This is hogwash.

The american left by and large is simply unrepresented. Democrats have represented center right positions since clinton.

If anything, it's those centrist democrats that use purity tests as much as possible to eject the left from the party.

As a good example of that, consider the case of Al Franken vs Andrew Cuomo. Franken was pretty progressive, so when it came out that he had a picture in bad taste where he mocked squeezing boobs, gone. 24/7 news about how he's really a monster and the worst person in the world.

Meanwhile, Cuomo has multiple credible allegations of sexual harassment and who does the party STILL back even after he lost the primary? He literally got endorsements from Democrats who shed tears because of the Al Franken photo.

The same thing happened to Bernie Sanders. The centrist dems and media started circulating garbage about how he was sexist over a comment he didn't make.

▲

cardamomo 21 hours ago | parent [-]

I agree with this assessment, and Mamdani's popularity in NYC provides some credence to this. Voters have wanted the Dems to move left since at least 2016, but the Democratic establishment routinely punishes those who aren't moving rightward.

▲

adrr 21 hours ago | parent [-]

Party has moved been moving left since Clinton. Clinton was more conservative than George W Bush. Balance Budgets(fired a bunch government workers), welfare reform,NAFTA etc.

	▲	cogman10 21 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The base has been, the representatives have been sclerotic. A good number of them came in with clinton and have had essentially the same politics as clinton. Biden had a decent representation of left cabinet picks. But otherwise, the party has been pretty slow to change. Obama, in particular, gets remember as being progressive yet he truly was not. He took some antiwar stances and then failed to deliver on those promises. That was about the end of his left leaning policies.