Is the Democratic Party left-wing?

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

if obama was in england ... he'd join ukip

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

if obama was in england ... he'd join ukip

I'm sure they'd love his immigration executive order.

[BaconBacon96]

By the standards of the rest of the world the Democratic Party is a centre-right party. By American standards it is a left-wing party.

[politicus]

From people who say the Democrats aren't, I get the vibe they usually mean something along the lines of supporting a European-style welfare state, because apparently European politics and economics is now the golden standard to which all political parties around the world must be held against.

A comparison to Latin America, most of Asia, Africa, Australia and Canada would also place the Democrats as a non-left wing party. Its fair to say its not a left wing party by world standards, the question is if that's relevant, since left wing is a relative position and they are structurally the main centre-left party in the US party system.

Applying a more relevant context than "the world": If you compare the Democrats to NDP and Australian Labor, which would be the two most obvious parties to compare them with, they are to the right of both of them.

[greenforest32]

On what spectrum?

Shouldn't the left-right spectrum be universal based on the issues rather than relative to other countries? The latter doesn't give a simple, clear picture. Better to just say that a country or region is more left or right on the (single) continuum instead of creating multiple relative standards.

[Sol]

It seems to me like the ALP and the Democrats are about equivalent politically. The ALP definitely has a stronger SoCon faction than the Democrats.

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

Nah.  If we are going to do things properly and look at the Dems on a global scale...

Economic: centre-right.  They completely embrace capitalism in the party platform.  You can not do this and be anywhere on the left side of the line.  If they ever get behind true single-payer and weed out their own corporate interests, that can change. 

Social: left.  I don't think I'm being too generous here.  Look at traditionalist countries in Africa and the Middle East that comprise close to half the global population.  The Dems are more liberal than many European countries when it comes to treatment of minorities, too. 

[RogueBeaver]

Yes, they are the more left-wing major American political party. Trying to
measure left-wing vs. right-wing on some sort of worldwide political spectrum is pointless.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

if obama was in england ... he'd join ukip

I'm sure they'd love his immigration executive order.

yeah but merkel and rajoy would feel at home in the congressional progressive caucus


To be less glib than above, yes the Democrats are left-wing. Arguing things like "no the political centre is actually to their left" is completely meaningless. (I would argue that arguing about where "the political centre" is is inherently meaningless; and devolves to stupid debates like  "who is closer to the centre - Abraham Lincoln or Barack Obama?".

And as much as I'd love to be a snobby European and say "Oh merricans with their guns and jesus and money ZOMG so right-wing" (pretty much the extent of most UK political analysis of the American scene); it doesn't hold water. Imagine if the Republicans proposed a UKIP - heck even Conservative/Labour - style immigration policy?

[DemPGH]

To me it's a center party. The GOP is far right and the Green party would be a left wing party. I really, really wish the Greens could become even a little bit of a force - it would provide some gravity back the other way because the GOP over the decades has lurched everything far rightward. I think the Dems would like to be a left wing party, but they just aren't.

[Rockefeller GOP]

Having only two major parties for 160+ years leads two a lot of diversity within those parties.  Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski represent different Republicanism than Ted Cruz and Mike Lee, but all are Republicans.  Al Franken and Elizabeth Warren represent different brands of Democrats than Mark Pryor and Zel Miller, but all are Democrats.  Period.  I'd say within the context of American politics, both are center-right and center-left respectively.  Honestly, I don't particularly care about other countries' political spectrums; they can do what they wish.  Looking at countries whose politics are extreme compared to the American norm (e.g., Sweden) and using them to try to make the Democratic Party into this sensible, centrist party compared to its crazy far-right rival is pretty silly to me.

[TNF]

Barack Obama's first two years were far more progressive than Hollande's.

Not sure if I would define forcing everyone to purchase private health insurance, expanding the war in Afghanistan, refusing to shutdown Gitmo (after he promised he would), implementing a half-assed stimulus program, and allowing millions of working class people to lose their homes as 'progressive.'

[DemPGH]

An example I neglected to mention, and which is very obvious and noticeable, is that Democrats make the same assumptions that are at the cornerstone of Republican economic ideology - that is, the absolute end-all-be-all sanctity of private sector capitalism, which I think has done more to create the income disparity and imbalance that we see than any other thing. The difference is that the Democrats want a little bit of regulation. Yay!

Imagine a USA where the Republican party is as small as the Green party and cannot affect policy at all. Imagine that the two dominant parties are Democrats and Greens with the Democrats being the center party. We'd basically be socialist. Union membership would be 95%. And so on. And the Democrats would lean left as opposed to right.

[they don't love you like i love you]

Parts of its coalition are, yes. As a whole, there's not enough coherence to judge.

This is the best answer.