[tsimionescu]

> Their coverage leans left like Fox News leans right, particularly MSNBC.

I don't think it detracts from your points, but the coverage of all these outlets leans Democrat, but not left. They are centrist papers. Left voices (think Chomsky) are almost completely absent from mainstream media.

[aksss]

The context is different when referring to politics in a two-party system like the US, versus political philosophy. In the US political system, the center is relative to where the two parties are - there is no “absolute truth” of the center. The democrats are the party of the left like republicans are the party of the right — meaning political views will roughly trend according to party membership. Centrists are defined by being able to keep a foot in both sides, so democrats are by definition not centrist anymore than republicans. Either party may be comprised by more or less centrist politicians, but if that holds it just moves the center over time. Both parties change their stances on issues periodically in ways that would seem to violate first principles of a philosophical left/right philosophy. But political philosophy is always more accurately measured in a quadrant system[0] than a linear one. In a two-party system, or one of a forced synthesis/aggregation of viewpoints and dialectic conflict, a Democrat will tend to hold views left of center in the US, or at least support politicians who hold such views, and the reverse for Republicans.

[0] the intersection of two axes measuring social and economic positions, popularized as the “political compass”

[tsimionescu]

Politics in the US is not limited to the two parties. The population of the US has a wide range of political opinions that don't neatly aligned to the mainline Democratic or Republican views. Especially in the US, with its system of primaries, the real politics of the population are relevant even when the official election essentially only offers 2 candidates.

And in the real US, the Democratic party is to the right of a vast majority of its own voters' views, on issues such as Medicare for All most prominently, but others as well. It's even to the right of the views of large swaths of Republican voters on many issues, such as withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan. The Democratic party is much closer to the Center of the political opinions of the US population, at least on economic and foreign policy matters (I would say it's well in the center-right of American political views actually on those matters). It may well be on the 'real left' on social and family matters, to be fair.

Not to mention, there are many other political forces and voices, which form a clear left pole far to the left of the Democratic party (I gave specific examples), and they have large amounts of increasingly organized support. They will likely pull the Democratic party to the left instead of establishing a pure leftist party, but that is far from having happened. You can look instead at how much the extreme right has been pulling the Republican party right to see the mechanisms

So the way I see it, the US population has left leaning people, right leaning people, and centrists. Looking at the relative opinions of the population, the Democratic party is overall in the Center, and the Republicans are well on the right (these are overall generalizations). Of course, in the absence of better choices, leftist voters will generally vote Democratic, as the Center is preferable to them than the Right.

More importantly for this claim, papers like the NYT and networks like CNN are explicitly cultivating centrist beliefs (especially on economic and foreign policy matters), often leaning far more to the right on such issues compared to the majority of the population (look at Brian Williams repulsive praise of the 'beauty of our weapons' on MSNBC[0] as they were reporting on a US missile attack on a Syrian base).

[0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jNHOJwgZyfo

[aksss]

In practical terms the US is limited to two parties. Name the last time a third party won the Presidency. This is woven into the structure.

This doesn't limit the spectrum of opinions of individuals by any means but it does compel some degree of consensus and organization to mount a serious campaign.

> They will likely pull the Dem party to the left

Yes, the parties vacillate in how far left or right they are, and the center moves accordingly. Still, the center of US politics isn't defined by some "objective truth" it's defined by the relative position of the two political parties. Some ideas that have been centrist in the past are now extremist, some ideas that have been considered extreme in the past are now considered the accepted consensus.

[tsimionescu]

In the end this is just a matter of definitions. For my own understanding, I define left and right and center in terms of the relative opinions of the population, not the parties. You define them by the parties' positions - that's fair of course, it's a workable definition.

I do think there are advantages to my definition - by your definition, the majority of the US population has an extreme left position on Medicare for all, as an example.

[tacitusarc]

This is changing the meaning of the word left, and then redefining Democrat as centrist, which is just incorrect.

[hef19898]

Depends on where you are from. In most, if not all, western democracies the Democrats pass as centrist. People like Bernie pass as slightly left of center in Germany for example. And passes as left parties over here would considered full-blown communist in the US.

