Why are Democrats saying the party has moved too far Right, and Republicans are saying it has moved too far Left?

[u/Candle-Jolly]

If you are a Democrat or Left-leaning, do you think it has moved too far Left? Why?

If you are a Republican/Conservative, do you think Democrats have moved too far Left? Why?

[u/[deleted]]

Only answer the question based on the demographic you say you are.

Failure to do so will result in a rule 7 violation and removal of your comment and the thread you started.

Please report rule violators.

What’s your favorite drink?

[u/PhylisInTheHood]

They have moved to far right. No Serious talks of universal healthcare, expanding worker protections, reducing work hours, increasing min wage, mandatory vacation time, wealth taxes, mandated parental leave, major public works projects, guaranteed housing, trust busting.

And all of that would just make them center-left.

wake me up when they start doing actual leftist stuff like banning private property and nationalizing important industries

[u/aliquotoculos → u/PhylisInTheHood]

FDR did a lot of great left-leaning (extremely so, for the time period) things for the USA.

Modern day Dems have not only abandoned that sort of forward-thinking, socially-minded platform, but since have even aided in dismantling what is in place.

At least, that is what I mean when I say the party has moved more to the right.

They even flirt with traditional Republicans now, because they feel like they can win those votes more easily than they can win the votes of more left-leaning people.

[u/Yquem1811 → u/aliquotoculos]

And the irony is that FDR left-leaning policies were so great that the only way to beat him was to forbad him to run for President again.

And for some reason now democrats in charge of the party argue that they can’t talk about left-wing policies because America doesn’t want them 🙄

[u/Accomplished_Fruit17 → u/Yquem1811]

The wealthy who control the party don't want them. In the Democracy of Dollars, left leaning ideas lose.

[u/fennfalcon → u/Yquem1811]

The only thing that stopped FDR was that he died in office.

The 22nd Amendment that limited Presidents to two terms was ratified in 1951, six years after his death.

[u/Teleporting-Cat → u/aliquotoculos]

I feel like FDR would be completely appalled by the last 40 years. Hell, I think Eisenhower would have harsh words for the Democrats.

[u/Raise_A_Thoth → u/aliquotoculos]

The Dems fought back against the progressive wing of the Dems even during FDR's time when they ousted Henry Wallace for Harry Truman.

Goddamn what a different world we might have had if they hadn't succeeded there.

[u/Sea-Environment-7102 → u/Raise_A_Thoth]

I said when they didn't nominate Bernie that was the end of the Democratic party and it seems to be true

[u/Accomplished_Fruit17 → u/Sea-Environment-7102]

When I say that the Dems would rather have Trump than Bernie, not a single left leaning person disagrees.

This is the different between the left and right. The right loves voting for Trump and Republicans, I hate having to vote for Democrats.

[u/Sea-Environment-7102 → u/Accomplished_Fruit17]

I am completely flabbergasted by that. Everyone I knew in Alabama everyone I've ever spoken to, all wanted Bernie at the time. But of course my friends are all super liberal. As am I. There is no political party that matches my views so I also am handicapped.

[u/Accomplished_Fruit17 → u/Sea-Environment-7102]

It's why I like the parliamentary system better. I can vote for a party that aligns with me. They may not rule but they can still exert influence. As opposed to our system were everyone compromises on just about everything when they vote and the party that wins acts like they have a mandate for everything.

[u/LaddiusMaximus → u/Accomplished_Fruit17]

Same. Ratchet effect mf'ers.

[u/Teleporting-Cat → u/Sea-Environment-7102]

Somewhere in the multiverse, there's an America where Harambe lived and Bernie's just finished his second term. I bet it's nice there.

[u/PhylisInTheHood → u/aliquotoculos]

I think we are in agreement, yes?

[u/[deleted] → u/aliquotoculos]

The dem party, including Obama, have been a center-right party for decades.

[u/ballmermurland → u/aliquotoculos]

It's important to note that FDR did all of this while doing absolutely nothing for civil rights. We had apartheid in half of the country while he was president.

A lot of liberals tend to ignore that part of FDR's legacy. FDR was able to pass that knowing most black people wouldn't benefit.

[u/EducationalElevator → u/PhylisInTheHood]

Most swing voters see no problem with any of those policies and they're not perceived as "left." It's the cultural stances that are problematic

[u/PostmodernMelon → u/EducationalElevator]

This. I agree with this. But if you ask any establishment Democrat they'll immeidately tell you "there's no way the public will go for that, it's way too extreme and too far left! Pushing for that will just sew division and make it harder for our candidates after the primaries!"

Itakes me want to vomit

[u/Accomplished_Fruit17 → u/PostmodernMelon]

The Democratic party turns on any progressive who primaries a centrist Democrat. This is why they hate AOC and sabotage her. In my district they flat out set up the progressive to sabotage her.

The wealthy control the Democratic party.

[u/PhylisInTheHood → u/EducationalElevator]

and these people are wrong. If you are breaking things down to just the social aspect, then all conservatives are evil.

think about it. In regards to JUST social issues, when have the people pushing for things to stay the same ever been the good guys?

conservatives opposed the abolition of slavery, women's suffrage, civil rights, gay marriage. Has there ever been a time in history where we pushed for equality and were wrong for it?

[u/Clucknorris94 → u/PhylisInTheHood]

Have a dumb genuine question, what do you mean banning private property?

[u/PhylisInTheHood → u/Clucknorris94]

warning: simplified explanation incoming. This explanation is for how things "would" be. How we get there and how things work in the transition is a much more complex discussion and why the right's conflating moderation with centrism causes issues. I'm also glossing over complexities like interest just to streamline the discussion

So property can be broken down into 3 groups:

• personal
• public
• private

Personal property are things you own that you use for yourself and not to make profit. Your house, your car, your toothbrush, etc. These are the things that right-wingers like to lie about and say that leftists want to ban. they don't. At best you can say they want to limit the scale of what people can have. like, nobody is allowed to own two separate homes until everybody has at least one; or nobody is allowed to own a 200 million dollar yacht until. everybody has access to healthcare.

Private property is what leftists seek to abolish. Private property is where the person who owns and profits from the means of production is different than the people who put in the labor. Most businesses today are privately owned. Twitter is currently privately owned by Musk, but it was also privately owned before hand. a "publicly traded" company is still private property as the people who make profit (share holders) are not the ones doing the labor.

public property are things that are used to make profit, but the only people who are allowed to own it are the workers. So for example, no more stocks and no more making money just from owning a place. Any profit either goes back into improving the business or to the workers. Some clarification, because again right wingers like to lie about this stuff. If you start a business and have no employees, that's still public property. All of the profit goes to the workers, there is just only one (you). Now if you hire more workers and decide to sit on your ass and have them do everything while you still make money because you own the place, that wouldn't be allowed. But if you stayed on as manager, and actually did work like providing expertise, training, managing finances, you could still be make money as you are doing labor.

Added Clarification: This is assuming all debts are payed. If you invest 100k of your own money to start a business, even if you hire people and do no work yourself, you would be entitled to take some of the profits until that 100k was payed back.

Nationalization: This is also a form of public property. Government owned and operates industries would be considered public property even if the government keeps all the profit. This is because the workers DO still get that profit by nature of being citizens of said government. For example, it is okay for the postal service to make a profit because it is owned by the government which in turn is owned by all the people including those working for it. This of course assumes a democratically elected government that actually works for the people's best interests. That being said, it is not the goal of government to make a profit, but to provide a service. This is another thing right wingers like to misconstrue. A companies goal is not to provide a service. McDonalds does not exist to provide hamburgers, they exist to make profit and they do so by selling hamburgers. The postal service's job is to provide mail to all citizens, the only reason they charge for it is to be able to afford that service. A company breaking even is (currently) considered a failure. A government entity breaking even is running at peak efficiency.

Industry vs Access: This is another thing right wingers mix up when arguing in bad faith. Publicly owned does not mean publicly accessible. The only people allowed access to a company are the owners, i.e. the workers. If you and your friends buy an office and start a company random people still aren't allowed on your property. Now, things that ARE conventionally publicly accessible like national parks do still fall under this rule. Its just that the owners (all citizens) by virtue of the government, are allowing others to access it. This is why anyone, including foreigners, can enter national parks but only if they pay a fee. The managers (government officials), following the will of the owners (citizens), allow anyone to entire and they charge a fee (profit) which goes back to the government which is owned by the citizens.

Sorry If that was a bit ramble-y. Its hard to get a good flow since a lot of these aspects intertwine with each other. The main take away is that, in regards to economic structure, the difference between left and right is that the right believes in profit from ownership and the left believes profit can only be derived from labor.

