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Political party descriptions

Since the previous discussion resulted in three explicit supports for restoring "center-left" and "center-right" with only one explicit objection, and my final request giving potential opponents an opportunity to level specific objections went unanswered for about two months....

[1] [2]

...I intend to restore the terms soon. VictorD7 (talk) 18:35, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

It could be that editors were exhausted by the discussion. Both U.S. policies are generally liberal, there is no party discipline, but the Republicans are generally to the right of the Democrats. The U.S. party system is entirely different from any other Western democracy and we should not imply it is the same. In general for example, one could say the equivalent of the two parties are Liberals and Conservatives in Canada and Labour and Conservatives in the UK. Yet Liberals in Canada are the equivalent of the Liberal Democrats in the UK, while Labour in the UK is the equivalent of New Democrats in Canada and Democratic Socialists of America, while standard polisci textbooks group the Democrats and Republicans in the same liberal ideological family as the Liberals and Liberal Democrats. TFD (talk) 20:07, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

Those who participated most heavily in the discussion supported the restoration, the exception being you. I respect your disagreement, but I've posted numerous high quality sources, including textbook quotes, grouping US liberalism/Democrats with the broader Western left and left leaning parties like UK's Labour and Australia's Labor. I've seen no similar sourcing contradicting that. Smaller parties like the UK Liberal Democrats are creatures of a more fractured, smaller tent party system, and aren't necessarily analogous to a major US party. Canadian views on their party dynamic would be appropriate to the Canada article, but aren't that pertinent here. VictorD7 (talk) 20:51, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

See: Ian Adams, Political Ideology Today, 2nd edition (Manchester University Press 2001), p. 32, "Ideologically, all U.S. parties are liberal and always have been;"[3] Robin Archer, Why Is There No Labor Party in the United States?, (Princeton University Press 2010) p. 1, "Labor-based political parties have been an important electoral force in every advanced capitalist country. Every one, that is, except the United States"[4] Ware, Alan. Political Parties and Party Systems. (Oxford University Press, 1996) has a chart showing the classifications of political parties and shows Liberal Democrats, Canadian and Australian Liberal and U.S. Democratic and Republican parties as belonging to the "liberal/radical" family of parties.

You may notice that the Sanders campaign has attracted attention for his claim that he is a "democratic socialist", and the frontrunner says that she is not a socialist. The Republican Party meanwhile failed to label them the "Socialist Democrat Party." I know that you think the Democrats are secret socialists, but surely you should make a distinction between parties that openly avow they are socialist with parties that claim they are not.

No idea what your comments on the UK and Canada mean. Yes the UK has more parties, as does every other country except the U.S. That is because they have more ideologies. And it is not that Canadians see the Liberals and New Democrats as liberal and socialist, but that external observers do and the parties have international affiliation with like-minded parties, including U.K. Liberal Democrats and Labour.

TFD (talk) 22:23, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

Republican and Democratic Parties in the United States are both "liberal" only as they represent the commercial classes versus the landed classes in a Marxian (fringe) dialectic. We should write for a general readership. As this article is written in American English dialect, it is appropriate to restore "center-left" and "center-right" to describe the two major parties in relation to one another within the United States --- because that is current usage within the United States, the subject of the article. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 02:23, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

Certainly we should explain the differences of the parties "in relation to one another within the United States." But we should also explain them as understood by people who do not speak the "American English dialect" (aka the "Marxian (fringe) dialectic") of every country outside the U.S. VictorD7 says that the Democratic Party is "socialist", while the Republican Party is "conservative." Certainly they correspond to some extent with socialists and conservatives in the UK. But they also differ in some respects, particularly ideology. Republicans for example do not support monarchy or an established church. TFD (talk) 03:10, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

We can best explain the differences in other articles. There were two of us who favored removing the paragraph entirely. As I see it, there is no consensus for VictorD7 to add to the paragraph. Dhtwiki (talk) 07:52, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

VictorD7s talking points from the RNC aside, no European or Canadian Socialist calls the Democratic Party "socialist" as it is currently constituted in the United States.

Political parties historically divide between those promoting concentrated old-order wealth and those which promote a more diverse economy including new sources of wealth. The powerful in political parties control the sources of wealth, even in “Communist" countries. Political parties distribute power in society by their governance. Generally old order wealth seeks to restrict suffrage and voter turnout to retrench in the chaos of capitalist "creative destruction", new order wealth seeks to expand suffrage and voter turnout to reform the rules of the economic system for a more even, competitive playing field. This dichotomy is aptly reflected in the common terms of US usage as “center-left” for new-order wealth on main street and among entrepreneurial businesses and “center-right” for old order wealth on wall street and among "rent-seeking" realtors.

