In this section, I'm focused on economic issues, not social ones.
The Democrats have always been to the left of the Republicans.
But the national mood shifts left and right too. And both parties shift with it.
So I don't think you can reasonably argue that every Democratic administration is to the left of every Republican administration. Instead, my view of the last 60 years is like this (I am putting the right at the top, and the left at the bottom, because Google/Blogger is pretty limited in how I could array them left to right on your screen and get it to look OK):
Political Right
- Reagan (R)
- Bush I (R)
- Bush II (R)
- Clinton (D)
- Carter (D)
- Obama (D)
- Nixon (R)
- Ford (R)
- Kennedy (D)
- Johnson (D)
Political Left
This
surprises many people. How dare I put Obama to the right of Nixon?
Well, because Obama didn't do dumb, controlling, lefty stuff like wage
and price controls. Sure Obama liked the environment, but Nixon created
the EPA. Yes, Obama got us Obamacare, but a national healthcare plan was
something Nixon wanted and didn't achieve.
Anyway, if you get
my drift, there was a big rightward shift starting (a little) with
Carter, and we're about 20 years into a more leftward shift that started with the realignment of power within Congressional Republicans starting in the late 90's (at that time, scandals were used to push out fiscal conservatives and replace them with social conservatives who were pretty liberal with spending other peoples' money).
So
where do I see Biden? I'm not sure. He was sold to the voters as being a
little bit to the right of Obama. We're going to have to live through
the next 4 years to find out if that's true. Mason's view is not encouraging.
Personally I didn't believe that. But it didn't matter that much to me: in 2016 the parties put up the worst pair of candidates in my voting lifetime, and in 2020 our country somehow came up with something worse.
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