We don’t have a large, cohesive, left party. There are people who are certainly left in the USA, but we have no real representation out of a handful of congress people.
From the 20th century, we have the ideological war against USSR to thank for that. It started all the way back with Wilson. After WWII, the threat of nuclear annihilation was a powerful tool for nationalism. (I’d learn only recently that a first strike was far more likely to come from US than USSR, and we had some dangerous war hawks in power.)
Before that, after reconstruction came redemption and corporate interests took over both parties.
Before that, roads, schools, bridges, libraries and such were socialism giving the working man benefits to which they didn’t contribute (we just contributed all the labor). Yes, they called it socialism even back in the 19th century.
Do observe that adherence to neoliberalism in the EU (which is essentially corporatism with extra steps) is driving the rise of far right movements even over there. And when the tech-bros and white Christian nationalists over here are done bleeding the US dry like its private equity, they’ll be headed over there with their vast wealth to do the same thing.
The 1917 russian revolution kicked it off. The fear of a workers revolution happening in the US started a campaign of labelling everything socialist and communist as anti-american.
I don’t think you have a left in the US. You have far right and center right. In Germany it’s like you had only AfD and CDU and that’s it.
I mean it’s still obvious which choice is better but none of them is left.
American 2 party system is so fucked that anything left of rabid, far right fascism is considered far left
Isn’t Die Linke gaining ground on the polls though?
We don’t have a large, cohesive, left party. There are people who are certainly left in the USA, but we have no real representation out of a handful of congress people.
From the 20th century, we have the ideological war against USSR to thank for that. It started all the way back with Wilson. After WWII, the threat of nuclear annihilation was a powerful tool for nationalism. (I’d learn only recently that a first strike was far more likely to come from US than USSR, and we had some dangerous war hawks in power.)
Before that, after reconstruction came redemption and corporate interests took over both parties.
Before that, roads, schools, bridges, libraries and such were socialism giving the working man benefits to which they didn’t contribute (we just contributed all the labor). Yes, they called it socialism even back in the 19th century.
Do observe that adherence to neoliberalism in the EU (which is essentially corporatism with extra steps) is driving the rise of far right movements even over there. And when the tech-bros and white Christian nationalists over here are done bleeding the US dry like its private equity, they’ll be headed over there with their vast wealth to do the same thing.
You can go back further than that.
The 1917 russian revolution kicked it off. The fear of a workers revolution happening in the US started a campaign of labelling everything socialist and communist as anti-american.
Americans think universal healthcare is leftist.
it takes power from private companies and puts it into the hands of the government, which sounds pretty leftist to me.