Obviously, I don't think it's non-existent, but in a country dominated by two main parties, neither of which seems at all left-wing, I do ask: What happened?
I'm amazed at how some of Obama's measures are labelled "liberal" or "socialist". In western Europe even soi-disant "conservative" politicians seem leftward of him. Britain's Conservative Party Prime Minister wants to legalise same-sex marriage.
I suppose that in one respect the Democratic Party has become slightly less right-wing than it used to be in that it lost the southern racists as a result of civil rights legislation. But how much genuinely liberal or socialist legislation has it brought in since the 1960s?
Traditionally, the Democrats were the trade union party, but back when that really mattered many of the unions were deeply corrupt and the party itself got a pretty unsavoury reputation from people like Richard J. Daley. How much do they do now for workers' rights?
The Republicans, meanwhile, have moved far to the right. First they got the racist southern Democrats and then they got the relgious right. The party now would probably be unrecognisable to Eisenhower.
I do wonder how much the shadow of Joseph McCarthy still hangs over the States. Did he, combined with the Cold War, poison the whole idea of communism, socialism and even social democracy and liberalism?
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