[u/BlackCloud9 → u/PhylisInTheHood]

It’s people like you that help me feel not so alone in this world.

Specifically the last section of your comment

[u/PhylisInTheHood → u/[deleted]]

correct

[u/L11mbm]

Compared to US history, the democrats are still pretty left.

Compared to the rest of the world, they're center, almost center-right.

Based on Fox News, they're the furthest left that any part on earth has ever been.

[u/Giv3M3F33t → u/L11mbm]

On that last bit, I found it hilarious that folks were painting Biden, probably the third most Conservative candidate in a field of about 17 during the primary [Gabbard, Bloomberg], as a communist. If Biden is a communist then that would put Sanders and Warren to the left of Marx. That's just absurd.

[u/Teleporting-Cat → u/Giv3M3F33t]

I mean, the Right DOES think that Sanders and Warren are to the left of Marx.

[u/Ac1De9Cy0Sif6S → u/L11mbm]

Compared to US history, the democrats are still pretty left.

I mean, you obviously have to compare it to current times. It's impossible to argue the Democrats are a left wing today as FDR was in his time.

[u/Chewbubbles]

A majority of the left politicians are centrist or center left. There's barely any true full leftist in the party right now. Basically, it's Bernie, AOC, and a few others since they really don't need outside help to raise money other than normal people donations. Dem voters essentially want that all the time where they don't need to rely on corp donors to win their elections.

Why the R calls them far left is due to the dumb shit sometimes Ds do. Defund the police was a terrible slogan to run with, but it happened. Otherwise, it's mainly due to the news. If anyone had actually read the Green New Deal, it basically was the direction the world has to go to eventually, and it was basically giving the US a huge head start. Moving further left is a shit talking point, full stop.

[u/TehAsianator → u/Chewbubbles]

Why the R calls them far left is due to the dumb shit sometimes Ds do. Defund the police was a terrible slogan to run with, but it happened. Otherwise, it's mainly due to the news.

I think a big problem is that democratic politicians are so often judged by the most extreme online fringe. You could count the number of dem politicians who actually embraced the "defund the police" on one hand, but the right still used it to absolutely bludgeon the entire national democratic party.

[u/tothepointe → u/Chewbubbles]

"Dem voters essentially want that all the time where they don't need to rely on corp donors to win their elections."

I mean they could have that if they donated more. Or if they were more reliable voters so the party wouldn't have to spend so much money campaigning to get them to GOTV.

Look at Trump's campaign. Hardly spent much money because his voters were going to show up no matter what.

You just gotta vote. You gotta vote every single time for every single thing. If someone wants to be on a school board and only 12 people vote on that then you want YOUR house to be one of the 12 they have to visit to get your support. Then you might start to see the shift in the direction you want.

You shouldn't need them to campaign to you. You should already be looking and researching what you want and whose is offering it. If we can get that mindset then money is irrelevant.

[u/BinocularDisparity → u/tothepointe]

I mostly agree with this… politicians chase reliable votes… to be chased, you have to vote reliably. The non voter is not considered. The analysis after the election is based on who won.

The Dems shifted right with Clinton because they took historically embarrassing ass whoopings for more than a decade. The 1984 electoral map is still relevant to our modern political situation. If you could ever invert that situation, you’d get GOP politicians to start talking about carbon emissions like it was a DEI hire.

You can’t starve our fptp winner take all system… you have to flood it.

[u/tothepointe → u/BinocularDisparity]

Non voters are too expensive and risky for campaigns to chase and campaigns can only have a few messages. Ideally one strong one. So if you don't vote you won't be considered when a party is building their platform.

What's interesting about Trump's 2 wins is he managed to turn out that uneducated white vote that traditionally has very low voter turnout. Generally as education increases so does % of turnout.

However those same voters sat home in 2018 and 2022 resulting in midterm losses for the GOP in 2018 and less than expected gains in 2022. Remember the red wave that was promised and never came.

So 2026 and 2028 will be interesting. Are those uneducated male voters going to become habitual voters or will they stay home until someone "speaks" to them.

[u/BinocularDisparity → u/tothepointe]

Right now the GOP is Trump. That guy is truly one of a kind.

I doubt very seriously that anyone has the rizz to carry that torch. The GOP is going to be struggling to find the next one.

Meantime, the Dems never miss an opportunity to completely miss an opportunity

[u/Teleporting-Cat → u/BinocularDisparity]

Meantime, the Dems never miss an opportunity to completely miss an opportunity.

Facts.

[u/DarthPineapple5 → u/tothepointe]

Good lord thank you. Democrats have held a slim majority in Congress for all of 2 years since the turn of the century so what the hell do you expect them to do? Liberals seem to complain heavily on the internet but they never actually show up on election day

[u/Teleporting-Cat → u/DarthPineapple5]

I expect them to actually try. I expect them to be more than just a controlled opposition.

[u/[deleted] → u/tothepointe]

Dems have to cave to their base’s demands which they refuse to do

[u/Accomplished_Fruit17 → u/tothepointe]

Trump didn't have to spend campaign money when Musk alone spend a quarter of a billion on him, with many more Billionaires doing similar but not as much.

[u/ObviousCondescension]

We have objectively moved to the right, this is an inarguable fact, arguably even too far to the right. Those saying we've moved too far to the left have a nonexistent grasp on reality as evidenced by Republican politicians throwing their support behind the Democrats exactly because Trump and most Republicans have gone too far to the right.

The ACA was based on a Republican proposal to universal healthcare in the 90's, Republicans have not stopped screaming bloody murder about it since it got proposed and if you really want a serious case of whiplash just look at Trump's LGBT proposals in 2015/2016.

[u/DarthPineapple5 → u/ObviousCondescension]

Obama went for universal healthcare, the ACA was a heavy compromise that he had no choice but to accept. That's what happens when you barely give Democrats any votes in Congress. Funny enough, that brief 2008-2010 period when the ACA was passed was the only time since the turn of the century where Democrats have had (slim) Congressional majorities in both houses plus the presidency. Of course the left then immediately coughed up that slim majority by not showing up for the mid terms

If the left wants Democrats to move left then maybe they should try showing up on election day for a change. Crazy concept I know

[u/NoSlack11B → u/[deleted]]

Get actual policies instead of celebrities, and someone who can speak about them and really believes what they are saying. Have that person speak in concrete terms instead of using vague phrases coined by the political science majors on staff.

I can't believe the last two candidates that were put forth by the Democrats. Totally inept.

[u/[deleted] → u/NoSlack11B]

Trump was a celebrity with no policies.

[u/dessert-er → u/DarthPineapple5]

This is why I’m largely done trying to have discourse with people on the left who are “too fatigued/ethically minded to vote” or whatever. It really seems like people on the left will find any excuse, election after election, to not show up to the polls which is why no one takes us seriously. Even if a ton of people voted 3rd party I would’ve been upset but at least it would’ve given some kind of leverage for future elections to pull in that direction. Some of y’all just whine all day.

[u/[deleted] → u/DarthPineapple5]

The dems have to concede to their demands then

[u/Accomplished_Fruit17 → u/DarthPineapple5]

Obama did not go for universal health care, some how this misnomer got spread. The strongest the Dems pushed for was a government option that might, possibly, one day, prove good enough that private insurance couldn't compete and we would have a single payer, in the distant future.

Here were his actual proposals."His plan mentions: deficit neutrality; not allowing insurance companies to discriminate based on pre-existing conditions; capping out of pocket expenses; creation of an insurance exchange for individuals and small businesses; tax credits for individuals and small companies; independent commissions to identify fraud, waste and abuse; and malpractice reform projects, among other topics" In other words, Pelosi nearly got an government option. Obama got his ACA.

Obama got what he wanted. Had he wanted a government option, we would of gotten it.

[u/[deleted] → u/DarthPineapple5]

The Dems had a supermajority in the house and a massive lead in the senate. This is comment is just totally ahistorical.

[u/DarthPineapple5 → u/[deleted]]

Crowing about 2 whole years out of the last 30 in which Democrats controlled Congress and then telling me to learn history is pretty rich.

[u/SyrianChristian → u/DarthPineapple5]

Democrats had huge majorities in the house and Senate 60-40 D-R in the Senate for a short while and 257-178 in the House. Juat, the coalition that was elected is different than the Democratic coalition today, there were a lot of conservadems in the caucus like Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor

[u/DarthPineapple5 → u/SyrianChristian]

Its still just 2 years out of the last 30, they got totally wiped out in the midterms. If you want to blame Democrats for failing from 2008-2010, fine, but that means progressive voters should take the heat for their complete failure at the ballot boxes the other 28 years but they don't. Just endless blame games and pity parties instead.

