Far Right vs Far Left?

[JHB]

16. The thing is: Bernie and AOC are only "far left" because they insist on keeping that "democratic socialist" label

The positions they hold are not those of any variety of socialist. What they want is a reversal of the "Reagan Revolution" and an updated New Deal, which is not socialism. Unfortunately, both forget that, as politicians, their job is not to educate, their job is to persuade. They both managed to be successful with the DS label (Bernie from all those years as the mayor of Burlington, giving voters the chance to know they guy, not the label, and AOC because she ran in a heavily Democratic district where the guy who held the seat before her had neglected demographic changes in the district and got caught on a open mike saying he wouldn't have even bothered coming to an event if he wasn't being challenged). But outside their circumstances? They just give themselves an extra hurdle to have to jump over.

Strip away that extra hurdle, and what do they want? To restore some of the lessons we learned from the New Deal and stop allowing the playing field to be tilted toward the rich.

That's not "far left" unless you're an effing right-winger who calls EVERYTHING they don't like "far left".