[AnimalMuppet]

> You didn't really respond to the assertion that all American politicians are right-wing, but it's true.

"Two people repeating it on HN comments" != "it's true".

It really boils down to: What's your standard of reference? You seem to want to use Europe (I assume) as the standard for defining left and right in US politics. Why do you consider that a reasonable thing to do?

And even if you consider it a reasonable thing, why Europe? Why not Asia? Or the Middle East? Or Africa? Or the world as a whole?

Or why not, you know, use the US as the standard for judging what left and right are in US politics?

[rsj_hn]

I have noticed this thing where people get really offended if you were to say "America is a Western European nation", constantly pointing out that America is sampled from the whole world, and a rapidly shrinking subset of that world is Western Europe. In fact if one were to say that today, they might even be accused of Eurocentrism, racism or other bad things.

Right up until politics, crime rates, infrastructure, public policy, or really any matter of consequence is discussed, at which point we transform back into a Western European nation.

There must be a word to describe this type of dualist rhetoric but I can't quite put my finger on it. Also, those people complaining about the Democrat or Republican party being too right wing tend to be Americans who know nothing about right wing political parties in Europe. Yes, left wing parties in a multi-party system are much more radical in Europe, but so are right wing parties. What these people want is the stability and institutional weight of a party in the two-party system but the radicalism of a European left-wing party.

[krageon]

Are you under the impression that if the hypothetical scope were moved off of Europe (why even assume it is on there?), US political parties would seem less unilaterally right-wing? I don't think you could make a coherent (and truthful) case for that, but I might be interested to read it.

[AnimalMuppet]

Well, if you put the focus on the Middle East, I'm pretty sure every US party would be extremely left-wing.

Now, I agree that the Middle East is not where the standard of reference should be, but it's the area that I'm pretty sure of how we compare. Others are more tricky.

Central and South America? There are countries there that we are clearly to the right of, but also some that we align somewhat with. I don't recall whether there are currently any right-wing dictatorships there.

Asia? We could be to the left of some countries there. I don't have a good idea of how to describe where China is right now - are they right or left? They kind of have elements of both. At least some parties in India are to the right of the US. I don't have a good feel for Africa, though I'd bet that in at least some countries, some parties are to the right of the US.

So... it's complicated. I think I can make a... a "case" might be overstating it, but at least a handwaving argument that if you move the focus off of Europe, then US political parties are less clearly right-wing. But an actual case? That would take something like a worldwide ranking of political parties on a left-right axis, which is data that I freely admit that I do not have.