The United States article should not be rewritten into British English, nor should editors block reliably sourced U.S. terms — such as “center-left” and “center-right” to describe its two major parties— on the basis that they are not the customary usage in Britain. Ian Adams is a TFD source published in Britain. Despite Dhtwiki's assertion to the contrary, there is a consensus to add US terms that VictorD7 proposes -- as sourced in U.S. citations -- as long as this article is written in US English. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 13:04, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

See Opportunities for commonality: "Wikipedia tries to find words that are common to all varieties of English. Insisting on a single term or a single usage as the only correct option does not serve the purposes of an international encyclopedia." Most English speakers live outside the U.S. and this article should use term readily understandable to them, not mislead them. Furthermore, it is questionable whether your terminology is widely used in the U.S. or whether it accurately describes the two parties. David Duke for example was an elected Republican legislator and a candidate for the Democratic Party nomination, which shows how wide their tents are. His politics are not center-anything to non-U.S. observers and he would not be allowed to join either the Labour or Conservative parties. I imagine most U.S. observers do not consider him center left or right either even using your definition. TFD (talk) 17:50, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

TVH's frivolous partisan rant and wrong-headed cheap shot aside, he's correct that there is a strong consensus for using American English (otherwise there would be absolutely no justification for the words "conservative" and "liberal" which are currently in the article; certainly far less than there would still be for "left" and "right"), and I'll note that although Dhtwiki repeated his support for removing the paragraph entirely, an apparent non-starter, he again failed to level any argument against restoring the well documented terms (a mere two words), or even articulate an explicit objection to them. As for TFD, no one is suggesting calling the Democrats "socialist". Much of what you posted has absolutely nothing to do with what I've said or think. And, American English aside, some of the main sources I've quoted here in the past (and will soon repost when I get some time) characterizing the Democrats as "left" and Republicans as "right" are from non-American authors. VictorD7 (talk) 04:13, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

While the article does use the terms liberal and conservative they are in "quotes:" "Within American political culture, the Republican Party is considered "conservative" and the Democratic Party is considered "liberal."" Because we need to warn the readers that we are using non-standard definitions. I do see btw the terms center left and right used with any frequency in mainstream sources inside the U.S. to describe U.S. politics. TFD (talk) 04:47, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

In Wikipedia, at Centre-right politics, — note British spelling — we have, "The International Democrat Union, an alliance of centre-right political parties, including the British Conservative Party, the Republican Party of the United States, the Conservative Party of Canada, the Liberal Party of Australia, the New Zealand National Party and Christian democratic parties, amongst others across the world…” Although the Democratic Party of the United States is not named in Centre-left politics, the positions associated with centre-left parties align with those of the Democratic Party of the United States.

At Left-wing politics, it reads, "More recently in the United States, left-wing and right-wing have often been used as synonyms for Democratic and Republican, or as synonyms for liberalism and conservatism respectively.” with four sources. The argument has not been made as to why the United States article should not use sourced phraseology adopted elsewhere in Wikipedia. VictorD7 brings additional reliable sources for the terms usage here. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 10:32, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

As you are aware, Wikipedia articles are written by editors and are not reliable sources for other articles. The IDU claims to represent "centre and centre right" parties. I suppose the Republican Party also claims to be center to center right. But the Democrats make no similar claim, although they most likely position themselves in the center. VictorD7, you need to show that your description is the typical one, not that some sources use it. AFter all, there have been multiple thousands of books written about U.S. politics. Can you find a book called "Center Left" or "Center Right" that establishes them as well-defined terms. What btw do they mean? TFD (talk) 08:41, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia article is sourced at Left-wing politics. You are invited to read it, and the notes, such as #9: Revel, Jean Francois (2009). Last Exit to Utopia. Encounter Books. p. 24. ISBN 978-1594032646. "In the United States, the word liberal is often used to describe the left wing of the Democratic party." — #14 reads, Arnold, N. Scott (2009). Imposing values: an essay on liberalism and regulation. Florence: Oxford University Press. p. 3. ISBN 0-495-50112-3. "Modern liberalism occupies the left-of-center in the traditional political spectrum and is represented by the Democratic Party in the United States, the Labor Party in the United Kingdom, and the mainstream Left (including some nominally socialist parties) in other advanced democratic societies."

And as TFD knows, as he posted above, "Yes the UK has more parties, as does every other country except the U.S. That is because they have more ideologies." The terms center-right and center-left refer to the phenomenon of two major parties co-opting ideological-driven parties in a continental-spanning coalition to capture the winner-take-all states in presidential contests, and they form state-wide coalitions to capture majorities of single-member districts in the state legislatures.

