It matters not in the least that the "hard left positions" don't exist.
Of course they exist.
[partisan whining snipped]it's like their own exclusive "we know best" club.
Both sides think they know best.
Even the farthest lefty on the left - Bernie Sanders - doesn't really hold any "hard left" positions I can think of. In Europe, he'd be considered "center left" at best,
Not really. Take this chart.
US Dems re right there among European center-left parties. If you go to the
NY Times article there is an interactive version of this so you can hover over the circles that are not identified by name in the static version of the chart.
Now this is from 2019, and Dems have lurched to the left since then. UK Labour has moved toward the middle since they ditched Comrade Jezza as leader too.
Sanders is well to the left of US Democrats, which means he is to the left of center-left European parties as well.
and Harris is way to the right of Bernie.
But she is to the left of most Democrats, including Elizabeth Warren, according to
GovTrack.
WaPo has these graphics for GovTrack data.
This is the average over her tenure. This second graph shows that she moved markedly to the left over time, even overtaking Bernie in the outer left lane by the time she was running for president.
But the MAGA base (and a good portion of the rank and file Republicans) believe that anything more liberal than the John Birch Society is downright communist.
MAGAs might believe that, but rational people don't. Nevertheless, Kamala Harris is to the left of most Democrats.
The thing is, the "radical left" Democrats like "Komrade Kamala" aren't doing anything to dispel this notion or point out the difference. The "left" within the party is shouting from the rooftops "SHE'S NOT LEFT!" but that's not going to reach the ears of someone wearing a "fuck your feelings" t-shirt at a rally in East Bumblefuck.
Who is this '"left" within the party' who don't think that Kamala Harris is left? Are they still hung up on her being "Copmala" and can't fathom that a prosecutor can be on the left?
They don't grasp that the "radical left" ACA has roots in a plan originally pushed by the folks behind Project 2025, and that expanding private healthcare coverage by giving government subsidies to people so they can buy plans from for-profit insurance companies is about as "far left" as Barry Goldwater's right testicle.
Who is this imaginary "they". They are certainly not in the room with us. ACA was a moderate plan. Single payer isn't. Banning fracking isn't.
Giving lip service support to unions isn't "hard left."
Biden-Harris did far more than give lip service to Unions, even radical ones like UAW under Shawn Fain.
Continuing economic policies which allow the exploitation of workers in the Global South so that Wall Street can make the deep end of the money pool even deeper isn't "hard left." Giving a Taiwanese chip maker billions in subsidies to build a plant in America, but not tying that money to a guarantee that the employees will be unionized or even protected from "right to work" laws isn't "hard left." Continuing to grant huge contracts to the industrial half of the military-industrial complex so they can do things like overcharge for a can of Diet Coke on a military base isn't "hard left."
Are all these things part of Kamala's agenda? Or are you imputing everythinbg Biden did to her?
Biden is certainly not nearly as far left as Harris, even though he was pulled to the left while in office.
Also, I agree with you 100% on overcharging military for simple items. But I think right-to-work laws are a good thing. Nobody should be forced to join a union in order to work, especially when unions spend a lot of effort on left-wing political advocacy that has nothing to do with collective bargaining. For example
against Israel defending itself against Gaza or
in support of a convicted cop killer.
"Left" would be breaking up Amazon, Google, Microsoft, WalMart, and other corporate giants. "Hard left" would be breaking them up AND making them owned/run by the workers.
Would you just steal the equity from the stockholders or would there be fair market value compensation involved?
