2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: I don't think that the greatest danger to the Democratic Party is the GOP [View all]Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)The political center is currently to the left off the Democratic party.
Y'see, Western politics fall on a right-left spectrum.
Now in sane systems, there are a multitude of viable parties, which helps keep the reality of this spectrum clear. Some parties are more to one side than other parties are, and it's clear that hte parties are defined by the spectrum.
In the united States though, our winner-take-all political system forces a situation where there are only ever two viable parties. THis tends to create the illusion that one party defines "left" and the otherparty defines "right." Which is why we talk about the Republicans "flipping" or the Dixiecrats "flipping" or what have you. Except they didn't flip, because there is nowhere to "flip" to. They simply changed party alliegance to a party closer to them on the spectrum.
In reality America's political parties fall out this way (no, it's not precisely-measured, it's just to convey a point.):
The Democrats are a right-of-center party that happen to have a notable amount of support from left-of-center voters - because the only other viable party is a proto-fascist far right party. This creates a conflict in the Democratic party, between the party apparatus itself which really, really, really wants to be 1980's Republicans, and a sizable portion of its base which actually falls to the left of, say, Bernie Sanders (he's left-of-center, but more center than left.)
If you want to straddle the actual political center, that necessitates a move left.
On the other hand, as I noted, there's this weird tendency to let the parties define the spectrum. If you believe the Democrats define what is "left" and hte Republicans define what is "right" then your center is here:
This is why Democrats talking about "centrism" is so worrying.