Left vs. Right

This is one of the more perceptive remarks I've seen in Maass's The Case for Socialism:

If Barack Obama and Bill Clinton look better compared to George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, it shouldn’t be forgotten that these latter-day Democrats are plainly more conservative than plenty of presidents who came before them—Republicans included. Thus, Republican president Richard Nixon launched more antidiscrimination and affirmative action programs than Bill Clinton. That’s not because Nixon was more liberal. On the contrary, he was a miserable right-winger. But Nixon was under pressure to act from the mass social movements of the 1960s and early 1970s, something that neither Clinton nor Obama have faced. (p. 102-3)

Since the shape of the U.S. government encourages a two-party system, there really isn't much room for ideological diversity, and the parties will tend to converge closer and closer together under the pressure of the electorate. Thus, while to the left of the Republicans, Obama the "socialist" is actually to the right both on the economic and authoritarian-libertarian scales according to the Political Compass. The solution, perhaps, is not to join third parties that are destined to fail in the U.S., but to turn to mass movements and more radical forms of democracy.