> Biden for example would have been a solid, firm Republican candidate ~35 years ago, even if running on a Democratic ticket.
35 years ago the parties were a lot closer together because the Republican Party hadn't taken its jaunt into extremism that started in the 1990s, but, no Biden—who was then then to the right of his current position, was a solid Democrat then, though, like Clinton, part of the conservative Democratic Leadership Councl.
I agree with you. I think we’re saying the same thing. 35 years ago Biden would have been pretty close to a centrist candidate, pretty close to a milquetoast Republican at that time, despite being in the Democratic party.
While Biden may have ideologically shifted left a small bit (changed views on criminal justice, climate policy), he’s still very close to the same point on the political spectrum he occupied 35 years ago. But now, because of the slide to extremism of the Republican party, Biden is suddenly caricatured as a socialist, far left boogeyman.
That’s not a function of the US Democratic party actually being far left leaning. It isn’t. It’s an expression of increasingly extreme far right positions of Republicans to shift the entire discussion massively to the right and redefine the center.
Any system where you define the center in such a way that Joe Biden is “far left” is a complete far right propaganda machine divorced of any acceptable or realistic definition of “centrists” or far left.
35 years ago the parties were a lot closer together because the Republican Party hadn't taken its jaunt into extremism that started in the 1990s, but, no Biden—who was then then to the right of his current position, was a solid Democrat then, though, like Clinton, part of the conservative Democratic Leadership Councl.