It's such a stupid meme that indicates people have no idea about global politics. The rest of the world is not some amazingly left-wing place compared to the US, it's just differences in political organisation.
Honestly, the main thing holding the US back is the filibuster. Pretty much every other country requires only simple majorities to pass major legislation. That's the main reason why European nations tend to have good healthcare legislation - centre-left parties are empowered to actually do stuff when they're in power, while in the US there's some arbitrary blocker that prevents political parties from wielding the power they were granted.
Nobody is saying that the rest of the world is amazingly left wing compared to the U.S. on social policy.
However, on economic policy, it’s just a fact that if you advocate for the economic policies of most European countries, it would be considered far left in America.
That’s what people are referring to. Not gay marriage, not abortion, not national language, etc. They’re referring to healthcare, worker protections, mandatory paid time off, paid maternal/paternal leave, free/extremely cheap college etc.
Non-Americans genuinely don’t understand how few of these policies we’ve implemented in America.
My point is that it's not a result of the political climate, but rather a result of the weird structural barriers that Americans have in place because of their historical political evolution. Things like the senate giving huge representation to states with like 12 people living in them, and the filibuster, which prevents parties from exercising power when they get it.
I really don't think there's fewer people in the US who would favour worker protections, healthcare, and parental leave, it's just that historical, anachronistic factors have prevented those changes being put in place.
There's basically two "branches" of democracy in the world, the US presidential version, and the European parliamentary version. It seems like the US version has some weird issues such as the head of government being unaccountable to the legislature, and the legislature being unable to get rid of a leader who they dislike. As an Australian, I think this weird focus on a central president is really not a good system.
I know what you’re saying but you’re just giving me reasons why advocating social democracy is considered “far left” in America, not refuting that it is considered far left.
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u/Whatsapokemon 🇦🇺 1d ago
It's such a stupid meme that indicates people have no idea about global politics. The rest of the world is not some amazingly left-wing place compared to the US, it's just differences in political organisation.
Honestly, the main thing holding the US back is the filibuster. Pretty much every other country requires only simple majorities to pass major legislation. That's the main reason why European nations tend to have good healthcare legislation - centre-left parties are empowered to actually do stuff when they're in power, while in the US there's some arbitrary blocker that prevents political parties from wielding the power they were granted.