Hacker News Reader

It's pretty american centric to believe free health care to be a leftist idea only.

Which is... pretty odd, as one of the three dominant styles of universal health care today was originated by and is named after _Otto van Bismarck_, who you'd struggle to consider a leftist.

Unless you're seeing things through the US duality lens, where everything is black or white, left or right, etc..

I don't get why climate change is a "leftist" issue for those people, and yet..

And to be fully fair, von Bismarck only did it to preempt social democrats' talking points and popularity.

It was implemented by Bismarck but it was an explicit plan to outmaneuver the left wing by taking a popular part of their platform, which I've seen translated as "stealing socialism's thunder". Good details from a US-left perspective here

https://jacobinmag.com/2019/12/otto-von-bismarck-germany-soc...

and from a US-centerish perspective here

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/bismarck-tried-end-so...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com