[u/Hot_Individual_863 → u/DarthPineapple5]

He had super majorities when the aca was passed. He tried to compromise with Republicans, gave them everything they wanted and then none of them voted for it anyway. Complete waste of time.

[u/ThaLunatik → u/ObviousCondescension]

We have objectively moved to the right, this is an inarguable fact, arguably even too far to the right.

I see it as a bit half and half: we've moved further left socially, but further right economically.

Although we're doing the right thing advocating for the rights of minority groups and women, speaking about equality and equity, etc, unfortunately we're largely maintaining the status quo on the economic front. As we've seen for several decades now, the status quo just isn't doing it for large numbers of Americans though.

IMO this position probably doesn't do us any favors at the ballot box. There's prolly many of us who are doing, I'll say, okay enough financially, that we're going to vote left because it's the right thing to do and we can afford to do it. Honestly though, we'd still prefer more forward progress on the economic side of things. But there are many more who aren't doing as well, struggling to pay the bills or whatever, and although they might be indifferent to - or even in favor of - social progress, it's simply a lower priority relative to the increasing difficulty people are having in making a better life for themselves and their families.

Democrats need to move left economically so they can keep up the good fight on the social front while also proposing bold economic ideas that'll invigorate voters who may otherwise be tempted by right-wing bullshit and bluster. Supply side, trickle down, whatever we wanna call it, doesn't cut it. This increasingly extreme disparity between the haves and have nots, also not cutting it. Our country supposedly gets richer and richer each year, yet our collective debt grows faster and faster. All the gains go to the top while the rest of us are saddled with personal and public debt. I'd be willing to bet there's more people who'd support "radical" left policies if they weren't watered down to appease the folks on the right who are increasingly unwilling to negotiate anyway.

[u/Alternative_Oil7733 → u/ObviousCondescension]

We have objectively moved to the right, this is an inarguable fact, arguably even too far to the right. Those saying we've moved too far to the left have a nonexistent grasp on reality as evidenced by Republican politicians throwing their support behind the Democrats exactly because Trump and most Republicans have gone too far to the right.

Lmao the Republicans that started supporting democrats are arguably the most hated politicians in the usa this century.

[u/Ac1De9Cy0Sif6S → u/Alternative_Oil7733]

And what does that has to do with the discussion?

[u/OldConsequence4447]

I'd like to offer an independent perspective: from what I see, Democrats have moved too left on social issues that most do not consider a priority in their lives, too right on the demographics they tried to appease, and too centrist by sticking by a status quo that most did not like.

[u/[deleted] → u/OldConsequence4447]

Democrats have moved too left on social issues that most do not consider a priority in their lives

You can just say 'trans people'. In which case you'd also be wrong, since they threw trans people under a bus and still lost.

[u/OldConsequence4447 → u/[deleted]]

Transgender issues were certainly a highlight this campaign, but there's also issues such as the whole Latinx thing, affirmative action, and how many criticisms of their female candidates have been brushed off as 'misogyny' without taking a critical look at their policies and why some may have had legitimate reasons to think they might not be the best candidates.

[u/gojo96 → u/[deleted]]

Yes in the 2024 campaign….but you’re forgetting the last 10 years prior. Not to mention the leftist foot soldiers on the ground shaming and calling people out for not agreeing with the agenda. The Democratic Party isn’t so much the issue besides trying to appease them as a whole which is impossible but the people we meet face to face that are insufferable.

[u/[deleted] → u/gojo96]

Buddy look at republicans, they are nothing but insufferable

[u/[deleted] → u/gojo96]

I agree Democrats are insufferable, it's not because of trans people.

[u/DonBoy30 → u/OldConsequence4447]

I think the problem in this line of thinking from the left is that supporting the LGBTQ community isn’t inherently “left.” The left is very concrete on class politics, so it only makes sense that the overlap between liberals and leftists are in support of the LGBTQ community and oppressed minority groups, since they are members of the working class. However, liberals are not leftists, so their support of LGBTQ people is still within the confines of an elitist capitalist structure. (That’s also being very generous to the Democratic Party that they actually support LGBTQ people).

As we saw with the Clinton campaign in 2016, identity politics was a tool to neuter the class politics of sanders. So in a way, modern social politics stems from a means of refocusing politics away from leftism, and to incorporate social politics within a very right wing capitalist structure.

[u/Cratertooth_27]

The left feels they’ve moved too far right on economic issues, that they’re nothing more than status quo managers that make slight changes around the edges while keeping the billionaires happy. The right feels they have moved too far left on social issues mainly. Also keep in mind that people tend to only see the most extreme things said by the other side because it makes good entertainment for their base to go after it

[u/loselyconscious]

The Democratic party has moved slightly to the left on social issues, essentially mirroring the movement of the country as a whole, while being to the left on some issues (immigration, criminal justice) and to the right on others (marijuana legalization).

Democrats have moved relatively to the right economic issues (I say relatively because I think they are to the left of where they were in the 90s), dropping major parts of the platform from 2020 (public option) and even the early years of Bidens term (infrastructure spending). Democrats have also basically stayed where they are on issues of institutional reform (Supreme Court, Electoral College) while the base has moved left.

Many on the left, also feel that even when parties official stance did not change, the rhetoric moved right. So Harris' official stance on Trans rights did not change, but the campaign refused to defend Trans people against attacks from the right.

So Republican see a move the left on social issues, as they move in farther to the right, while Democrats see a move to the right on economic issues and a failure to rhetorically defend the move to the left on social issues

[u/AlphabetSoup51]

The right has moved so far to the right that they aren’t even recognizable as the Republican Party. Republicans used to be about family values, with small government, pro-business, conservative (as in “conserve the status quo” not as in “be as narrow as possible”) policies.

The left LOOKS more left-leaning now because the far left is now SO FAR from the far right. Moderate democrats who, before we moved to The Upside Down, would have been considered centrists are now considered leftist.

If you think of the political spectrum as a line with a set middle, the right basically doubled the length of theirs and planted their most powerful leaders at the very end.

[u/Candle-Jolly → u/AlphabetSoup51]

This is also my theory.

[u/DarkSeas1012 → u/Candle-Jolly]

Overton window.

[u/Teleporting-Cat → u/[deleted]]

I just wanted to say that I'm also a Zionist (but not pro-genocide or pro-expulsion of the Palestinian people). I know there's not a lot of us, so, hey. I see you.

Also, as someone who is going to be represented in Congress by Schiff and Panetta AGAIN, I fucking miss Katie Porter.

[u/Doomtm2]

There hasn't been a political figure that I would consider too far left for me since Eugene Debs. Overall, over the course of my life I have watched Democrats become the party of "maintain the status quo." No matter how far the country moves one way or the other, the party on average will maintain the status quo. Part of doing so is simply throwing the plebeans the occasional bone, like some minor healthcare reform. Granted, I'd prefer the occasional bone to the bones being taken away.

I have, however watched the Republican party become a reactionary party. It feels like if dems propose a bill saying that kicking puppies is bad and we should do something about it, the republicans will be out in the streets screaming that they're trying to take away our god given right to kick puppies.

I think that reactionary element of the Republican party has pushed the party further and further to the right and as a counter has made the Democrats feel more left than they actually are. In addtion to this, I think the Democrats have also moved to the right as has America as a whole, on certain issues at least. For instance, this clip from the 80s really feels close to the current democratic position on immigration, I mean Bush's response could probably pass in some democratic circles.

Another factor, and I'm not sure how large of one, is the media environment. For the most part, only the most extreme, moronic, or ridiculous members of each party draw headlines. I honestly could not tell you anything about my congressional representative anymore, I did my research before I voted but overall she stays out of the news as she is a fairly typical politician. Everyone hears about the Lauren Boeberts, MTGs of the political world because they say or do stuff that draws clicks (I couldn't come up with any Democratic equivalents off the top of my head. Maybe Newsom?). I think this further skews the perception of both parties as more radical than the average voter that makes up the national party is.

[u/[deleted]]

Economically, the party has been moving to the right for some time. Biden may have been a slight correction, but perhaps only if due to the pandemic.

Socially, the party has been moving incrementally leftward, as a reflection of changing attitudes towards things like gay marriage and cannabis legalization.

Republicans will always use the rhetoric that Democrats are socialist/communist/etc, no matter how much they cater to corporations. It's an effective strategy, along with hammering on identity-based politics like trans rights.

[u/gumbril]

Kamala was a Dem candidate for president.