Generally speaking, Republicans capture the ideologies from the right, and Democrats capture the ideologies from the left. For instance, the official center-left party in Wisconsin is the Democratic Farmer Labor Party, seen online here [5]. Their members in Congress such as Hubert H. Humphrey, caucus with the Democrats. Bernie Sanders, U.S. Senator from Vermont, a Democratic-Socialist, caucuses with the Democrats. Why does TFD ignore the ten sources given in the section below by VictorD7? Is it because he is thinking in a non-sequitur, as in his post above, ""American English dialect" (aka the "Marxian (fringe) dialectic")"? TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 10:11, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

It is not that I am ignoring your sources, it is just that when there are literally tens or possibly hundreds of thousands of sources, the correct approach is not to look for a dozen that support our opinions but to determine what on the whole sources say. The reality is that the Democratic Party is not socialist, nowhere in its constitution does it say it is socialist and Obama and Clinton have both denied being socialists. Indeed there have been socialists and former socialists in both major parties, but that does not make the parties socialist any more than the presence of klansmen in both parties make them far right. Now can you please answer my question: What does center left mean? Surely if you want to claim the Democrats are center left you need to have a definition. I suspect your definition is the Democratic Party of the U.S. plus democratic socialist parties. TFD (talk) 17:27, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

No, there are not "hundreds of thousands of sources” to determine “what on the whole the sources say" — to date we are weighing thirteen sources, twelve for the use of “center left” applicable to the Democratic Party, to your one claiming both Democratic Party and Republican Party are alike “liberal” by a Marxist dialectic in your source, Ian Adams' work.

No one asserts the Democratic Party is socialist, that is your straw man used previously to misconstrue VictorD7. “Generally speaking, Democrats capture partisans of the left”, including Democratic Socialists such as Bernie Sanders and the Minnesota Democratic Farmer Labor Party in their Congressional Caucus.

The question, What is center-left?, is answered with a sourced direct quote, and you have no reliable American counter-source for usage of the term in the United States for the article, United States. As you “suspect” from the previous reliably sourced posting, In Left-wing politics, note #14 reads, Arnold, N. Scott (2009). Imposing values: an essay on liberalism and regulation. Florence: Oxford University Press. p. 3. ISBN 0-495-50112-3. "Modern liberalism occupies the left-of-center in the traditional political spectrum and is represented by the Democratic Party in the United States, the Labor Party in the United Kingdom, and the mainstream Left (including some nominally socialist parties) in other advanced democratic societies.”

To date, there is no source saying that the Republican and Democratic Parties are indistinguishably “liberal” in any common meaning of the term. You are ignoring the sources for contemporary American usage for the general reader. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 21:07, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Sources for "center-left"

No participant seems to be disputing that the Republicans are "center-right", so I'll focus on adding sources describing Democrats as "center-left":

What’s Left of the Left: Democrats and Social Democrats in Challenging Times; Duke University Press, Aug 24, 2011; edited by James E. Cronin, George W. Ross, James Shoch; collection of scholarly political science essays

P 24 [6] – The book ends not with a summary but a set of reflections on what the center-left and its components—be they socialists or social-democrats or democratic socialists or members of the Labour Party or just plain Democrats in the United States….

P 189 [7] - If those same forces affect the Democratic Party, which occupies the left in the United States but would be center-left almost anywhere in Europe, then they must be powerful indeed.

Globalization and Its Terrors; Routledge, Aug 29, 2003; Teresa Brennan

P 5 [8] - The same is true for the new center-left embodied in the US Democratic Party, the British Labour Party and a growing number of erstwhile social democratic organizations.

War, States, and Contention: A Comparative Historical Study; Cornell University Press, Apr 9, 2015; Sidney Tarrow; notable political scientist

Note on P 194 [9] - Main center-left party is used instead of the source’s social democrats to include the U.S. Democrats.

The Consequences of the Global Financial Crisis: The Rhetoric of Reform and Regulation; OUP Oxford, May 24, 2012; Wyn Grant, Graham K. Wilson; British academic book

P 62 [10] - The contribution of the United States was to pioneer the “New” center-left strategy as in New Democrats, New Labour, and ultimately the Third Way. As is well known, Tony Blair was an avid student of this strategy as set forth by Bill Clinton.

