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Well... Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford/Nixon, Johnson, Johnson/JFK... Looks like swings to me.


Obama and Clinton aren't "left". They are both very much the middle of the road politically.

Bernie Sanders and Warren are the closet thing we have to a "left" in the US. They aren't presidents have little more than a bully pulpit.


Perhaps by your metric, that is a true statement. The progressives I worked with were adamant and proud socialists and they worked his campaign.


By the metric of the Western world, it is a true statement.

I think a large part of the problem is people in US politics really, really don't get outside the bubble of the US.

http://nation.foxnews.com/john-mccain/2011/02/03/mccain-obam...

Even Republicans have stated on the record that he is a centrist.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/94274...

> A second foreign policy adviser to Mr Romney said: “Cameron’s contacts with Republicans are really quite limited, and have been going back to when [George W.] Bush was president.” The adviser added: “In many respects Cameron is like Obama.”

Like, this whole "Democrats are leftists" is just a Republican meme at this point in almost all respects.


I don't understand the point of your argument. You're talking about absolutes. Politics is all relative. Relative to the GOP, the Dems are Left.

Statements along the lines of "well, you don't know what Left is if you think the Democrats are Left" don't apply. I don't even get what the point of that line is. Are we in the States supposed to look at entitlement expansion in the US and suddenly say "gee, I guess that is OK because it isn't as much as Europe"?. Is there an objective you're trying to get to? I could just as easily say "Oh no, you don't get it: what you call the Left is actually the FAR LEFT" and put you in the same position.

The whole meme that "Democrats are moderates and Republicans are extremists" is just an attempt at pushing populism into the mainstream.


Are you claiming that Obama is a socialist? If not (as I assume), then what was the point of your anecdote? I don't see where the guy you replied to claimed that Obama wasn't in some broad sense to the left of those he ran against.


I think you're making the assumption that the President is the movement. That is simply inaccurate. The President, or any politician for that matter, is a vessel through which objectives are carried out.

I will happily claim that the Progressives are socialists. The standing President is part of that clan within the Democratic party.


I'd even say in US politics there is no left at all, there is only right: liberal right, conservative right and extremist right.




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