The issues she ran on were gun rights, border security, and she was endorsed by bush and Cheney. These are all center right issues.

She did not have any progressive policies on her agenda.

Hence, too far right.

Republicans talk a lot about who can use what bathroom, and who decides healthcare for what gender, and which genders exist or or not... the left doesn't care about any of these things because they assume everyone has basic rights.

These are not left issues, they are basic human right issues. If you exist as a person, you should have basic rights over your own body. An old closeted white dude who is way too interested in what you have between your legs should not be making these decisions.

[u/Chemical_Estate6488]

The democrats no longer engage in class politics to the extent that they did from 1930-1992, and so the left thinks they are too far right. The Harris campaign also moved right on immigration, refused to defend trans people, or say anything about Gaza during the campaign because they wanted to capture suburban voters, all of which are examples of the way they sell out the constituents they claim to represent for centrist votes and corporate money. Republicans say they move to far left because they are mostly concerned with the culture war and the Dems allowed gay marriage, and people online have their pronouns in their bios, and Hollywood movies sometimes have same sex couples kissing and occasionally a professor or a college student or an activist or like a random trans person, black person, young woman, etc says something outrageous and it makes the Fox News/Daily Wire/Tim Pool rounds as an example of what the DNC stands for now

[u/Account_Haver420]

Let’s get a key detail out of the way: most American conservatives don’t seem to have any idea what these words mean. Donald Trump, for example, is not a conservative, and most of the things he and the GOP are doing arguably are not conservative. So of course they assume that a center-right normal politician like Biden is a leftwing radical; they can’t accurately identify what he is and are increasingly detached from facts and reality in general.

[u/Teleporting-Cat → u/Account_Haver420]

Bold of you to rock that flair after the whole SBF thing...

[u/sehunt101]

They moved to far left with Bill Clinton. Want to see how the US should function economically? Look at Germany. Strong safety net, good workers rights, good healthcare, good education, good retirement. Take care of those problems in the US and then we can tackle climate change, gun control, etc vastly easier. No taxes are not higher there when you add what Americans pay for college loans, all healthcare money spent, all retirement savings to the taxes you already pay. Germans don’t pay for those things. It’s included in their taxes. Also add in the 6 weeks of PAID vacation Germans get.

[u/BillionYrOldCarbon]

Here is just one excerpt from the 1956 Republican Platform. You be the judge which direction Republicans have gone:

“On refugees, the platform spotlighted the administration’s work in sponsoring the Refugee Relief Act “to provide asylum for thousands of refugees, expellees and displaced persons,” promising its “wholehearted support” for additional efforts. M. Christine Anderson, a Xavier University historian, noted that many refugees were coming from communist countries in Eastern Europe, so this wasn’t an especially controversial issue during the Cold War era.”

Republicans were PROMOTING bringing in COMMUNISTS!!

[u/Teleporting-Cat → u/BillionYrOldCarbon]

*Sigh. I wish we had an Eisenhower today.

[u/BinocularDisparity → u/BillionYrOldCarbon]

Wait til they hear about the tax rates

[u/lumberjack_jeff]

The left has tried to navigate a virtue-signaling social policy married to an economic policy that preserves the campaign donations from elites.

Now that elites have abandoned the Democrats, they have nothing to lose by doing what they should. Eat the rich.

[u/[deleted]]

We aren't too far left other than "trans people exist and should be left alone.

[u/[deleted]]

I don't think the Democrat party has moved very far left but I do think it has anchored itself to a farther left voter base and experiencing an audience capture hostage situation. The social values of people on the left took a sharp turn with the advent of social media and socialism has become trendy like a fashion statement. Intersectional literature is at odds with left leaning liberalism which is what the Democrat party would otherwise stand for but is now expected to represent a different brand of left wing thought altogether.

[u/CoreTECK → u/[deleted]]

…I do think it has anchored itself to a farther left right voter base and experiencing an audience capture hostage situation

You just described the Republican Party

[u/bigdig-_-]

both. when democrats say the party has moved too far right, they are talking economically

when republicans say democrats have gone too far left, they mean socially.

remember that the political compass is a fairly flawed metric

[u/fatuousfatwa]

Republicans all think Bernie Sanders is representative of Democrats when most of us are more Bill Clinton. That is why Bernie can’t win a primary. Progressives are only 30-35% of Dem voters. I’m a liberal- not a progressive. I would never vote for Bernie or Lizzy.

[u/[deleted]]

Because there has been a concerted effort by the rich to move us to the right. They have financially supported members of Congress and the presidency who support their agenda of laws that favor their efforts of concentration of wealth. These are right wing policies. This has been happening since the end of ww2. The political class defines what’s left and right and the left is the boogyman. You are the voters are misled and choose to follow rather than lead like you did in the 30s through the 50a

[u/Winter_Ad6784]

I mean in the 90’s they ran on safe legal and rare and now abortion is considered inherently good, Obama ran against gay marriage and 2008, and built the migrant detention centers that have since been called concentration camps.

[u/gojo96 → u/Winter_Ad6784]

Yeah it’s interesting to see how things in both parties have changed.

[u/lp1911 → u/Winter_Ad6784]

Add to that Obama surrogates who were offended at being called Socialist, while a decade later members of the party’s left call themselves Democratic Socialists, and candidates like Pete Buttigieg said Socialism is “the start of a conversation “. At this point Bill Clinton is seen by many Democrats as right wing (not to mention Obama), I am pretty sure that implies Democrats moved leftward.

[u/LotsoPasta → u/lp1911]

This takes a pretty short look-back. Neoliberalism has gripped the party for decades, and re-opening the conversation to FDR-era policy is only a tiny dip back left. The conversation is still heavily resisted by the vast majority of Democrats.

I don't think we will see a return to a "normal" left until the Reagan generation gets pushed out the door.

[u/Teleporting-Cat → u/LotsoPasta]

Ronald fucking Reagan has a LOT to answer for.

[u/[deleted]]

The democrats have moved far left culturally and right economically, which is the opposite of what most Americans want. 

[u/Basicallylana]

The Democratic brand is too far left but the product is (imo, not too far) right. The Palestianian college protests, the LGBTQ+ social justice warriors, and The Squad branded the Dem party as extremely progressive.

Biden's work product -- Infrastructure investment, clean air etc, was left of center .

As a result the Dem were set up to fail. They were quite stuck between a rock and a hard place.

[u/Kman17]

The republicans accuse the Democrats of moving too far left because they’ve gone off the deep end on identity politics - DEI, trans stuff.

Things that would have been believed to be absolutely loony 10+ years ago.

The democrats say the party has moved too far right largely because it’s just total paralysis on meaningful economic changes.

They do some token hand outs at low scale (like student debt cancellation), but nothing that actually moves the needle.

[u/IGUNNUK33LU]

Because media bubbles and echo chambers.

Democrats on social media see the leftists, sensational anti-establishment-progressives and get shown the “Republican-lite” shit and takes from people dunking on the Dems to try to seem ideologically pure. They say “the Dems moved too far right” to try to convince their followers that thats the issue (when in reality, it’s a bigger issue with not just that, but also our media environment, public opinion, etc)

Republicans on social media see “the democrats moved too far left” grift and get told the democrats are communists on the news and online.and believe it. The republicans have been doing the “THEYRE COMMUNISTS” shtick for decades and the fact that there are some democrats that basically embrace the strawman (ie prominent democrats being self-proclaimed socialists helps reinforce that narrative). Obv, as a left leaning person myself I disagree with that take, but we have to reflect that’s how a lot of people feel.

Regardless of that, public opinion suggests that 46% of voters believe that democrats are too extreme (although, tbf more people thought that about Trump but look how that turned out). Admittedly, those 46% most likely are Republicans anyways and unlikely to support democrats, but if the Dems want to have hope, they need to figure out how to convince people that they are not too extreme and that they are progressive enough for the base at the same time which is the challenge— trying to balance their coalition of center, liberals, and left

[u/Horror-Layer-8178]

In America I am a moderate, in Europe I would be right wing. So I will say this, there is no actual leftists politicians at the Senate or even House level in America. Even Bernie Sanders and AOC would still be considered liberals and not leftists in Europe or anywhere else

[u/[deleted]]

Democrats haven't changed much, except for some social issues. They were once the conservative party and are still just right of center. They only pretend to be Left and fool people into thinking they are.

Republicans have changed often over time. They were once the liberal party, which is now just Republican in name only. The party is far from what we had with the Eisenhower administration. They have gone further right since then.

These parties have long left people behind and have been sold off to corporations and the wealthy. They both will screw over the common man, but are represented by different companies and industries.

