I hear a lot that people say the US Democratic Party would be right wing in Europe. But I see a lot of Europeans online say that their (left) parties are corrupt and right wing. What am I missing?
There is far more to politics than just healthcare.
I’m just gonna post the Cory Doctorow quote
"Take politics: One common refrain is that ‘‘I don’t even know what right or left even mean anymore, they’re just tribal identities.’’ Many years ago, I said something very like this to Steven Brust, who skewered me with his response:
‘‘‘Left’ and ‘right’ mean the same thing today that they’ve meant since the French Revolution. Ask someone, ‘What’s more important: property rights, or human rights?’ If they answer: ‘Property rights are human rights,’ they are on the right.’’"
Left and right started as arbitrary concept based on where political parties sit in a parliament and they totally depend on the circumstances of the political system. In European history at the time democracies came into existence you could have separated idiological streams into e.g. republicans (as in people who aim for a republic) and monarchists. Also the more political parties with different topics there are the more difficult it gets to assign them to either left or right. As another commenter stated… dividing a political system into left and right helps to define a common „enemy“ which moves away the political discourse from other topics that matter.
Public health care is not a leftist idea - it is just good business. Canada has better life expectancy than the US and our healthcare system costs less than the american one. No canadian has ever gone broke or lost their house because they get sick. when a working-age american dies of a preventable disease, their education, skills, and experience die with them. keep your people healthy and they will be more productive and will pay more taxes because they will earn more over their lifespan. american media tell americans that healthcare is communist for one reason only: to protect the wealth of healthcare investors. you have been ridiculously bamboozled.
Seems like you are from the US.
As much as “left” and “right” carry any meaning anywhere, in your country those words have been redefined to the point they are completely meaningless.
If you have any left-leaning organized political movement, it never makes the news. You only have extreme right.
