Oh no…the Leopards ate my face thread

Most of the move to the right revolves around one issue... immigration.

I don't know about continental europe particularly but, over here, people were told we could 'take back control' of various matters with brexit, particularly immigration and it's been less than entirely convincing..

If you look at the chart below the important dates are 2016, when we voted to leave the EU, and 2020 when we actually left...




The fact is that people anticipated a certain degree of damage, (although most expected it to be limited in duration), so it's not surprising that they became fractious when they vote for one outcome and then experience the exact opposite.

This situation is particularly evident in UK politics as it It seems that the Conservatives have intentionally set out to piss people off by making promises that they then deliberately fail to keep.

That's the point about the 'stop the boats' rubbish with Sunak. Either stop them or, if you can't, STFU about them and talk about something else.

Having made such a big deal about it he raised the issue of immigration to a quite ridiculous level which ANY government would have to address and, bear in mind, that followed multiple years of the tories promising to cut immigration to 'the tens of thousands'.

 

Okay so I'm not at a desktop today but I'll offer anyone odds on what the gold standard party ideology indices say on the gap between Dems and the CD&V is. I'll be back tonight to prove you wrong, hold this spot.

Meanwhile:



Trump hates men.

 

I think the one area where you the Dems might be on the left of the CD&V are some social and cultural issues like euthanasia and abortion.
The thing is, these are essentially electorally neutral. As part of coalition governments, they have chosen not to attack the strides made in those areas during the purple governments of the early 2000s. The current euthanasia laws are well to the left of the CD&V stance, only it is politically harmful for them to try and change the status quo. So they are in a position where their official policy is to the right of the current legislative reality, only they are not very interested in making these topics the hill they choose to die on.

In terms of the welfare state, the state's function in providing a social safety net and their economic policy, they are well to the left of the Democrats. As well as their very strong, foundational pro-union stance.

 

Comparing political parties in proportional representation (PR) systems to those in first-past-the-post (FPTP) systems is complex due to differing contexts.

For instance, many European countries have established basic healthcare, while the US is still struggling with it. This raises the question: how can we compare healthcare policies in the US with those in Belgium or the UK?

So it's not like politics are starting from the same position... they're not.

 

I never claimed they were.

The genesis of this discussion was this bit of Brummie's post:

From the perspective of many specific political contexts outside of the U.S., the Democrats' policies, or at least a substantial chunk of them, would position them thoroughly within the center-right of the spectrum.

It is not just about the Belgian context, I believe the Democrats are to the right of Germany's CDU on more than a few issues and no one would claim that the CDU is not a center-right party.

 

No I'm going to predict that on 8/10 issues, US Democrats are to the left of the agrarian/Christian Democrat/classical liberal parties of Europe. Maybe even 9/10.

 

What is the basis of this claim? The Dems who want to build a more modest version of the Christian-Democrat style welfare state are called socialists even in the U.S.

 

This is deteriorating rapidly, I think.

Obama's health care ambition was something like single payer/medicare for all. He did not quite have the votes in his own party to achieve it. This Rube Goldberg contraption we got in the end is a classic case of a horse designed by a committee:


And, of course, I used the word "European," not "Argentinian..."

 

Exactly. Democrats could be as left as the Euro center left parties, but they’re anchored to a well of the center right to start. Even if most of their policies are in tune with what more socialist governments provide in Europe, their starting point and a lack of solid governance coalition prevents them from achieving their stated goals and they have to settle for more right of center solutions, if they wanted to achieve anything.

 

My point was simply that politics is hard to compare when you're discussing different parties in different countries with different oppositions. IMO the comparisons become rather meaningless.

 

Well, that comes back to my point about the context in which different parties are operating.

 

My point was more that they aren't as left as some center-right European parties, at least in some areas and for some policies.

 

The question we should be asking is why?

IMO, (and in the opinion of many Europeans on the left), it's because American politics is bought and paid for by corporate interests. That's what I'm referring to when I say the context is different and why I agree with BG to an extent when he says that the US democrats, (particularly people like Pelosi, Biden and Schumer), are similar to centre right politicians like Cameron and Osborne.

But I also think their approach to foreign wars is similar to those on the right of European politics. Of course, on that last, front there's a spread of positions from Blair's tendency to argue for 'interventions' and people like Chirac, on the right but totally against the Iraq debacle... but all that says is that, in that regard, Blair was more right-wing than most of the UK.

 

It also has to be said that a lot of this comes down to the interpretation of specific policies. Whether something is left or right-wing depends on many factors, not just how it would be viewed from the politics of another country with their political parties and media.

 

For once I'm with Brummie on this one.

