Where does DU fall on the political spectrum?

[11 Bravo]

I'm curious as to where DUers feel that this website stands.

15 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	Lefty loons
	0 (0%)
	Hard left
	4 (27%)
	Left of center
	7 (47%)
	Centrist
	2 (13%)
	Right of center
	1 (7%)
	Hard right
	1 (7%)
	Right-wing lunatics
	0 (0%)
	0 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
Show usernames Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll

[liberal_at_heart]

1. I would say left on social issues, but right of center on economic issues.

[Demo_Chris]

2. From hard left to moderate right...

As for percentages there's no way to know. I suspect there are a whole bunch of leftists who have gotten tired of the whole thing and are largely giving up -- I certainly fall into this camp and I suspect that I am not alone.

[winter is coming]

3. Who's defining "center"? n/t

[11 Bravo]

4. Whomever decides to respond to the poll.

I'm pretty sure I didn't call this a scientific poll. Just trying to see where DUers come down.

[siligut]

14. Says right there in the lower left corner, it is an Internet Poll

[CJCRANE]

5. It doesn't stand anywhere.

It's just a bunch of self-selected opinionated individuals.

Pretty much the only thing that isn't allowed here are far right ideas.

DUers as individuals cover a range of positions depending on the issue from far left to center right.

So it varies within the group as a whole and also within individual DUers.

[oldhippydude]

6. actually center leaning left...

we are common sense pragmatists, that used to be center....with the crazy right wingers in the spectrum, anything based in reality is now considered far left... we haven't changed the spectrum moved to the right..

[MineralMan]

7. Ask the admins.

It is their site.

[HereSince1628]

8. Back in DU 1.0 liberals and progressives including greens that didn't

push for other than a democratic presidential candidate were welcome

Last I saw DU had a statement that welcomed liberals and didn't mention progressives

[11 Bravo]

10. I hear you, but I give them a lot more credit than you appear to do.

Herding this particular group of cats can't be easy. I think they try to give posters a long leash.

[MineralMan]

12. Yes they do.

DU is home to a very broad spectrum od Democratic opinion. That is what makes it a great site.

[MineralMan]

24. Actually, I think they do a terrific job.

I'm here because they have created and continue to maintain a discussion forum that accommodates a wide range of Democratic opinion. Despite the desire of more than one faction to dismiss or eliminate some viewpoints, the site continues to host the complete range of left-of-center ideas.

That's a very difficult thing to do, and DU does it well.

[forestpath]

9. What do you mean by "lefty loons"?

[bluestate10]

15. I am strong Moderate-mild liberal, but the lefty loons thing caused me to be taken aback.

I disagree strongly with some DU members that are on the far Left, but never will I ever call them loons. The far Left feels passionate about many issues of our day, they must be respected, but strongly engaged in debate about what is the right path for the country.

[socialist_n_TN]

11. Center left..........

But since that wasn't an option, I chose left of center. Most of the polls I've seen about the socialism/capitalism divide usually come down pretty even, which tells me that, as a whole, this probably a center-left web site AS FAR AS THE POSTERS GO. But there is a very loud contingent of neo-liberals here that skew the discussion sometimes.

[bluestate10]

17. Terminology is important. You and I self identify as Center Left, yet we have duked it

out on a few issues. My view on you on a poster is that you are clearly Left of where I am. The difference is why I like DU, you and I are blue, but you are deeper blue than I am, without being wrapped around to the point that you become unrecognizable. Sometimes I leave DU wanting to tear my hair out from rage, but far more times, I leave thinking about points of view that were well thought out and presented by posters from all over DU's political spectrum.

[socialist_n_TN]

27. I guess I didn't state it clearly. PERSONALLY........

I'm WAY left. I'm a member of a left communist organization and I usually come down on the left of THAT group. So I'm not really "deeper blue", I'm actually more like Classic Red. However, as Trotsky always stressed to his followers, if it helps the working class, even in an interim manner, we must be FOR it. Because that's what we got into politics for, to help the working class.

However, DU as a whole IMO, is center-left. Or reformist left if you'd prefer. There's not a ton of actual revolutionaries here. Maybe 20% who would self identify as revolutionary Marxists or anarchists, who want to bring down the whole system and start over with something fairer. That's a pretty high percentage compared to the rest of the population which skews this board left.

Then there are maybe 30/40% who are reformist left, which would include everything from democratic socialists on the left to FDR Dems on the right of that 30/40%. Which leaves about 40% or so to the right of those categories.

Most of those more RWers are of a libertarian bent, which means they're neo-liberal on economics and liberal on social issues. Of course, it's ONLY those social issues that allow this bunch to call themselves "left", but that would only be in the USA. As far as history or the rest of the world is concerned, it's the economics that describe your place on the left/right political line. The social issues are "Of course! That goes without saying!" types of things in the rest of the world.

And as one of the more left of that 20% of revolutionary socialists posting on a center-left board, I expect to be disagreed with most of the time. Even the dem socialists are going to disagree with me a fair amount, not to mention the ones MORE to the right than that. I see my purpose here as agitating for the positions, strategies, and tactics that have, in the past, been successful against the capitalist system. Eventually, I feel like those positions that I outline and argue for will be proven true by events which will bring more influence to bear on events later on.

[TeamPooka]

13. left of center-ish

[kentuck]

16. Where is cult?

..of personality??

[petronius]

23. "When a mirror speaks, the reflection lies"

Just a little 80s music flashback - the first thought I had in response to your post...

