• stonerboner@lemmynsfw.com
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    35
    ·
    3 months ago

    Just wondering how the heck Walz can be considered “not of the left.” Looking at his accomplishments with universal background checks, free school lunch etc it seems he’s accomplished more left leaning goals than 99% of his colleagues

      • stonerboner@lemmynsfw.com
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        3 months ago

        Are you suggesting that the tankies are a big enough voting block to qualify Walz as “not of the left?” Big doubt.

        • SaucySnake@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          18
          ·
          3 months ago

          I’m suggesting they’re probably the ones screaming the loudest about people not being left enough

          • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            8
            ·
            3 months ago

            By global standards, the USA has almost zero politicians that would rate as “left”.

            The Overton window has been constantly shoved further to the right for decades.

            • stonerboner@lemmynsfw.com
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              3 months ago

              We are not using global standards, this is a US paper about US politics.

              There may be only one or two successful politicians in the entire US who meet the “global standards,” which would make calling him out for “not being of the left” really fucking stupid.

    • fukhueson@lemmy.worldOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      3 months ago

      The author is making a distinction between progressive and leftist, and this interpretation may vary from reader to reader, considering in many ways the two views share many similarities. I personally have no issue with the classification, calling his accomplishments progressive or leftist makes little difference to me, but it could be viewed differently by others who may have drawn a line between the two labels. Manchin and AOC rallying behind Walz does appear to lend credence to the idea that he could be a unifying force.

    • aleph@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      edit-2
      3 months ago

      Certainly from a mainstream political standpoint he appears to be fairly liberal with some progressive policies. However, the writer is using the term ‘leftists’ to mean socialists or left-wing “radicals” (whatever that means).

      His stance of Israel is really what will be the clincher for leftists, as is the case with Harris. On the plus side, they are both taking a softer line in terms of how they discuss the genocide in public, but of course neither of them would ever utter the phrase with relation to the Palestinians – that would be too radical.

      Therefore, there’s a lot of doubt as to whether either of them will break from Biden’s policy of continuing to send bombs and military hardware to Israel, as both are apparently very much in the “Israel has the right to defend itself” camp.