I’ve mentioned this before but I think it bears mentioning again.
The concepts of “right” and “left” derive from the seating of delegates in the French National Assembly in 1789. Supporters of the king sat on the right of the chamber. Supporters of the revolution sat on the left. Over 230 years the terms have lost relevancy.
Politics doesn’t travel well. As a general rule under the parliamentary systems that prevail in Europe the range of political views represented are enormously greater than in the United States. For 70 years it has been a joke in Britain that both the American Democratic and Republican parties fit within the spectrum of political views held by members of the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom. It’s still true. Even with the drift in views that has occurred in the U. S. over the last 30 years the Democratic Party is at the very most a centrist party while the Republican Party is at most a right wing party. IMO both are better considered center-right parties by European standards. Keep in mind that in most European countries there are far left parties who represent at least 10% of the population and there are far right parties who represent at last 10% of the population. We don’t even have far left or far right factions of the major parties with that kind of popular support.
All of that supports George Will’s wisecrack that American politics is like a football game played between the 40 yard lines.
My advice to Americans is don’t think you can make common cause with European political parties. Just because they’re called “right” or “left” and you think of your political views in those terms, don’t think that they believe what you do.
So why don’t we compromise and get along? Because we enjoy fighting. Faced with a real, universally accepted external threat, we’d join ranks quickly enough.