zlacker

>>david9+(OP)
Don't want to talk in bad taste by going to this so early, but... this extremely unfortunate event is going to be a very telling test for the media and society at large.

A Democratic state representative in Minnesota was brutally murdered and another attacked by the same man only a couple of months ago, back in June. How many can name them? How long did their deaths stay in the headlines? How much coverage were they given, and how much coverage will Kirk be given?

My cynical side suspects we are about to hear a lot about "violence from the left" in a way we did not about the right back in June.

>>afavou+Fd
Think of it as a hardening. From outsider perspective, IMHO your left is very weak and inconsistent and it's not even left from a European perspective.

The far right developed stars, stallions and philosophers that are effective in the popular culture no matter how vile some of those can be. There are up and coming leftist Americans but they will need to hustle to develop intro strong leaders. The mainstream figures from the American left like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Bernie Sanders are just too lightweight.

Edit: funny how this comment fluctuates between 0 and 2 points. This edit will probably tip the balance though :)

>>mrtksn+9h
> and it's not even left from a European perspective.

This is a meme that needs to die. Its just not true.

The Democratic party in the US is right in line with Labor/Socialist/Whatever Mainstream Leftist Party you want to point at in Europe. It has members who end up on various sides of the left-wing spectrum. There are no "far left" parties in the US because we have a two party system.

There are obviously topics where this is not true. But that goes both ways: almost no country on Earth has the level of abortion access that the Democratic party in the US demands. And there are examples of European right wing parties who fight for zero abortion access, which is not the GOP platform currently.

>>heyjam+3s
Democratic Party voters seem to be more aligned with Euro-style socialist policies, but among elected Democrats this is a small minority view.

European socialists usually advocate for direct state ownership of certain industries, sector-wide union contracts, universal (not means-tested) child allowances, fully public health care, wealth taxes, free college, etc. There are a handful of elected Democrats that sign on to some of these views, but these have never been in the actual party platform, since the mainstream of the party roundly rejects these. Democrats are only somewhat radical in certain social/bioethical issues like abortion and LGBT rights (although the latter is being tested, with some influential Dems defecting); otherwise, the better European analogue would be Macron's Renaissance party (formerly En Marche), the UK's Lib Dems, the Nordic countries' social liberal parties.