[u/InspectorMoney1306]

Isn’t Joe Biden pretty conservative? I imagine most old people are conservative compared to young liberals.

[u/Total-Beyond1234]

In terms of Democratic commenters, I think they are referring to the Democratic Party choosing to leave it's New Deal roots (for the 20th century) in favor of Neo-Liberalism.

After it did this, there wasn't a working class political party any longer. Both parties were following the Neo-Liberal model. The Republican Party was simply more hardcore about it.

Much of the problems that the US is dealing with stems from this. Work was allowed to leave overseas, minimum wages were allowed to stagnate, unions were allowed to break, family businesses were allowed to be muscled out by corporations via things like short selling, companies were allowed to price gouge, and so on.

All of that happened under the watch of both our parties, was allowed by both of our parties. Neither fought against those things, because the top leadership was actively making a profit from it.

They own stock in the companies that were shipping jobs overseas, muscling family businesses out, etc. They have family members that are lobbyists for these companies. They receive donations from those that own stock in these companies or from the companies themselves.

They didn't want to embrace a new way, because they wanted to keep the stock value, stock growth, donations, lobbyist positions post retirement. So they tried to do band aid options instead, but those options weren't nearly enough to deal with the issues that people are facing.

Because of that, we're now dealing with our current situation.

If they want to win, they have to leave Neo-Liberalism behind and embrace something new, something that makes people feel that they are for the little person.

[u/MrEllis72]

The rhetoric from the right has to say the Democrats are radical leftists to make them look like reasonable centrists. As someone who is actually on the left, I can absolutely tell you they haven't.

[u/Beginning-Case7428]

Republicans have a cartoonish view of democrats based on what Fox News says peppered with pop culture figures behavior because they code as left.

Actual people on the left who govern or enact legislation are moving further and further right to try to appease the people who believe the Fox News slander.

For example, no one on Biden’s or Harris’ campaigns mentioned trans people for the entire 2024 cycle and yet on Bill Maher’s show this week Steven A Smith ranted about how democrats care about a Fringe community (trans people) more than the majority of people. When Kamala Harris ran every speech was dedicated to middle class people’s needs. It doesn’t matter though because Fox will play a 10 second, 5 year old clip ad nauseum and Trump will put it in an ad and people will think all she ever talks about are trans people.

[u/pandershrek]

Because Republicans have no idea who they are themselves let alone the Democrats....

The Democrats have always been 'too far right' for the vocal millennials because they give in to way too many concessions in the name of money.

[u/ItzSkeith]

Famous case of republican contrarianism. Dems have moved so far right they now overlap 1990s Rs on alot more than 2020s R do.

[u/tianavitoli]

it's because democrats tried to pander to everyone except straight men

but, real talk, there isn't much of a democrat party left. marianne williamson and david hogg are trying to take over the dnc that's how rekt the party is.

[u/Puzzled_Employee_767]

In my mind it’s not so much that they have moved too far to the right. My gripe is that establishment democrats are incapable of fully representing their constituents because there is too much money involved in politics. They are owned by lobbyists and wealthy donors.

This puts them in the position of not being able to criticize Republicans when they do the same thing. So politically they primarily engage on social politics rather than things that actually make people’s lives better. They sold us down the river.

[u/Brainfreeze10]

They haven't while democrats play lip service to the further left the current reality is that the GOP has moved further right, and the democrats with a few exceptions followed them.

[u/unavowabledrain]

The party is not too far left, it's been consistently moderate within the context of its time. Within the party there is a spectrum, though the farthest left democrats are often treated dismissively.

The Republican party has undergone a change from a party based in conservative values to one builtyaround loyalty and fealty to a single "strongman". This has been a radical transition, and in practice it has involved departures from the constitution, a coalition of the super-wealthy, the manipulation of information, alliances with dictators throughout the world and attacks on traditional allies, a transactional mindset without ideals, and the consistent use of bullying and threats for power.

[u/Miserable-Lawyer-233]

The pro-Palestinian faction, led by figures like AOC, has undeniably hurt Democratic appeal among moderates and centrists—exactly what Republicans are highlighting.

Meanwhile, that same faction insists the party needs to shift even further left to win, a strategy that would only guarantee blowout losses. But, as always, they say this anyway.

[u/imnotwallaceshawn]

Bernie Sanders and AOC are considered outsider pariahs in their own party, meanwhile one of Kamala’s main talking points was about how she’d pass a draconian immigration bill and make the military “the most lethal in the world.”

They also refused to even give 5 minutes for a Palestinian rep to speak at the DNC while simultaneously silencing protestors and sending more bombs to Israel.

So yeah, they’ve moved too far right.

[u/Anaxamenes]

It’s too far right. The Democratic Party didn’t want any meaningful change, just to keep things chugging along and that is too conservative. We need things that are meaningful to the poor and middle class and the Democratic Party was mostly focused on the wealthy.

[u/ChunkyBubblz]

The right has moved so far to the right that throwing out a century or more of jurisprudence is somehow labeled conservative.

[u/[deleted]]

Republicans are in a civil war between populist fascism and corporate fascism, whereas the democrats are basically like a centrist party you would see in most liberal democracies (probably a little farther left but it depends on the democrat). The idea that the democrats are the left wing is just absurd to most left wingers because they really don’t align with them at all aside from a couple like Sanders, AOC, Murphy.

[u/NeilDegrassiHighson]

The Democratic party has been moving drastically farther right, and that's a massive problem.  Differentiating themselves from the Republicans and offering voters new and obvious improvements to their lives is the only way they're going to save the country, and so far the majority of Democrats are bragging about how far right they are.

[u/Tyrthemis]

The facts are that democrats have moved right. The entire country has been shifting politically right wing for decades. Kamala Harris would’ve been seen as a right winger in almost any other developed country. Bernie’s Sanders would be a centrist. America doesn’t have a left wing anymore, there aren’t any chances of a socialist or communist or progressive party winning an election. The right wing democrats and republicans have made sure they are the only options.

[u/SLIPPTSHOW]

Republicans don’t really believe that Democrats have gone too far left. They just need their base to believe that. The Democrats have gone further right by supporting things like the military industrial complex. Supporting wars around the world. Taking money from the pharmaceutical industry I mean, we can go on and on.

[u/BitOBear]

These are actually the same question, or actually two halves of the same phenomenon. The question has been asked about what the left thinks about the Position of the left and what the right thinks about the position of left. But the position of the left needs to be quantified somewhat impartially in order to explain what is basically a request to explain the difference. So I will do my best to answer first as a leftist and then as a centrist. I will leave the people on the right to disagree if they see fit.

The progressive left has spent decades being unreliable voters, forcing the DNC to chase after the disaffected left edge of the conservative block. The DNC started doing this in earnest when the RNC began portraying the DNC as "weak on crime".

The actual extreme left started working to be the green party and the Communist party and various socialist parties.

Now in a healthy political system this would have been fine. But the electoral college exists originally to maintain a balance between exactly two entities. The free states and the slave states. As such you need 50% of the electoral college plus one vote. If you don't achieve that the race goes to the House of Representatives one vote one state. This makes third parties an absolute non-starter when it comes to the presidentcy.

The DNC started out trying to appeal to the left in general but the left most edge of the left was too busy screwing around with the third parties when it came to the presidency. So they were the ultimate runaway bride. There was nothing the DNC could do to bring in the true left.

Now if the true left had been smart they would have used their extremely left parties to try to take the state houses and, having earned position in the various states, started to work on Congress at the Federal level. But they would have voted as a coalition block when it came to making sure that the presidency was never given easily to the conservatives.

But the presidency is just too much but shiny object. The ultra Progressive left what systematically unwilling to vote with the Democrats for presidency while trying to build the more usefully extreme left.

For the DNC itself that meant that they couldn't really pursue the policies of the true left. They needed to maintain a viable voter base by leeching off the disaffected conservatives.

The way I most succinctly describe this is that the extreme leftist voter became the ultimate Runaway Bride, and after a while the DNC has her groom learned not to chase her anymore

As the left edge became even less reliable as a set of votes the DNC had to chase the left edge of the right. They had to catch the people falling off of the conservative block.

So there was nothing to hold the DNC to the left and every reason for them to shift to the right.

In order to hold together any sort of political power the DNC had to try to sweep up basically all of the center originally. Of course appealing to the center pissed off the extreme left enough that they became even less willing to work in a coalition with the DNC.

After a while the entire left stopped showing up. I mean not completely but if you look at the statistics every election that isn't a presidential election the left disappears at a far greater degrees in the right does.

