Historically & globally, Hillary Clinton is center-right. Bernie Sanders is center-left.

Last edited Wed Oct 21, 2015, 10:48 PM - Edit history (3)

Bernie Sanders is centrist or center-left at best from a international perspective. Single-payer healthcare is the status quo in many other developed countries, including Canada, the UK, France, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Australia, New Zealand, and Taiwan. Single-payer is supported by both center-right and center-left parties in those countries. Every other major country guarantees healthcare as a right to their people, and have real universal healthcare.

In the 1950s, we had a top marginal tax rate of 91% under President Eisenhower. JFK lowered it to around 70%, where it was until Reagan. Sanders wants to raise taxes somewhere above 50%, which is still lower than the post-war rates.

Bernie wants to make public universities completely tuition-free and debt-free, as they are in Germany, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, and as they largely were in the United States in the 1950s and 60s.

Every other major country has mandated paid family leave, paid sick leave, and paid vacation time. Bernie want that in the U.S.

Bernie thinks we should increase the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 an hour by 2020. In the year 2015, no one who works 40 hours a week should be living in poverty. Hillary Clinton only wants to raise the federal rate to $12. As Elizabeth Warren said, the minimum wage would be $22 an hour today if it had kept up with productivity gains the 1960s.

Bernie wants reinstate Glass-Steagall to break up the banks and separate commercial banking from investment banking. Elizabeth Warren supports GS, but so does John McCain. On GS, Hillary Clinton is to the right of even John McCain. That's why I don't think she's a true liberal. Bernie wants to break up the banks like how Republican President Teddy Roosevelt broke up the monopolies in his time.

Bernie wants to create more jobs by investing heavily in infrastructure. Canada just elected an anti-austerity party (the Liberal Party) that has vowed to boost Keynesian deficit spending on infrastructure investment to get Canada's economy out of recession. Justin Trudeau and his Liberals are classified as "centrist/center-left" in Canada. Trudeau's centrist party also wants to legalize, tax, and regulate marijuana, like Sanders. Hillary opposes marijuana legalization, and opposed decriminalization in 2008.

Bernie Sanders want to outlaw the death penalty, and capital punishment is abolished in most of the developed world. Hillary Clinton has been a consistent supporter of the death penalty.

Hillary Clinton is to the right of President Obama on military affairs, being quite hawkish on arming Syrian rebels, defending Israel, fighting Iran, and supporting a no-fly zone in Syria. Bernie Sanders is more aligned with the Obama administration on foreign policy and opposes endless war. Justin Trudeau, of the Liberal Party of Canada, vowed to get his country out of the airstrikes in Syria, preferring non-interventionism.

Bernie thinks we should expand Social Security by lifting the cap on taxable income above $250,000. In 2008, Barack Obama campaigned to the left of Hillary Clinton on SS, with Obama wanting to raise the cap on SS taxes, with Clinton opposed to such a tax.

Bernie is a huge fan of FDR's "New Deal" programs, JFK's "New Frontier" programs, and LBJ's "Great Society" programs. The Democrats stood for the working class from the 1930s to the 80s, before Bill Clinton drove the party to the middle with his "Third Way" DLC nonsense. Hillary Clinton is a triangulating, neoliberal, DLC, Wall Street corporatist centrist "New Democrat."

From the 1950s to 1970s, America experienced inclusive growth and high levels of upward mobility, due to strong labor unions and minimum wage laws, and high marginal tax rates (and high tax receipts) to fund social services, education (including affordable college), scientific research, space exploration, and world-class infrastructure. There was a virtuous cycle in which families could attain the American Dream. Republican President Eisenhower invested heavily in infrastructure in the 1950s. That's not an extreme position. It was mainly the Keynesian policies of the Roosevelt-Truman-Eisenhower era that allowed for the postwar boom that gave America its strong middle class.

In responding to the Great Depression, FDR passed Social Security, unemployment insurance, minimum wages, progressive taxation on high incomes, financial regulation, and pro-unionization policies (the Wagner Act). Bernie Sanders is an FDR Democrat, or an LBJ-style Democrat.

The Democratic Party has moved so far right, that modern elected Democrats are like moderate Republicans in the 1970s, like Nelson Rockefeller and Richard Nixon on domestic policy. In a 2014 interview with Bill O'Reilly, President Obama argued that he was "probably not" the most liberal American president, and that if you looked at his policies, "in a lot of ways," even Republican Richard Nixon was further left. Obama went on to list FDR and LBJ as presidents who were also more liberal than him. Nixon pushed detente, promoted affirmative action, proposed a guaranteed minimum income, established the Environmental Protection Agency, supported universal healthcare (his plan was very similar to Obamacare), and endorsed Keynesian economics. That's basically what establishment Democrats are like now.

