[nekusar]

"Extreme left" said by someone likely from the USA is slightly left-of-center basically anywhere else.

The USA democrats and "left" have been overton window'ed so hard that a actual democratic socialist, Mamdani, is compared to being a communist. https://nypost.com/cover/november-5-2025/

There's also hundreds of Lemmy federated servers. I'm sure some are actual communist. But there's plenty for all walks of life. And it's like Mastodon in that regard.

And honestly, if "killing SNAP and other public benefits for poor people" is capitalist, I want nothing to do with that. That is completely ethically bankrupt. Doubly so being one of the richest countries in the world. Absolutely 0 people should be starving. And I'd also say that 0 people should be involuntarily homeless. (some may want to, and choose to be vagabonds and travel. they should have that right! but they should also be able to choose to have a home.)

[zjp]

>"Extreme left" said by someone likely from the USA is slightly left-of-center basically anywhere else.

This is a 2000s era meme that was started to try and get people to see reason and vote against Bush, but it is not true and has not been for coming up on a decade. The Democratic Party is to the left of many European left parties, especially on issues like immigration and freedom of identity, and its politicians (especially the young ones) regularly pitch welfare state expansions that are more generous than European counterparts (see Kat Abu on 'medicare for anyone physically present in the US, for free'; a more generous offer than even the NHS).

[cheikhcheikh]

Is that the democratic party or a fringe left that is trying to accomplish something as part of the party ? what policies did the democrats actually implement across the years? Bernie is considered by the democratic party leadership to be a radical(hes not) and would prop up anyone but him

[zjp]

>What policies did the Democrats actually implement over the years?

Roughly in order: Don't Ask/Don't Tell repeal. Dodd-Frank. Lily Ledbetter (extends the statute of limitations on equal pay suits). Making it clear that sexual orientation and gender identity are equal to race in hate crime law. Banning lifetime coverage caps so your insurer cannot simply decide your life is not worth living and banning the practice of excluding pre-existing conditions from healthcare coverage so that you are not enslaved to whatever employer you happened to be working for when you got the worst news of your life. Establishing the CFPB to end unfair credit practices like medical debt reporting. Capping the cost of insulin at $35 per month for Medicare. Allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices. ACA subsidy expansion. People our normie centrist presidents put on the bench decided Obergefell. People our normie centrist presidents put on the bench are protecting human expression.

You have to engage in motivated reasoning not to recognize these things as making life better. If you want to make life even better, consider voting for Democrats. When you don't vote for them, they become the minority party. When they are the minority party, no amount of impotent screaming or saying please can turn 49 votes into 61 votes, nor can it force Republicans to help them help you.

Bernie is a loudmouth with almost no legislative accomplishments that spent his life building his own brand and ratfucking the party. Of course the party leadership doesn't like him. When you get a rock in your shoe, do you like the rock?

Actual leaders are in the trenches right now embarrassing the GOP with this shutdown to force them to make COVID-era healthcare subsidies permanent. What's Bernie doing except derailing news events to complain that party leadership isn't supporting his faction in comparatively irrelevant local races?

[hshdhdhj4444]

Ah yes, so one candidate for the Democratic primary (she isn’t even a Dem primary winner yet) for one of 434 Congressional seats may have a position that on the edge might be slightly more “left wing” on one issue in one of the more right wing Western European nations, is clearly evidence that the U.S. is no longer far to Europe’s right…

To be fair, setting aside my snark, I don’t disagree with you. The real problem here is simply the fact that the single axis left-right political framework is insufficient to capture even the simplest democracy in the world right now.

And the US has made huge leaps to the left on some axes, but is still far to the right of the European center on many other axes.

[HeinzStuckeIt]

The OP says tankies. Those kinds of extreme left are extreme even by non-USA standards. A European-style democratic socialist like Mamdani would be, one hopes, to the right of them. Tankies were largely forced out of European mainstream parties after the shocks of 1937, 1956 and 1968.

[skinnymuch]

A better way to think of it is that the western “left” isn’t part of the global left. Using tankie unironically is a classic example.

[Sammi]

The massive sympathy for Russia in the Ukraine war among the far left makes it pretty clear that tankies are alive and kicking.

[Loughla]

I haven't encountered that. Where are you seeing that other than in one or two people? Is that a thing in online spaces?

[cheikhcheikh]

Can you share any evidence of this massive sympathy?

[anukin]

Lemmy is occupied by tankies and Marxist leninists and that’s not my type of lefties. They also espouse violence which I don’t like. For example the main federated server is called lemmy.ml ml standing for Marxist leninists. They are also the developer server hence all federated servers have to federate with them.

[webspinner]

Well you can choose to affiliate with another party. I did so. I was unaffilaated for years, though!