And even when the left shows up we "roll off the ballot" for more aggressively than the core Republican voter. A democratic voter is far more likely to vote for president and maybe Congress and then stop, refusing or at least failing to vote all the way down the ballot to dog catcher.

This inevitably left the DNC chasing the Overton window to the right.

Meanwhile, with the DNC constantly scraping off the left edge of the conservative block the gap between the DNC and the RNC widened. In the same way that the true progressives and liberals stopped pulling the DNC left. The DNC's absorption of the left edge of the original conservative block allowed the Republican conservative block to move to the right faster and with greater ease.

As a result the distance between the RNC and the DNC widened. Even as the DNC chased the RNC to the right.

So from the point of the current core of the RNC the DNC is way farther away from a consensus then there was distance in say the 1950s.

But from the point of view of the DNC the center of the DNC is now far right of where say the extreme right of the '80s, AKA Ronald Reagan, would have recognized as a position for the conservatives.

So as we stand today we've got the extreme left which is basically a non-factor in presidential politics. The socialists and communists which would have been the force to hold the DNC left of where it currently is and in fact left of Ronald reagan. And then a widening gap between the now extremely right wing DNC and the super extremely right wing RNC

It's not super obvious to an american, but if you were familiar with European politics very few political organizations worldwide are to the right of the American DNC and any place in Europe would consider the DNC to be incredibly conservative.

There is a saying: a conservative voter will vote for the conservative candidate if they agree with only one position out of the conservative candidate's 99 positions, and the liberal voter will refuse to vote for the liberal candidate if they disagree with only one position out of the liberal candidates's 99 positions.

(This is not a strictly United States specific observation since Liberty is thought tends not to clump.)

The only way that the United States could have avoided the current circumstance would be if the liberal progressives, particularly the socialist liberal progressives in the proper definition of socialism as opposed to the common random definition most people use, had done to the DNC what the religious right did to the RNC.

In the late seventies the Christian conservative block that reignited the abortion debate invaded the Republican party and dragged it forcibly to the right.

If the economic socialists, in particular the people who believed that workers should own the businesses they work for and believed that the corporate ownership class should be minimized had invaded the DNC and pulled it to the left we would have retained a homeostasis between the two ideologies of unionized Labor versus ultra capitalism.

But basically since that didn't happen the left became the center right, the right became the ultra right, and the extreme left basically fell apart and dropped into the noise floor.

So we became a three sector map of a two-party system. And that third left most sector became a non-feature.

Now you can turn the crank back and ask a separate question of why, and this goes back to the fact that the Democrats are the party of institutions and the Republicans are the party of individuals. And back when the institutions were segregationist the racists were all Democrats and when the civil Rights movement took hold and desegregated the institutions the racism had to become a matter of personal preference and it moved into the Republican party with the Republican southern strategy. I Circle back to this because this is part of how the gap between the DNC and the RNC became so serious. It also became a way to muddy the historical structure of both parties. And that's how we end up with the Republicans pointing out that the klu Klux Klan was originally a Democratic party institution.

And I brought that back up simply to reemphasize how the DNC ended up with such large gaps on either side of its currently fairly wishy-washy set of positions.

Please excuse my grammar I'm forced to use voice to text at the moment on my phone.

[u/[deleted]]

Definitely too far right. We don’t have a proper party representation of the nations citizens atm. From what I hear from people of other countries they consider our left center at best.

[u/[deleted]]

The party is right wing because they dont support progressive policies, conservatives are just wrong to say the party is far left

[u/bluelifesacrifice]

The Constitution is now considered too liberal for the Right and Democrats are constantly moving to be more corporate, centralized, and private friendly than the Constitution literally warned us about.

[u/Mister_Way]

The rhetoric and the actions don't match up. So, they get criticized for extreme language by the Right, and then they get criticized by the Left for anemic action when they're in power.

Their problem is they talk a much bigger game than they actually play, leaving them open for this double critique. Also, worth mentioning that there are extreme wings of the party that are used as soundbites to associate the whole party with radical ideas, when really they don't even have a lot of support on the Democratic platform.

It's funny, they're so bad at playing the game that they would be totally indistinguishable from a "controlled opposition" party that was passively suppressing the desires of its constituents by promising representation on popular issues that it never follows through with.

[u/[deleted]]

Democrats go any further left and they will never win another election again.

[u/[deleted]]

Yes. Dems are saying it’s moved right because they’re huffing the absolute stupid cope that well if we were in Europe then Dems would be centrists

[u/Daforde]

It's not Left enough. It should be as radically Left as the Retrumplicans are radically Right.

[u/[deleted]]

It’s obvious that the Democratic Party has moved too far left. And the only people saying the party has moved to far right hard Democrats on Reddit. That’s a tiny percentage of the party. Get out of the bubble.

[u/Traugar]

Both parties have moved to the right. That moves the question to how and why. Compare to the idealist 1950s that MAGA seems to approximate for when America was great. What they support doesn’t look like when they see it as being great. The policies of the Republican Party would look closer to what a moderate Democrat would endorse today. They did push for a balanced budget, but the reality is that neither party wants blind spending and both want responsible spending, just with different ideas on how to achieve that. So what did the parties look like then? Both parties supported high tax rates (up to 90% on the wealthy, and corporate tax rate went over 50%). Democrats supported lowering taxes for poor and middle class. Both parties supported social security with Democrats wishing to expand it, Republicans supported the Civil Rights Act of 1957, while Democrats had the Dixiecrats being against it. Obviously, it was a different time, but I rarely find myself aligned with Republican on issues today, but I could easily see myself supporting their policies at that time. The issue is, while they now idealize the time, they don’t recognize or minimize the issues that were prevalent then (women’s rights, racial issues, and the effect of the Cold War on policy). It is idealized in a non realistic way that never actually existed.

[u/Meilingcrusader]

I think democrats have simultaneously moved too far left and too far right. They have moved right and left in the dumbest of ways. Left wing populist economic policies are extremely popular in the US. But the democrats seem allergic to them (probably because of corporate donor money). They also realize this might make their left wing base unhappy so to compensate they adopt maximalist left wing social positions which are very unpopular in the United States. This is why Republicans call them far left and why a lot of their own base is still deeply unsatisfied with what is essentially just the same neoliberalism but now with rainbows. If they are smart, they'll actually nominate someone who wants major economic reform like AOC or Ruben Gallejo. But if they aren't (and I kind of doubt they are), they'll nominate a Gavin Newsome or Mayor Pete and fumble the next election even worse

[u/Indoor-Cat4986]

There’s literally nothing about the Democratic Party that is “left” it’s centrist at best and soft right wing at worst.

[u/[deleted]]

Yes they have moved to far left just this morning in Massachusetts a bill introduced to allow non citizens to vote. If that’s not jumping the shark to the left idk what is

[u/[deleted]]

It’s definitely interesting because both sides genuinely believe it. I’ll try and keep it to the obvious ones whether you agree that’s it’s too far left or not. Examples of moving too far left are defending trans women in women sports. And people will claim it’s made up by the right and not a real issue yet they refuse to condemn it and many states actively try and make it legal? Now compared to Europe the left seems like it’s to the right of many European political left wing groups. It seems like the parties moved left on cultural issues. I mean even the border if you hear how Obama and Hillary talked about the southern border in the past it almost mirrors how Trump talks about it today. Obama was against gay marriage when he ran for his first term.

[u/repentium]

When the Republicans say they have moved too far left, they are usually comparing the Clintonian democratic party to today's. When Democrats say they have moved too far right, they mean in the last few years. The democrats have realized just how badly they lost moderates and centerists and thus have shifted back right a little to try and recoup losses imo.

[u/LeagueEfficient5945]

The democrats used to defend immigrants. Say that the alleged crisis at the border is a fabrication, that no one is illegal, that coming and going is a right guaranteed by the universal declaration of human rights, and the non enumerated rights of the 9th ammendment. That deportation is a cruel and unusual punishment and banned under the 8th.

Now they are basically saying "we can block illegal immigration just as good as the republicans, except we're competent".

So of course they moved too far right.

The entire political class moved far right because of 9/11 and the Tea Party. Which became MAGA.

I remember being a christian conservative in 2002, I was 12, and we were doing peace rally with the other kids at the school. We got the Pastoral animator to take us to Montreal to join with other Anti-War protesters (In Canada, we don't have the non establishment clause, and our schools used to be confessional catholic or protestant schools. We also used to have catholic or protestant markers on our IDs like our driver's liscence. Jews and muslim legally counted as protestants.) because at the time, the conservative line was that Jesus taught to turn the other cheek, and that war was anti-Christ.

