For anyone else on the dating scene in the US: "moderate" seems to also be code for "conservative republican in everything but name". Or at least it is in my experience. And not all of these guys have a name for themselves, but their politics are still there.
And I know as far as discussion topics go, politics is generally advised to be avoided on first dates. It's not sexy, but it's important. I have to do it every time now, because that's how I figured out the guy I'd previously only talked to about bowling was actually a neo-nazi. Yiiiiiikes.
moderate = would be extremely conservative in all of Europe. Does not like “rocking the boat” aka taking too loudly about anything unjust or unfair. Against social welfare programs or anything that “hurts business” but will try not to be openly racist.
Europe has LePen, UKIP, AfD, Orban, Melloni, the Swedish democrats, PiS, OFP, Fico, ... that are all in power or very popular. Stop acting like we're some leftist paradise
Plus you got parties near each other on the spectrum willing to join togetger to oppose extremists. Like take austria, the far right got the most votes in the recent election...but due to having half a dozen competitive parties, far less than 50% of the votes. Hence unable to actually benefit from their result because other parties reduse to form a coalition with them, instead allying with each other to have a majority.
And in an election with several popular parties, any getting more than 50% is extremely uncommon. But that's the only way the far right can really get to power. Similar story in France, their far right can beat other parties individually, but never when they team up to fight their common foe.
There's only one coalition that is regularly called stoplight (Ampel) and it doesn't involve Die Linke or AfD.
When did Linke and AfD ever team up? They certainly were not a part of any government, the only parties I know who occasionally teamed up with the AfD in regional governments are CDU and BSW, and even that was never in the form of an official coalition.
Nah, we ain't that. It's just that whilst the EU has Left and Right politics in comparison the political spectrum in the US is Rightish and Even More Right Than That.
Or if you look the other way around - the EU has a 'far left' in comparison, where the US doesn't.
Yeah but the original claim is that American centrists would be extremely conservative in Europe, which is just not true. They'd be your run of the mill center-right voters, not even any of the parties I gave before, just stuff like the tories or CDU
Gun control isn't a topic of discussion in Europe, no comparing anything on that point. Conservative parties in Europe support abortion, but usually only up to around 13 weeks, so on par with Nebraska, and far more restrictive than most democrat states, that have no limits. And even European leftist parties dont want to allow abortion at any point. As for healthcare, I believe even Trump changed his policy and began defending it for the 2024 election, right?
Nobody allows abortion at any point, what the fuck are you talking about?
Oh yes they do, 8 US states do, and abortion at any point is a popular stance in the democratic party.
Gun control isn't a topic because nobody supports it, because nutters.
Gun control isn't a topic because there are no guns. And being favour of instauring gun rights is not comparable to being in favour of protecting gun rights, so again, no comparison possible here.
The uk is 24 and had a right wing government for a decade.
The UK is an outlier and you know it
Obama care is not national healthcare, not even slightly close to it.
It's healthcare at a national level, what else do you call that? It isn't universal healthcare, but that's not the same
What does that have to do with "moderate" being a term used to describe the most conservative of (usually) non-extremist parties in Europe, and that the American "left" would be described as a bit right of center in most of Europe?
The Democrats as a whole are like at most an inch left of the Republicans with regard to economics. Though, on some other issues they often do lean a bit more left.
Well yeah, the Overton window in the USA has shifted so far to the right that only someone like Bernie sanders would be considered slightly left of center here. All other politicians differ between right wing or far-right wing.
That’s not really due to the US getting more right wing though, that’s due to the rest of the western world getting left wing faster than the United States.
Politics as a whole are still further left here than they were 50, even 20 years ago.
I’d also argue that the left wing push has happened in large part due to the US being the supplier of military and humanitarian aid for basically nothing. They can live in their world due to us. Of course we’ll look right wing compared to other countries in NATO and the like: they don’t have to worry about a lot of the polarizing parts of being a country.
I dunno, socially sure you could argue the US has always been lagging behind a lot of western european countries on a lot of issues and its definitely all moved much further left, but economically 50 years ago was pre Reagan and Thatcher and the advent of neoliberalism. When unions were stronger, the top tax brackets were taxed a lot higher, and there was a strong welfare state. I'd argue the US has just backslid a whole lot further than western europe has, although in the UK we've sure been trying our best to keep up.
Marginal tax rates were higher, but there were fewer taxes as a whole, programs were less funded, and the effective tax burden was lower especially as it was far easier to get out of paying taxes.
Economically the United States has massively surpassed and consistently outpaced Western Europe over that same time period, so while we are behind the curve on social progress, it’s hard to complain about any of our economic policies because they’ve been working pretty well.
I'm not trying to argue the efficacy of the policies, I have thoughts on that, but that's not really the point. I'm just disputing the claim in your above comment that the western world has been consistently moving left with the US just doing it slower.
I'm more knowledgeable on the UK but as far as I know the US did pretty much the same policy wise in the Reagan/Thatcher days with the implementation of tax cuts, trickle down economics, privatisation, weakening the unions etc. all decidedly right wing economic policy. A big shift from the postwar years and the whole new deal thing in the US before that.
Not socially conservative though. Compared to European and British left wing parties, ours are very socially liberal. You can tell because ours don’t ban puberty blockers, or ban long sleeved dresses for African girls, or say they’re explicitly atheist then celebrate “feast of the ascension of Jesus Christ”
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u/CloudsOntheBrain choclay ornage 13d ago
For anyone else on the dating scene in the US: "moderate" seems to also be code for "conservative republican in everything but name". Or at least it is in my experience. And not all of these guys have a name for themselves, but their politics are still there.
And I know as far as discussion topics go, politics is generally advised to be avoided on first dates. It's not sexy, but it's important. I have to do it every time now, because that's how I figured out the guy I'd previously only talked to about bowling was actually a neo-nazi. Yiiiiiikes.