@FrugalToque Thank you for the comments.
In most other countries Bernie Sanders and AOC would be center-right politicians.
The left engages and supports identity politics and views people as members of their identity group.
The right rejects identity politics and views people as individuals.
Just so we're clear, if we're going to engage in honest discussion, we shouldn't draw strawmen as our opponents.
I could just as easily say,
"Only the right engages in identity politics, attempting to engage white heterosexuals, southerners, farmers and other groups to their side, while the left engages in real broad-based issues like job security, healthcare, pollution and fair elections."
See how easy that is?
I am engaging in honest conversation. I am expressing my sincere opinion and my point of view just as others are allowed to do on here. I wasn't making a strawman. As I understand it the defining characteristic of the left, today, is their use of identity politics and viewing people primarily as members of their identity group. And the defining characterizing of the right is the rejection of identity politics. But I also agree that there is a
very small contingent of the alt-right which does engage in identity politics in opposition to the left. But this contingent is vanishingly small and is not representative of the major right.
The argument that the right is engaged in identity politics is a canard of the left. But it is believable because the left has carved off many minority groups and sexual groups based on their intensive efforts using identity politics. The left-overs would then appear to be the characteristic straight, white, Christian, etc.. But this is not because the right is specifically targeting and attracting these individuals that fall into these categories. It is because the left targeted other identity groups and subtracted them. And of course, when the right tries to make the argument that they are not engaged in identity politics but reject it, the left points to the alt-right. There's your strawman.
"We're logical and pragmatic and work for everyone! You're emotional and divide people with fear to score votes!"
Everyone thinks that about themselves.
Not sure the argument you are making here. But it seems to be a: "pox on both your houses!" type argument. I consider this to be not well informed and likely a product of your own political leanings.
Look, I have always been an independent voter. I have voted for candidates from both parties in the past. However, in my opinion the left, in recent years, has become violent and intolerant. And the right is accepting of discourse, debate, and differences of opinion.
For myself, I'm Canadian and extremely left by American standards, and yet I don't "view people as members of their identity group". I view them as individual humans, each with different needs. While those needs are definitely affected by their race, gender, religion, etc., that's hardly a defining part of the philosophy. It's more about everyone pitching in to help everyone else.
Toque.
If you do in fact view people primarily as individuals and not members of their identity group then perhaps you should engage in some honest research into the differences between the left and right, today, and determine whether you still fall on the left. Many people who considered themselves to be liberals, in the classical sense, because they cherish individual liberty, personal responsibility, freedom of speech, respect for traditional western values and institutions, have discovered that they are no longer on the left in the left-right divide. This is because the left have moved hard into identity politics, has replaced personal responsibility with claiming victimhood status based on identity group affiliation, has become very intolerant of speech they disagree with, and has sought to tear down (i.e. deconstruct, dismantle) western values and traditions.
An obvious example of the intolerance of the left and their embrace of identity politics and social justice from your home country of Canada has played out in recent years concerning bill C-16 and Dr. Jordan Peterson's argument against its passage. And then the subsequently, the Lindsay Shepherd affair at Wilfred Laurier University exposed that the left does indeed intend to use the bill to silence opinions that they disagree with and which run counter to their social justice narrative.