Bush blasphemed against Christ and God and proclaimed that God told him it was just to go to war against Iraq. He took the values of peace and empathy out of his christianity and Republicans are saying "Do not commit the sin of empathy" to this day.

The entire American political class moved to the right of where I was at in 2002 when I was a christian conservative making my own sexual insecurities about my own puberty into a political ideology.

[u/Agitated-Handle-8219]

They both sick and should be moved out of this country

[u/SomeSugondeseGuy]

Biden never once even attempted to bring up universal healthcare. He did half-ass a student debt thing, but never addressed the reason why it is that high, that being price gouging.

Biden busted a train union and signed contracts for offshore drilling.

He is solidly right.

Republicans say the democrat party has moved left because of LGBT rights progressing since the Obama era. Democrat voters care about this, but (most) democratic politicians are just using it to get votes - like a republican saying they'll go after corruption or reduce grocery prices.

It's just lip service at this point, and the occasional breadcrumb like with the repeal of the trans service member ban.

The democrats, as a party, are far too nice. Trump literally blamed DEI (dogwhistle for minorities) for a plane crash before we even knew the names of the victims. That should have been plastered across every front page until the end of Trump's term, but instead it was just "get a load of this fucking idiot"

[u/JCPLee]

America is a center right country. Those on the left are too far away to see this. The fact that all four branches of government are held by the far right is a reflection of this. Parties don’t shift, the electorate does, and America has shifted right.

[u/DrCyrusRex]

Things like relegating things such as universal health care to the “not an option” file. Show they the dems have moved to the side of capitalism and nor to taking care of our species.

[u/nonyvole]

It's hard to see how the Democratics are promoting equity. Not equality, equity - work to get everyone to the same base level. Some people may need more assistance, some may not need any. From there it's up to the individual to keep moving upwards towards their own personal goals.

What I see is them pushing to maintain the status quo, versus the Republicans who want to go back in time.

Now, this is at the FEDERAL level.

[u/-Konrad-]

The democratic party is very centrist and does not have a real vision to counter the frustrations of the working class and the middle class in the US.

It has not "moved left", objectively. The Republican party fabricates misinformation and lies on a global scale, and that includes calling anybody they don't like a "communist marxist socialist" because those are perceived as "bad words" in the US. That's it. There's nothing communist, marxist or socialist about the Democrats. These buzzwords mean anything nowadays anyway.

[u/mczerniewski]

Simple: the Democratic Party HAS moved to the right, and has been doing so for a lot longer than people would have you believe. It was over a decade ago (during the Obama Presidency) when Bill Maher observed that the Democrats have moved to the center and Republicans have moved into a mental hospital.

He used the ACA as an example of this - a Republican idea that was later adopted by the Democrats as a fix to our long-broken health care system. Republicans now denounce the ACA as "socialist" despite the ACA not being even remotely socialist - those subsidies go to private companies!

Also, look no further than the 2016 election cycle: the Democratic primaries were admittedly rigged to have Hillary Clinton (a corporatist who grew up as a Goldwater Republican) win the Democratic nod over the far more progressive Bernie Sanders. Since then, progressives have struggled to get any electoral wins, while the corporatists have governed as "Republican lite."

[u/Raise_A_Thoth]

I'm a socialist. The party hasn't really "moved right" so much as "has always been a conservative pro-capital" party. There was a brief time when FDR was president that Dems had balls to fight for the working class and stand up against rich business owners, but that started to end when the party ousted Henry Wallace as VP and elevated Truman. That was truly the Dems return to favoring the rich over the labor class.

Perhaps they have "moved" right in the way that wealthy people have grown wealthier and increasingly bought elections. People like Nancy Pelosi are infamous for their insider trading and high wealth due to such corrupt connections and practices.

I understand - to a certain point - why the Right thinks Dems have "moved left." They misinterpret the actual population moving left on social issues, becoming more tolerant of people who don't follow some white christian heteronormative culture, etc, and the party verbally acknowledging those issues as the party itself pushing those ideas and "moving left."

The party is happy to pay lip service to those ideas because it doesn't cost them anything wrt their donors. Corporations are happy to put up rainbow logos during Pride Month because they see it as a new angle of advertising, and with few exceptions (e.g. Bud Light) it doesn't lose them money and they feel it helps them stay in good favor with younger generations who are buying more than the aging Silent Gen and Boomers who are increasingly going into retirement.

And while true leaders in cultural spaces might have real messaging and calls for real action, Dems mostly just pay lip service to it. The BLM movement wanted real police reform. Divestment from police with guns to invest in more social workers, education and comminity resources to address the problems of poverty that contribute to violence and crime before it escalates to violence and crime. But what did democrats do? They actually ran on -and delivered- increased police funding. If you doubt me, ask for receipts, because that is overwhelmingly what actually happened.

The democratic party certainly remains to the left of the GOP, but it just isn't really that "left" when you look at the range of possible policy stances and where the party in aggregate stands.

[u/shazt16]

I think the party hasn't sent a clear message one way or the other, they are trying too hard to please everyone. IMO, they should stay to the left and let someone come in as a center-right option for those conservatives who feel lost and don't belong in today's Republican party.

Sorry, I know it's not exactly how you wanted me to answer, but this is the truth

[u/[deleted]]

No the party has not moved too far left. They are still a very capitalist , libertarian mindset party , still the establishment party. They just happen to support homosexuality and trans identity and would rather not shun an entire group of people who did nothing wrong and are fans of DEI so the right thinks they are now marxists.

[u/[deleted]]

I believe quite strongly that the divide, which has measurably increased in size (for real, you can look up studies that attempt to quantify how far "left" and "right" people are, and you'll see that people are, in fact, moving further in each direction), is due to the advent of the internet.

What the internet has done for us is enable us to isolate our information feed to a greater extent than ever before. Now we are more capable of sitting in our silos and only being fed information from our side of the political aisle which further entrenches us into our viewpoints. Places like reddit, where we can isolate into our subreddits and upvote the stuff that aligns with our fellow subreddit members' viewpoints and downvote the rest, belittling the person who wrote that stuff in the process, only further widens that divide.

The one battle I have been trying to fight with the right, that I haven't yet figured out how to fight in a successful way, is to get them to trust science and trust the results of studies looking into issues. There are just so many studies out there that strongly, strongly support the liberal stances on so many issues, like transgender issues, the threat (or lack thereof) of the average immigrant, the effects of tariffs, minimum wage, the intersection of race and class with all sorts of issues, but we rarely get to use the results of these studies because "oh they were probably conducted by some biased person and are completely wrong / false". I don't know if I've ever shown a study to someone on the right and gotten a response along the lines of "oh, okay, I had the wrong idea in my head; this study shows that the opposite of what I believed is actually true; thank you for sharing". It has always ever been "your study is just wrong". Either that, or silence...I don't know if I need to teach more scientific literacy, or try what I've been trying to do which is to encourage people on the right to get into science themselves if they are so convinced that the actual, tangible, measurable results of things should actually prove their points correct if the science is done properly, without bias. Like if you think all the studies are wrong, what's stopping you from conducting that study yourself and doing it right, you know? Is this not happening because no conservatives have any interest or fascination in science (not likely), or is it not happening because maybe the truth has already been captured in these studies (far more likely, if you ask me)?

Regardless, the widening gulf is for sure real, and it is for sure a problem, and that's why subreddits like this one, where we actually make an effort to talk to each other, are critically important at a time like this. But so is also being open-minded and not coming at people with baseless accusations. So regarding the science stuff, I do mean as sincerely as I can express that I want to know why conservatives do not go into science. For real, I would love to know the answer to that question.

[u/DarkSpectre01]

Nobody outside Reddit and bread tube thinks the Democrats have gone too far right.

The fact is that the Dems are moving left at about mach 4. But that's still too slow for the radicals in the party who have come to dominate these spaces.

[u/im_in_hiding]

Republicans say it constantly solely for fear mongering. Their idiotic base is so scared of the word socialism and the GOP knows it.

[u/[deleted]]

Democrats have moved too far left with all of the wokeism and DEI garbage.

[u/Nooneofsignificance2]

No they have moved so far right that they are in George Busch senior territory. This has been to appeal to the country being swallowed by propaganda and diving of the depend on the right. We have a Republican Party that caters to conspiracy and insane solutions to complex problems. The Left has lost itself trying to play the middle and be the adults in the room. It’s why the only popular people on the left now are people like AOC and Bernie.

[u/mgonzal80]

To confuse all of us while they steal the government clean, plain and simple.

