By Emi Gruender
Despite frequent assertions that America’s left has devolved into radical insanity, pushing the boundaries of the “left” farther than they should go in a civilized society, American politics are actually, in fact, skewed towards the right.
Globally, America remains an outlier as opposed to other first-world countries, in that America does not provide reduced-price healthcare or consistently attack social welfare problems (due to the administration in power). The vast majority of developed countries in the world, including Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, South Korea, and Canada (just to name a few) all provide universal healthcare at the minimum expense to the citizens receiving care. Despite the fact that America is an outlier in the global phenomenon of prioritizing social welfare, some within the States still argue that the concept of free healthcare would come at the long-term detriment of the general populus: despite the clear success it has garnered in other countries. Denmark, for example, shifts between the left and right blocs as leaders cycle in and out of office, but even as political parties change, universal healthcare usually stays an unnegotiable pillar in the welfare of the country. America, on the other hand, still insists that America’s politics veer towards unchecked liberalism when the concept of universal healthcare comes up. “Medicare and Medicaid take up enough of the federal budget as-is, and the tax burden would be insurmountable,” some argue. However, we must first look at how the federal budget is being used. Let’s take a gander at America’s military spending per year as opposed to the rest of the world.
While China spends $292 billion dollars per year on military spending, the US spends three times more. While our armed forces are necessary to defend our country, how much of those expenditures result in a surplus of military spending beyond the necessity? How often does the US get involved in foreign conflicts? And despite the troubles in other countries, much of the American population is suffering, as well. “Just under half of U.S. adults say it is difficult to afford health care costs, and one in four say they or a family member in their household had problems paying for health care in the past 12 months,” writes the polling institution KFF. How much can America afford to implicate itself in foreign problems when social welfare continues to flounder in its condition? And how much of the exorbitant military budget can be relocated towards social welfare programs?
While much of the debate around military spending vs. welfare programs continues to rage on in heated Reddit forums in both the pragmatic and speculative aspects, American politics as a whole tends to lean right as a whole as opposed to the “objective left” for the rest of the world.