“Left” and “right” mean very different things for different people. People can’t even agree on the definition. Just to give you a clear example: today’s “leftists” are pro-immigration, while practically all leftists before 1990 were not so much pro immigration.

I take “right” to mean authoritarian, and “left” to mean self-organizing.

Seems like you are from the US.

As much as “left” and “right” carry any meaning anywhere, in your country those words have been redefined to the point they are completely meaningless.

If you have any left-leaning organized political movement, it never makes the news. You only have extreme right.

Left and right started as arbitrary concept based on where political parties sit in a parliament and they totally depend on the circumstances of the political system. In European history at the time democracies came into existence you could have separated idiological streams into e.g. republicans (as in people who aim for a republic) and monarchists. Also the more political parties with different topics there are the more difficult it gets to assign them to either left or right. As another commenter stated… dividing a political system into left and right helps to define a common „enemy“ which moves away the political discourse from other topics that matter.

Because many government left partics have converted to liberalism, and economic rigor with cut in government spending, and private corporations.

Which isn’t exactly a left wing platform.

The 2-party-system in the USA compares to most European parties as follows:

• GOP: far-right and radical-right parties like AfD
• Democrats: all the rest, but mostly center-right and center-left parties

Caveat: more and more of our center-right parties vie for the far-right sector

Easy because the standards… in short the democratic party would be considered far right of acceptable in their country… our republicans would just be laughed out as so fringe it’s ridiculous.

Because the left sees the left/right divide as fundamentally being about opposition to/support for capitalism, with the former being the defining feature of leftism and the latter of liberalism (which, from the international perspective, includes conservatives.) Anyone who isn’t opposed to capitalism - like ‘left-wing’ parties that advocate for reforming or regulating capitalism instead of replacing it - are not leftist. In fact, they often act as a pressure valve for anti-capitalist sentiment within society that channels people who might otherwise oppose it into less-radical reformist parties instead of moving on to find true anti-capitalist parties as they might otherwise have. Not to mention there’s a pretty well-established historical trend of ‘left-wing’ parties appeasing or even outright enabling fascism when things get bad in capitalist economies, so it’s hard to argue that they’re even nominally left-leaning.

The US democratic party is, by the international standard (the US defines things a bit differently), a centrist party at best, and honestly probably more like center-right.

Public health care is not a leftist idea - it is just good business. Canada has better life expectancy than the US and our healthcare system costs less than the american one. No canadian has ever gone broke or lost their house because they get sick. when a working-age american dies of a preventable disease, their education, skills, and experience die with them. keep your people healthy and they will be more productive and will pay more taxes because they will earn more over their lifespan. american media tell americans that healthcare is communist for one reason only: to protect the wealth of healthcare investors. you have been ridiculously bamboozled.

Right wingers believe everything should be up to the individual, you should get no help from anyone else. Typically with the ironic championing of corporations over people.

Left wingers believe we’re stronger if we work together in the public interest.

Healthcare is just one small slice of the political pie, which is such an obvious human right that only the fascist fuckos you have over there think it’s up for debate

Basically extreme right in Europe is about at the same level as extreme left in the USA. That about explains how bad your country is right now

There is far more to politics than just healthcare.

“Why do people call their government right wing despite not having slavery?”

Since when is the lack of healthcare the norm, and healthcare the “leftist anomaly”?

The US really made the world so much worse, it’s crazy.

I’m just gonna post the Cory Doctorow quote

"Take politics: One common refrain is that ‘‘I don’t even know what right or left even mean anymore, they’re just tribal identities.’’ Many years ago, I said something very like this to Steven Brust, who skewered me with his response:

‘‘‘Left’ and ‘right’ mean the same thing today that they’ve meant since the French Revolution. Ask someone, ‘What’s more important: property rights, or human rights?’ If they answer: ‘Property rights are human rights,’ they are on the right.’’"

It’s hyperbole mainly

Well it is relative to the country situation

Take Francois Hollande. In American politics he would indeed have been at the left.

But in French politics, on was considered at the rich of the current situation. And at the very right of what you would expect from a left wing man.

Remember that you’re Singapore’s leftist is your Cuban’s libertarian.