Decency, Trump and Obama.

[Dill]

(03-21-2017, 07:04 AM)hollodero Wrote: Well, not exactly. We consider your "far right" as being quite far right indeed. In general, your republican party is quite unmatched here, and we couldn't tie it to an existing European political ideology. Right now we can, of course, but in general there is no equivalent. But the middle, no. The equivalent for the democratic party is our moderate conservatives. I would call Sanders "left" (but not far left), maybe this Edwards guy that once was there, certainly some others I don't know of. The rest, including Hillary or Obama, is more in the middle or slightly on the right. Imho.


In conclusion, our spectrum centers at a point you would already call "left".

There's some major differences, and one of those I have already hinted at, the alt-right raises out of a society of relative wealth, security and freedom. This I see as historically unprecedented.

1. You are correct about our far right being far right indeed. In some ways I am still seeing the old Republican party, not the new, and thinking of a time before the Alt-right was mainstreamed, when it was still negligible. To modify my point--until RECENTLY, like the last decade, the political divide in the US has been between Classical and progressive liberals, not real "leftists" and the far right.

2. Totally agree with you on the spectrum placement. Our "far left dictator" Obama was no enemy of Wall Street. His domestic policy was perhaps to the right of Republican Eisenhower's  (back in the '50s) on many points.

3. I share your astonishment about the US alt-right emerging from wealth, security, and freedom. I would add, though, that it seems to attract people who perceive themselves to be ignored or members of an excluded demographic, people who believe their country has been taken over by "THEM." Also I add some other intriguing demographic similarities to the Weimar German voters susceptible to Hitler. Then many rural voters ("flyover" Germany?) felt excluded by the mainstream parties, as did lower middle class urban voters who could not identify with the KPD or SPD. The complaint was that parties had become self-perpetuating, put their interests above the nation and their own voters, dishonest in their selection of representatives, etc.  Racism has been rather submerged in the US since the mid-70s, giving many "liberals" the impression it was largely past. But now we see what seething anger was released by Trump, who gave so many permission to be "politically incorrect."  The Trump whitelash is in large part a response to perceived threats to personal and cultural identity, and loss of power, in addition to looming threats to wealth and security, the sense of (real) economic stagnation felt by many in the middle and lower classes.