Bernie Sanders isn't extremely far left, and neither are his supporters. We're just what the Dems used to be in the 40s-80s before it went to the center. We're part of the social-democratic left. We're proud progressives. Hillary Clinton is not a real progressive or liberal. She's an establishment Dem, making her a 1970s moderate Republican.

Moreover, Bernie Sanders would be considered a moderate in Europe, with establishment Democrats like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama being considered "center-right" politicians. For example, while visiting Sweden in 2013, President Obama said he would probably be considered a moderate in Europe, possibly even "center-right," even if that's not the case in the U.S., where some perceive him to be a left-wing Democrat. Obama said, "You know, I have to say that if I were here in Europe, I’d probably be considered right in the middle, maybe center-left, maybe center-right, depending on the country. In the United States sometimes the — the names I’m called are quite different.” Obama made the comments at a joint press conference with then Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, who led Sweden's major "center-right" party.

While Sanders is perceived to be "left-wing" or "far-left" in America, if Bernie Sanders were in France, he would be right where President Francois Hollande is on the political spectrum. In Canada, Sanders would be a run-of-the-mill NDP politician (and the NDP is expected to win the upcoming Canadian federal elections). In the UK, Sanders would probably sit in the left-wing of the Labour Party. All of these are the major, and often governing, center-left parties of their respective nations. Indeed, Bernie Sanders would fit in quite comfortably in the mainstream center-left political parties in Western Europe and Scandinavia, given that in those countries, many of his preferred policies are already the status quo.

Most likely, political parties and politicians to the left of mainstream center-left parties in Europe would find Sanders way too conservative. For example, Sanders is significantly, significantly to the right of Greece's Syriza, which is a coalition of various radical leftist groups. Moreover, Sanders' agenda is much more mild compared to that of Jeremy Corbyn, current leader of the UK Labour Party, who is an old-school hardcore socialist who wants the British government to control huge sectors of the economy. Corbyn is much further to the left than Sanders, with Corbyn wanting to renationalize Britain's railroad system and to nationalize the UK's energy companies.

Democratic socialists (aka social democrats) have been routinely elected to power in European countries. One of Britain's most famous Prime Ministers, Clement Attlee, who set up single-payer healthcare and Britain's "cradle-to-grave" welfare state was a proud self-described socialist. Attlee, a democratic socialist, gave Britain the NHS, expansion of national insurance, raising of state pensions, unemployment benefits, child benefits, maternity benefits, sickness benefits, expansion of war pensions for the wounded and widowed. Infant mortality went down, life expectancy went up. Universal family allowances were introduced. Furthermore workers rights were expanded upon; entitlement to sick leave was increased, workers compensation was increased and much more.

Olof Palme, the legendary social-democratic Prime Minister of Sweden, was also proud self-described democratic socialist, and was instrumental in building Sweden's robust trade union movement and extensive social welfare model. European social democrats in the post-war era gave their countries full health insurance, good pensions, good public transit, four weeks paid vacation, strong labor laws, and high median wages. Sanders is basically a mainstream European social democrat, he's not for nationalizing all industry like Cuba, and doesn't even want to nationalize the banks. Sanders wants to do what 90% of the American people want and break up the too big to fail New York banks. Sanders is against global corporate crony capitalism, but supports small business capitalism.

Sanders is against giant corporations who have no allegiance to the U.S., even though they were born in the USA, and rose to profit on the backs of American workers, and are going to the fascist or authoritarian communist regime abroad, and emptying out jobs and industries in the U.S.

The UK Labour Party is a proud democratic socialist party. Tommy Douglas of the Canadian Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, a democratic socialist, gave Canada single-payer healthcare, and the democratic socialist NDP controls provincial governments in Alberta and Manitoba. Willy Brandt, the famous German Social Democratic Chancellor, didn't even hesitate using the word "democratic socialism" to describe his vision for Germany even at the height of the Cold War. Democratic socialist, social-democratic, and labor parties are competitive and strong in pretty much every other major country, and have frequently won elections and implemented their agendas.

So Bernie Sanders is centrist, or center-left at best, in the context of the overall developed world. Hillary Clinton is center-right. In the historical context of the U.S., Sanders is right with LBJ and FDR. So he's not an extremely left candidate.

Moreover, on the specific policies Bernie outlines, a majority of Americans agree with basically everything he's proposing. So dos that mean that they are extremely far to the left, ultra-left wingers? They like Bernie's ambitious agenda better than Clinton's more mild agenda.