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Comment by jhpriestley | Hacker News Reader

Clinton was in fact a centrist "third-way" democrat who often compromised or coopted Republican issues, e.g. welfare reform.

Obama was not as much of a centrist but he was obstructed heavily by the opposition.

I'll continue to blame the people who vote 90% in one direction over the ones who vote 90% the other lol.

Edit: you added some specific comments about immigration. This is correct, Democrats are not very pro-immigration. They are more pro-immigration than the GOP, e.g. DACA order vs. DACA repeal, but the two parties are pretty close on immigration. There is a much bigger gap on issues like healthcare.

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Even healthcare, though, what's the Biden playbook on healthcare?

"Instead of starting from scratch and getting rid of private insurance, he has a plan to build on the Affordable Care Act by giving Americans more choice, reducing health care costs, and making our health care system less complex to navigate." This is a quote from the Biden campaign site.

As though letting anyone enroll in Medicare is "starting from scratch."

Compared to the Trump plan on healthcare which roughly amounts to: "Leave the Affordable Care Act in place because there really is no other option that anyone can come up with."

So, the Democratic plan is to leave private insurers be, so long as they cover pre-existing conditions. Which is the Republican plan. The difference is one is framed positively and the other negatively? Bumping up vs ignoring Medicare and Medicaid financing? Maybe? Even that's not clear from the Biden site.

The issue is the system is broken entirely, and both sides plan to move the deck chairs around -- one six inches to the left, and one six inches to the right. This was equally true of DACA. Leaving people in a perpetual state of deferred action parole via executive order is not a solution to anything.

You’re arguing because modern Left positions haven’t successfully passed into law, that the parties are fundamentally the same?

A good half the county would strongly disagree with what you feel - and that they’ve blocked those from passing isn’t proof that the system is failing, it’s proof it’s working. Obama got his healthcare plan. Every president usually gets maybe one or two bigger things they want, not all. It’s a sign that it’s working. Remember, you’re in a democracy, and about half of the people don’t agree with DACA, increased immigration, single payer...

I’m arguing if you set the rhetoric aside the party platforms are largely the same. The Overton window is shifted so far to the right in the US the two parties are basically “right or center-right,” and “far right.” There is no left. From a purely policy perspective they’re very similar.

There are clear and obvious differences in how the party operates and which side is on team Science for instance, but the core policy issues just aren’t all that different.

Strong disagree. I don’t get this line of reasoning at all. First of all you have multiple factions within each party that strongly disagree - on the left it ranges from extreme socialists to populist liberals (in decline) to neolibs and hawks. You had Bernie almost winning the primaries this year. On the right you have tea party libertarians, you have evangelicals, you have national populists now, and you have your neocons.

Now you could say neocons and neolibs did dominate for a while, and yea that has some truth. But it’s not so true today.

The two party system is really interesting because within each party you really do have diversity, and then they all compromise with each other. The dems are doing that this year. They have to do that, or else they lose their electorate. The parties move around constantly. Ron Paul moved the needle. Al Gore brought forward environmentalism. The Liberals have changed wildly over the last 30 years from being more middle/low class focused to being the party of the rich, of tech, and shifting towards focusing on minorities. That they were more aligned for a bit doesn’t prove anything.

Look at how Trump is remaking the right. It’s been fascinating and he’s done a sort of garbage cleaning on their platform.

Look at how Bernie’s success has radically pushed the left.

This is what I mean by the Overton window being shifted so far right. There are no "extreme socialists" in the Democratic wing. AOC is center-left, Bernie is pretty much center.

"Extreme socialist" would be arguing that the state should own the means of production. Until AOC starts arguing for nationalizing Google as a means of making core internet infrastructure public, for instance, I wouldn't worry about the "extreme socialists."

Wealth taxes, free college, universal healthcare, universal basic income. All things unthinkable for a politician to platform on 20 years ago.

Ok, four major leftward shifts the party is embracing, could easily name more. Can you name some things we’ve moved right on?

Those are things the base are demanding, but the party itself is rejecting. Or by "four" did you mean people in congress instead of four issues? Because it's more accurate to say about four fringe democrats are pushing those policies than to say the democrat party is endorsing those policies.

You’re exaggerating so much it’s just lying. The party is adopting them slowly and surely.

Tell me Bernie didn’t win a significant portion of the vote and all the early primaries twice now? Joe Biden doesn’t support universal healthcare and very high taxes including a huge raise on capital gains, he doesn’t have a running mate who calls for reparations? He hasn’t totally changed on policing? Elizabeth Warren is suddenly a minor player in the party when her and Bernie combined had a significant chunk of the debate time and raise as much money as anyone? When it’s convenient for your argument you suddenly claim they are minor, when they aren’t.

And yes all those positions are a big move left for American politics.

And I’m just sticking with the economic issues, socially we’ve moved much further left.

The general position that we’ve moved right is laughable, I’m still waiting on examples.

They are largely the same because the alternatives fail in various ways: they fail to finance their campaigns, i.e. they fail to get aristocratic backing, and/or they fail to appeal to the tiny minority of most motivated participants, i.e. primary voters.

Also, the two parties have conspired to put in all kinds of barriers, at the state and local level, to make it difficult to unseat their primacy.

But to say they just aren't all that different, ignoring the effect of consistency over time, is like suggesting the pressure differential above and below an airfoil isn't that different. It is true, but it's not a complete answer either.

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