[spiralx]

That's just not true of the Democratic Party by any useful metric and likewise there is nothing about Bernie's platform that would be centre-left anywhere in Europe, the majority of his proposals being to the left of anything implemented anywhere.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/26/opinion/sunda...

[hef19898]

If I understood the NYT article correct, the Democrats are put left, among other things, because of support for climate measures. Fun fact, the CSU, as far right as you get in Germany when you ignore the AfD, is also supporting measures to fight climate change now. The CSU also kind of opposes gay marriage, are among the more extremer views regarding abortion. And support public health care. They do not fight to make abortion illegal so. No do they with gay marriage. I see that as them being more "left" than anything I see coming from the GOP at the moment. And the CSU, as I said, considered the most right / conservative of our mainstream parties.

Bernie on the other hand would fit in perfectly well with the SPD, our social democrats. "Die Linke", the leftest one in the article, is a joint party of the SED (the former DDRs government party), some communists from western Germany and the far left wing of the SPD. They are as much left as the AfD is right.

I do see a lot of parallels between the AfD and the right wing of the GOP so. Especially regarding immigrants, muslims, the Covid pandemic and views of family values.

[bordercases]

If we're still talking about US news outlets being mistrusted by American citizens subscribing to US political parties, this comparison is irrelevant.

[Daho0n]

Do you see a situation where the word left means something different if you are talking about national politics versus international politics as a good idea? Because that is the situation you are in if you won't acknowledge that the Democrats are centrist. What then do you call left leaning politics outside the US? Left left? Foreign Left? Communists? This misuse and redefining of words is one of the reasons we have people crying Socialist or Communist of left leaning politicians.

[Nasrudith]

Left and right are relative really. Wanting to shift to a constitutional monarchy was once "the left" or having only Chrisianity as first class citizens in comparison to only Catholicism or Protestantism.

International politics should be contextually anchored essentially. So you say "Party X from country Y is further left than part A from country B." That is putting aside "mixed political aspects". Is a communist country which outlaws homosexuality to the left or right of a free market capitalist country which has gay marriage?

[tsimionescu]

Sure, but in my opinion you should base that on the political leanings of the population of the countrybypu are analyzing, not only on its political parties.

Mixed political aspects are a good argument to be careful in discussing 'overall' political leanings. There are real-world mixups like you describe - for example, Marine Le Pen, while a frighteningly far right extremist on social and foreign policy issues, was to the left of someone like Nancy Pelosi or Hillary Clinton on many economic policy aspects.

[Daho0n]

Well, personal freedom is neither left nor right but rather up (Libertarianism) versus down (Authoritarian). If you divide the political spectrum in a XY scatter chart you get both Bush, Trump and Obama at Top Right pretty close to each other in Authoritarian Right. Someone like Sanders is to the Left but still pretty Authoritarian in some ways, so not really what is seen as Left outside the US. Someone who is what is normally called Left (left and down) would be Jill Stein (or Noam Chomsky if not only looking at politicians). So in short, both your examples are likely in the Top Right; Right Authoritarians, if they are from the US.

>Wanting to shift to a constitutional monarchy was once "the left"

Yes, in many places they still have names from back then. For example one of the biggest political parties from Denmark is named "Venstre" which literally means "Left", even though they are to the Right (conservative-liberal). Quite funny that a close match from Norway is called "Høyre" which means "Right". They rooted for Joe Biden in the election though and had a big party back when Obama won, because US Left is their Right to center-right and the republicans are just way too extreme for their taste.

[tsimionescu]

It's not, the US left is represented by papers such as Jacobin, intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky, and politicians like Bernie Sanders, (who has only recently - ~last 10 years of his half a century career- joined the Democratic party), and organizations like the Nurses Union.

Sure, it's true that the Democratic Party is to the left of the Republican Party, and that there are actual leftists in the DP, such as Bernie or AOC, but the vast majority of the party is centrist at best, especially on economic issues.

On many economic issues, Hillary Clinton or Nancy Pelosi are on the right of someone like Marine LePen or Viktor Orban.