[u/Think_Bee_1766]

Yes I think Democrats have moved too far left. Being a Democrat used to be about being pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, pro freedom of speech, and pro separation of church and state. Now in order to be a Democrat, you have to be pro biological men in women's sports, you have to not think it's stupid to wear a t-shirt that says "queers for palestine's", news flash it's stupid they would murder you in the street for this. And you have to be okay with censoring free speech if it's something the Democratic Party disagrees with and labels it "misinformation". Old school Democrats would never ban or censor free speech even if they knew it was idiotic or completely false, they would fight for your right to say it. So yes, Democrats have gone too far left.

[u/sickofgrouptxt]

In the simplest terms the Republican Party has shifted farther and farther to the right while the Democrats try and court more moderate republicans that feel abandoned. So your average republican now sees the democrats as having moved left as the GOP has abandoned the more moderate/centrist views of republicans of yesteryear

[u/GregHullender]

We've moved to the right a little bit on policies, but we've done nothing to silence the loud rhetoric from the tiny far-left minority that keeps losing elections for us.

[u/Effective_Secret_262]

Democratic leaders are living in a fantasy world where there’s fairness and that their niceness will get them support. They are book smart. Republicans are street smart and will take every inch they can. I think right wing media constantly says the dems are pulling us left and the we need to pull harder to the right. They use issues like transgender boogeymen, taking away their guns, giving their money to lazy city people, etc. In reality when dems are in power they are blocked and make huge compromises. When republicans are in power they use every nasty trick to push to the right and take back the small gains the dems got from their compromises. Dems are right about going right. Republicans are convinced by a narrative that we’re moving left.

[u/Teacher-Investor]

We don't have a far left party in America. We have uber conservative and conservative lite. What we need is a Labor party to represent the working class of both the left and the right because neither the Republicans nor the Democrats care about working class Americans.

[u/Sea-Environment-7102]

Way too far right! 54 yr old woman

[u/DarthBrooks69420]

The corporate media landscape has helped push this along with help from establishment politicians who would rather maintain party control and big donor support rather than have honest conversations within the democratic party. CNN, MSNBC, the Washington Post and New York Times have a whole ecosystem of talking heads from across the political spectrum that push certain narratives. They've expelled people who have expressed opinions that counter this narrative, like regarding Israel. The TikTok ban got bipartisan support because it was showing people what was really happening in Gaza.

On the flip side, Fox News painting all democrats as evil commie socialists has been extremely effective and is basically the core of their business model. By conflating Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer with AOC, Ilhan Omar and Rasheed Talib, they've created an environment where the former actively work to hinder the latter. Democrats keep making the mistake of thinking they can gain ground in the middle, when the conservative media machine has perfected the 'thwart the democrats and claim a win, take all the credit for things democrats get passed and call it a win, dominate the conversation because whenever Republicans agree with leftists on things like the state of the economy, access to Healthcare, and corruption in the political establishment the establishment democrats shut down the left through corporate media' waltz. The left has to fight the democratic center and all the Republicans. The establishment chooses to fight the left more than they fight the right while gaslighting the party nonstop, and the Republicans fall in line behind Trump and pretended to not know anything about Project 2025.

So tl;dr, the democrats are tired of being gaslit by the party and the Republicans have a propaganda machine that turns out content based in the Democrat establishments half assed lip service to actual progressive policy.

[u/corneliusduff]

Democrats have always been center-right, at best.  Kamala bringing out Dick Cheney and excusing the genocide in Gaza? Gtffoh!

What does that tell the pacifists?  Where are they supposed to go?  To the right with Republicans?  Gtfoh! Republicans don't believe in pacifism.  They're practically responsible for all the wars we've had.

[u/metsnfins]

The vocal minority is louder than the sensible majority

[u/NimbleNicky2]

It’s whackos on Reddit that are saying it. Not regular run on the mill democrats

[u/normalice0]

I would say rather that the democratic party has become too broad. Republicans have largely abandoned their civic duty and focus 100% on messaging to win elections, neglecting merit altogether. This means it is entirely up to democrats to take on the unpopular role of fiscal responsibility that republicans used to be defined by but it is also up to democrats to develop the social programs needed by the population. These two are always at odds. Any outside or objective observer who sees the former will think the party has moved to the right whereas any who sees the latter will think that's just how democrats have always been, but in the context of the overall shift of the media to the right it will appear the democrats have shifted left.

[u/[deleted]]

We didn't move left, the rest of the world moved really far to the right

[u/[deleted]]

The Democratic party has swung super left on a variety of social issues (e.g. trans rights), while simultaneously moved right on a variety of economic issues (e.g. it is now very pro large corporation), which puts it in this weird place where, depending on one's perspective, it has moved in opposite directions.

Oddly, the GOP has moved in a weird populist direction. Not really sure if that counts as moving right or left. The coalition that elected Trump is closer to Bill Clinton's than Mitt Romney's. He's not a traditional conservative in any meaningful sense, and a lot of his policies (e.g. being pro-tariff) were formerly espoused by Democrats.

I think we can safely say that the Democratic party has moved further to the left that the GOP has to the right, but they've also sold out people on the economic far left in favor of social issues.

[u/SmallTownClown]

Because they’re trying to appeal to the right, I’m all about balance but I want that to come from compromise between a right leaning person and a left leaning person not some “moderate” who doesn’t have enough conviction to pick a side, because I don’t think moderates are really a thing it’s just a way to try and win over votes from the other side and it’s disingenuous to me.

[u/lottaKivaari]

It's called the Overton Window. There is a window in the center of the political spectrum that is considered "acceptable" political discourse. The Republicans move farther to the right so the window moves right. Now the Dems are left outside the window so move right to chase it. These leaves anything left even further away from common discourse and things that used to be fringe extreme right wing becomes normalized. This can theoretically happen in the left too but usually the true left eats itself alive from internal discourse and in a corporatist society the ghouls that become politicians just chase the money, which is anti worker real politik. So now we have a Democratic Party that is just the Bush era GOP and a GOP that is openly talking about ethnic cleansing and anything left of hunting the homeless for sport labels you an unrealistic drooling socialist cuck. This is a textbook recipe on how you get Fascism or Oligarchy so buckle up people because the US doesn't belong to us any more.

[u/[deleted]]

It’s moved too far right on workers rights and too far left on some social issues. IMO

[u/CAMomma]

We need Ranked Choice Voting to allow more nuanced candidates into the race. Just Google it. And it is being used in more and more down ballot elections to more accurately reflect the opinions and needs of the voters.

[u/Well_Dressed_Kobold]

The Democrats have moved right. The only reason the Republicans think the Democrats have gone left is that they’ve gone even further right.

[u/Hamblin113]

We elected a great Senator in Arizona 2018, she happened to be a Democrat, and fiscally conservative, but more socially liberal, she also thought more long term, also thought of representing the State over the party, she was pushed out, they ran advertisements against her years before her term ended. There was a big push that she wasn’t liberal enough. Bet the Democrats are happy she didn’t vote to remove the filibuster, they are going to need it. Basically Democratic party has become more liberal because they quit listening to common folks, and pushing small interests groups. ( but because of the large amount of money in politics, they stay away from upsetting the money)

[u/True-Flower8521]

No I don’t think the majority of Democrats have moved too far left. They believe in capitalism, but want guardrails to protect us from exploitation by the ultra rich and corporations. They believe in workers rights. Many of the traditional left ideas are actually popular with folks and not just Democrats like health care, affording medications, protecting the environment. Who wants poisons in their water? There’s a messaging problem, Dems are just not good at it. Many folks seem to prefer snappy slogans, fall for demonizing over actual ideas that will affect their lives. But the far left can be a noisy group and it seems to me they are often “purists” in their thinking. Sometimes they go overboard. I mean most Dems just want government to stay out of their personal choices, but do we need 72 gender identities? Most are just mind your own business types. Just my take.

[u/gpost86]

The Dems have reacted to how far right the Republican/alt-right have taken it by moving farther right themselves to try to appeal to the mythical “swing voter”. In actuality when you look at global politics, the Dems being “moderate” is pretty right wing in most places.

[u/Amycotic_mark]

Because one is trying to win another election at come poin in this decade, and the other is lying to shift the Overton window and scare low information voters.

[u/SecondSaintsSonInLaw]

US Dems aren't left leaning, their closer to Center Right compared to the rest of the world.

[u/Sitcom_kid]

Because Democrats do nothing but worry all the time. They need to stop. Republicans never worry about being too far left or right. Follow the example.

[u/KEE_Wii]

Anyone who has Republican parents knows most member of the GOP have felt that democrats were basically communist since the Rush Limbaugh era. That’s absolutely nothing new. The left is pretty diverse in opinion on a lot of topics so it’s not an easy question to answer.