-right) or even two dimensional (social/fiscal) political position on justices is difficult, even with loosely defined labels/ categories. It's much easier to look at justices relative position/ rank on a per-topic basis. Alternatively, and less useful to the general public, but very useful to SCOTUS junkies, is looking at cross tabs of how often a particular justice votes with others. Especially when they break from the publically perceived left/right voting block, which is more often than most think. Scotusblog is full of this type of analysis for those interested: https://www.scotusblog.com/category/empirical-scotus/ https://www.scotusblog.com/category/empirical-scotus/ https://www.scotusblog.com/statistics/ https://www.scotusblog.com/statistics/

Wowfunhappy 6y ago
And this is, in fact, precisely how the court is theoretically supposed to work. The two-dimensional partisan framing—which, unfortunately, is very real in other domains—is what's causing the court to break down.
- pessimizer 6y ago
  Is the court breaking down?
  - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
    Kind of, yeah. Supreme court justices aren't elected, are appointed for life, and collectively have veto power over basically any law, should they choose to break (or gradually discard) historical norms. I think it's telling that neither Biden nor Harris was willing to rule out court-packing at the presidential debates, and at this point I think they're right to leave it on the table! But, it really would mark the beginning of the end of the Supreme Court. It's easy to predict what would probably happen the next time power changed...
    - solipsism 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]