I always find it idiotic when people argue "Democrats are right wing by european standards"... lol there is no relative standard for center, it is an absolute... what they should say is "democrats are farther right compared to the average in europe". But to suggests they are right of center has little basis in reality. Their policies may not be as extreme left as politicians in europe, but they very clearly are left of neutral/center
> if you tried to get away from the binary divisions of Republicans and Democrats, your politics would become much more mature and stable.
I aassume you mean the USA, and on that I agree, having two dominate parties and framing everything against those two is a big issue with american politics.
> Scandinavia is quite clearly a capitalist economy, but quite clearly operates a more socialist welfare program. They are neither socialist not capitalist. Time for some nuance
Socialism and social-welfare are very very different things. You can have high social welfare with absolutely no elements of socialism.
The best technical definitions I've found is something like this:
social-welfare: We help provide support for those who are most vulnerable and need it, perhaps conditionally
socialism: The means of production is publicly owned
Communism: The means of production **and** distribution is public owned.