Anyway, one of Sweden's political parties sent some people to observe the Iowa caucuses in 2020. They thought Bernie was too left wing. And liked Buttigieg. https://theweek.com/speedreads/8969...swedens-ruling-social-democrats-official-says

On economic issues they might be center, but on social issues? Dear lord, let's not open that can of worms.

Anyway, this silly perception is partly due to the healthcare thing and just people not understanding politics.

 

You guys know there are US states, right???

Like, we can see how Democrats govern with supermajorities.

 

Don't do it too often.

 

The Global Party Survey is a gold-standard expert survey to evaluate the ideological placement of political parties all over the world on common, comparable scales.

https://www.globalpartysurvey.org/

Because it is run by political scientists who want to understand the world, they have made their data and methods available on the website.

https://www.globalpartysurvey.org/methods

When analysing the data, you can find the Christian Democrats and Flemish (CD&V) party on row 50:



And the US Democrats on the 993rd row.



For V4, "Economic Left-Right", where a 0 is "Extreme economic left", and a 10 is "Extreme economic right", the Belgian CD&V are an 8/10, and the Democrats a 3.7/10.

For V6, "Social Liberalism-Conservatism," again 0 to 10 left-right, the BD&V are a 7 while the Democrats are 2.4.

Section IV in the codebook lists the following issues.

V10 Immigration -- CD&V 6.3, DEM 2.7 (0 more immigration, 10 less immigration)
V11 Spending v tax -- CD&V 6, DEM 2.4 (0 favor increased public spending, 10 favor reduced taxation)
V12 Environment -- CD&V 4.2, DEM 2.1 (0 strong favor environmental protection, 10 oppose)
V13 Nationalism -- CD&V 6.8, DEM 8.3 (on this one, 10 is more multilateral, 0 is more nationalist)
V14 Women's Rights -- CD&V 3, DEM 1.7 (0 is strongly favors women's rights)
V15 Ethnic Minority Rights -- CD&V -- CD&V 4.2, Dem 1.7 (0 favors ethnic minority rights, 10 opposes)
V16 Liberal Democracy -- CD&V 1.7, DEM 2.3 (0 stronger support for liberal democracy, 10 undermines)
V17 Clientalism -- CD&V 4.6, DEM 2.4 (0 politicians follow will of people, 10 politicians lead opinion)

In all but one -- V16, Liberal Democracy -- the Democrats are more left-leaning than the CD&V.

Hell, V21 -- Strongman Rule -- the CD&V score worse than the Democrats (3.6 to 1.9).

I am so f u cking tired of this argument being played out here on P&CE, I'll make the promise that anyone who posts it again is going to get this treatment. I will belabor the point again, and again, and again, until every party that is even remotely center-right across Europe is compared to the Democrats and is shown to be more center-right.

Stop with this bad argument. You're (almost) all old enough to have voted when Dixiecrats were in the party. When there were Dixiecrats, this argument was true! But it's not true any more. Democrats are liberal. They are a center-left party by every fathomable definition of the word, save that you all keep repeating the bullshit lie.

 

TL;DR.

 

I've seen things like this before and I've never been too enamored of them.

They tend to demonstrate precisely the problem I mentioned. You can't talk about a party's program for government without the context of the current position, particularly regarding economics.

To take a simple example, one of the items you've mentioned is....

V11 Spending v tax -- CD&V 6, DEM 2.4 (0 favor increased public spending, 10 favor reduced taxation)​

Obviously, if spending is very high and taxes are also high, there's a question as to whether the balance should be adjusted. Likewise, if the situation is reversed, you might want to do the opposite.

There's no universal answer to the question, irrespective of the current economic situation.

I also looked through the questionnaire and it didn't seem to mention class inequality and the relevant party's attitudes other than in the most generic terms. TBH they seemed more interested in the social 'feelz' than that sort of thing. I mean, obviously, minority and women's rights, (for example) are important but MORE important than massive, (and growing), inequality???

There didn't seem to be anything about attitudes to workers' rights, historic economic inequalities, lack of soial mobility, economic insecurity, etc. etc.

Anyway, as I say, I've seen similar things in the past and, whilst they're worthwhile and provide a good starting point for discussion, they've always struck me as rather inadequate in some areas.

 

Okay well you'll need to let the 16 experts who did the Belgian parties and 50 experts who did the US parties -- now, that's 66 people who each have at least a decade of expertise post-PhD under their belt apiece, so 660 years worth of knowledge in total -- plus the dozens of experts who design and audit the study, why they're all wrong and you're right.

Email is here:

Administrator@GlobalPartySurvey.Org

Let me know what they say!