[Spider Jerusalem]

18. In what context? Socially? Economically?

And in an American context or the broader global context of the political "left" and "right" as those terms are historically understood? Economically, centre-right to centre-left (majority opinion, capitalism is a good thing if reformed and regulated); socially, solidly liberal, on some issues, stridently nationalist, on others, reactionary. Opinion in these fora covers a fairly broad spectrum but there do tend to be clusters.

[sarisataka]

19. Everyone here is

a radical right winger troll, posing a a leftist- except me...




I think

[TimberValley]

20. For those who voted that DU is "hard right" or "right-wing lunatic" on the poll......

..........then what is your definition of "hard left" or "lefty loons???"?????

[TexasProgresive]

21. Other- a spectrum n/t

[whatchamacallit]

22. "Lefty Loons"

Everything deteriorates either direction from center of course.

[LWolf]

25. When?

Today, or pre-Obama DU?

[Posteritatis]

26. Kinda like the bell curve showing up there so far

That said, a breakdown of something like these by a few categories might be interesting - seeing where the site sits on social issues versus economic, diplomatic, etc., issues would probably have some variations that might be worth a look. (DU seems much more socially conservative to me than it does on most other issues, for instance.)

[Donald Ian Rankin]

28. So far to the left it can't even see the centre with a telescope, I'm afraid.

Never make the mistake of assuming that what you read on DU is a significant stream of public opinion in the USA.

Many of the *positions on issues* you'll find here are mainstream in other countries, but because they're mainstream and held as mainstream views, the attitudes to those positions of the people who hold them are very different.

[socialist_n_TN]

29. Disagree. I'm WAY to the left of DU and.........

the "positions on issues" on DU are not MUCH more to the left of the American public's positions on issues. SLIGHTLY more to the left, but not really much more to the left. When compared to the positions on issues held by the American public, DU is center-left.

Don't mistake the positions of the political class for the positions of the actual public. The politicians, Dem AND Republican, are so far to the RIGHT of the American public that they can't see the center with a telescope.

[byeya]

32. That's why I chose the 'centrist' option on the poll...your analysis jibes with my impression

[socialist_n_TN]

35. Yeah, I vacillated between the one I picked and "centrist".....

What tipped me to "left of center" was the larger presence of actual socialists here compared to other centrist boards. Plus, centrist has a definite meaning in Bolshevik-Leninist terminology and, in no way, does DU fall into that category. I still think that center-left would have been a better option.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

33. I'm afraid I don't buy that.

I think that revealed preference is a much more valuable guide to what people want than declared preference; therefore I think that to estimate the political opinions of Americans one should probably look less at polls than at voting patterns.

I agree that there seems to be a discrepancy between the two, but I'm afraid I think the pessimistic interpretation is the more plausible one.

[socialist_n_TN]

34. Revealed preference has a couple of factors surrounding those choices......

Firstly, half the people eligible don't even vote and a lot of that is because they don't think that there's anybody out there that actually represents them. Or that actually excites them. A second factor is that the choices that appear on the ballot, even for the ones who do vote, in most cases are just more of the same leading to the "hold your nose and vote for the lesser of two evils" choice. And that's because it takes so much money to compete in a Federal election and there's only so many sources for acquiring that money. It leads to a choice between corporate candidate A and corporate candidate B, NEITHER of which represents most of the views of their constituents.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

36. Yes, but I'm afraid I think that may actually work in the opposite direction to the one you hope.

I think - although this is based very much on anecdata rather than statistic, so take it with a pinch of salt - that the distribution of political opinions in the USA exhibits a strong rightwards skew, in the mathematical sense.

That is, rather than a symmetrical bell curve with the mean, median and mode all in the same place, I think that the graph looks more like a tadpole heading left - curve drops off steeply on the left and tails off slowly on the right.

That means that the mean voter is well to the right of the median voter.

In a two-party system, the gap between the two parties is generally around about the median voter, and hence that - rather than the mean - is probably the best place to define as being the "centre".

If we define people to the right of the median as right-wingers and people to the left of it as left-wingers, the mean right-winger is a lot further to the right of centre than the mean left-winger is to the left.

This, I think, is why the Republican party seems so much more crazy than the democrats.

So if anything, a political system that genuinely represented people's views would produce more right-wing, not more left-wing, outcomes.


In terms of what this means for DU, the fact that the left tail drops off faster than the right means that there are a lot more people as far to the right of the centre as DU is to the left than there are DUers or likeminded individuals.



Of course, all this depends on my assessment of the skew being correct, but I think it's at least plausible that it is.

[DreamGypsy]

30. In every political community there are varying shades of political opinion.

From Phil Ochs:

In every political community there are varying shades of political opinion. One of the shadiest of these is the liberals. An outspoken group on many subjects. Ten degrees to the left of center in good times. Ten degrees to the right of center if it affects them personally. Here, then, is a lesson in safe logic

Last two verses of Love Me, I'm a Liberal:

I vote for the democratic party
They want the U.N. to be strong
I go to all the Pete Seeger concerts
He sure gets me singing those songs
I'll send all the money you ask for
But don't ask me to come on along
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

Once I was young and impulsive
I wore every conceivable pin
Even went to the socialist meetings
Learned all the old union hymns
But I've grown older and wiser
And that's why I'm turning you in
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

[byeya]

31. Based on my reading of the posts, I picked "centrist"