Not long ago in American history, you had conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans, but those days are long over.
A corollary of the liberal-conservative nonsense is talk of left and right. One hears about the “those on the left” and so on. We do not have leftist politics in the United States. Yes, there is the Party for Socialism and Liberation, which is a Marxist-Leninist party you’ve likely never heard of. They obviously don’t have much of a presence on the US political stage.
On Capitol Hill there isn’t a leftist presence. Bernie Sanders gets labeled a leftist. He calls himself a socialist—which I really wish he wouldn’t. Well, he can call himself an astronaut, but that doesn’t make it so. He is not a leftist. He’s a progressive Democrat and little else. He’s basically a centrist. His positions track with majoritarian opinion—which is where the true center lies. He has repeatedly pointed this out, correctly. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, too, gets labeled a leftist, and, yes, is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. But, same as Bernie, she is operationally a progressive Democrat. Think FDR. This also applies to the Congressional Progressive Caucus. It gets labeled leftist. Same thing.
But, that’s about it. Leftist politics do not exist in this country. There is no left. It doesn’t exist. There are roughly centrist politicians and there are right-of-center politicians, which accounts for most of them. So, you have lawmakers who approximate what the population wants (like Bernie and Elizabeth Warren and AOC) and you have the rest, who could not care less about what the population wants. The GOP has utter disdain for the population and its wants and needs.
I mentioned the Green Party in a reply to a question from an FB Friend—and a real-life friend. You can find the exchange above in my timeline. The Green Party is construed as leftist, but if you go through their positions and consult the public opinion polls, you will find that (like Bernie) the party is in synch with majority opinion: Medicare for all, tuition-free college at public universities, LGBTQ rights, a progressive environmental stance, an abolitionist position on the death penalty, joining the International Criminal Court, and signing the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. This is all centrist. They do ideologically wander into libertarian socialism, which I guess is legitimately left of center. But one does not see it in their concrete positions. Does the Green Party have a robust presence in Washington? Nope.
So, we would do well to remove “left” from our discourse. We need to stop talking about a thing that doesn’t exist. Because, y’know, that’s silly.
