Not really? The democratic and republican parties are both classical liberal parties, invested in business and capital as the standard and correct way to organize a society. Classical liberalism is a center-right ideology, globally.
Show me the party in the U.S. that wants to abolish private property, wants to provide food, healthcare, and housing to all, that wants to nationalize key industries, that wants to govern from a standpoint of "wellbeing for all". If you can point me to a place where that's the prevailing ideology, I'll gladly recant the idea that no place like that exists here.
You are not using the term “left of center” how most people do. Which is fine if you want to but then don’t get surprised when you have to explain yourself every single time.
BTW as an actual “classical liberal” I find it hilarious you describe the two parties that way.
Social democrats (e.g. Nordic model) are left of center, but aren't MLs or communists. Anarchists (e.g. Kropotkin) are left of center but aren't MLs or communists.
There's plenty of room between the center and Marxist Leninism.
I would say many labor politicians are centrist. Some democrats are center, some are center-left. Some are center-right.
You could just as easily say that the Republicans and Democrats are both left of center because neither party wants to restore a politically active monarchy, establish a national church and reform law and government under explicitly religious lines, restrict and revoke citizenship based on ethnicity, or install a military government. You might say, "but those are all crazy far-right things that no sane developed country would do", but I think nationalizing industries and abolishing private property are crazy far-left things that no sane developed country would do, either.
Canadian potash corporation, Chilean mining, French financial sector, gazprom in Germany, Indian fossil fuels, railways around the globe, Amtrak here in the U.S.
Many many nations are nationalizing things historically and through today.
Nationalization isn't a litmus test for if you are a leftist though, it's an example of one leftist policy.
In general, the left seeks social justice through redistributive social and economic policies, while the right defends private property and capitalism.
> In general, the left seeks social justice through redistributive social and economic policies, while the right defends private property and capitalism.
That’s an extremely left-skewed framing that leaves out a lot of important cultural issues. For instance, the leftists during the Spanish Civil War massacred Catholic priests and nuns and burned down churches while many on the right sought to protect the church and restore the Spanish monarchy.
It’s more correct to say that the right defends traditional institutions, which might include capitalism, but even these vary widely from country to country. For instance the United States never had a monarchy or an established religion; most of the American Founding Fathers would have sat somewhere left of center in the Estates General during the French Revolution, which is where we get the terms “left” and “right” from in the first place. But in an American context, the republic and the constitution are the traditional institutions that the American right has traditionally defended, even though they were established by the 18th century left.
Even when it comes to capitalism it’s not as clear cut. Prior to the American Civil War, the north was capitalist but the south had a precapitalist agrarian economy based on slave labor. The northern liberals, abolitionists, and capitalists formed a coalition to the left of the southern planters. Outside of areas that had widespread slavery, there’s also a long tradition of right wing critiques of capitalism as a destructive change to the traditional patterns of society, and there are many on the far right who seek to return to much older ways that are now lost.
Show me the party in the U.S. that wants to abolish private property, wants to provide food, healthcare, and housing to all, that wants to nationalize key industries, that wants to govern from a standpoint of "wellbeing for all". If you can point me to a place where that's the prevailing ideology, I'll gladly recant the idea that no place like that exists here.