The Oxford Companion to Comparative Politics, Volume 2; Oxford University Press, 2013; Joel Krieger; Scholarly reference work by political science professor

P 38 [11] - …in that general sense the liberal tradition encompasses most American conservatives as well as liberals. Modern, center-left liberalism upholds the more egalitarian, reformist side of that tradition, differing with conservativism on how to conceive of freedom, the balance among conflicting liberties, and the uses of government in pursuit of prosperity, security, and the public good.

P 41 [12] - Today, center-left liberalism has a strong internationalist element, often identified with a tradition exemplified by Woodrow Wilson.

Vietnam: The Necessary War; Simon and Schuster, Jul 30, 2013; Michael Lind; Notable political commentator and former professor

P XIV [13] - The economic difficulties Swedish social democracy, coming soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union, have discredited western as well as eastern Marxism and permitted the emergence of the new, more moderate center-left, variously described as “the Third Way” or “the New Center” and symbolized by President Bill Clinton and British prime minister Tony Blair.

Building Red America: The New Conservative Coalition and the Drive for Permanent Power; Basic Books, 2007; Thomas B. Edsall; Notable NY Times columnist and journalism professor

P 56 [14] - Cultural liberals now cluster within the center-left Democratic coalition, and a..group of…conservatives now clusters within the center-right GOP.

The Brief American Pageant: A History of the Republic, Volume II: Since 1865; Cengage Learning, Jan 1, 2016; David M. Kennedy, Lizabeth Cohen, Mel Piehl; university history textbook

P 704 [15] - The DLC’s ascendance as a business-friendly faction within the country’s center-left party underscored the degree to which market-oriented thinking and policies had come to dominate American politics in the last decades of the twentieth century.

The U.S. House of Representatives: Fundamentals of American Government; Macmillan, Dec 1, 2015; Matthew Spieler; civics textbook

P 79 [16] - While the CHC is technically a nonpartisan organization, its legislative agenda reflects the center-left politics of its Democratic members.

The Oxford Companion to Politics of the World; Oxford University Press, August 2, 2001; Joel Krieger, Margaret E. Crahan; political science reference work

P 148 [17] - Yet Clinton’s election strategy was regarded as “writing the playbook” on how center-left candidates could defeat their opponents who had enjoyed success in so many democracies in the 1980s.

Issues in Race and Ethnicity: Selections from CQ Researcher; CQ Press, Sep 25, 2014; political science book, one side of a two sided debate segment on which party current trends favor

P 89 [18] - Here is a quick outline of several of the political and demographic trends that are leading to a Democratic and center-left majority in the United States.

VictorD7 (talk) 01:31, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Your last source, Issues in Race and Ethnicity: Selections from CQ Researcher, is a high school text book. That is evidence of cherry-picking. Instead of identifying the most relevant sources and reporting what they say, you have chosen what the article should say and searched for sources to support your opinion. TFD (talk) 10:07, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

It may be that a high school textbook uses Congressional Quarterly as a source, but that does not deprecate the Congressional Quarterly as a reliable source of academic publications. CQ Researcher, a print and online periodical covering today's most debated social and political issues, won the ABA Silver Gavel Award in 2002 for its series on liberty and justice from the American Bar Association [19]. How does your source from Ian Adams discredit the American Bar Association and its awards? TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 21:19, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Actually it's a college textbook (here's an example of a college course using it ([20]), though like other such books it can be used for either college or advanced high school students, and would be RS either way (you realize news articles are generally supposed to be written at a fifth grade level don't you?). Regardless, you singling out that one book while ignoring all the others I posted is an actual example of cherry-picking. Above you claimed you hadn't seen the term "center-left" used much to describe Democrats, so I posted numerous reliable sources establishing such usage. This sample includes both American and foreign (esp. British) sources, mostly academic, some textbooks, some notable authors with their own Wikipedia pages, and high quality publishing houses ranging from Routledge to the Oxford University Press. It includes not just uses in passing, but passages dedicated to establishing the Democratic Party on the "center-left" (some in reference works), with at least a couple going deeper and specifically describing Bill Clinton's impact on the global center-left, especially his impact on the British Labour Party and how it defines itself. I've been as thorough as it's reasonably possible to be here, and an acknowledgement of that from you would be an appreciated sign of good faith. I'll also soon add some reposted sources I've posted here in the past. VictorD7 (talk) 21:50, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Here is how the Labour Party defines itself, as recommended by Tony Blair: "The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party." That of course was moving to the center from advocating "common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange...." (See Clause IV.) Where did Clinton say he advocated socialism? TFD (talk) 22:49, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

You mean like Bernie Sanders? Why are you assuming political parties, or for that matter all individuals within a single party, have to be exactly the same in all respects to fall under a broad category together like "center-left"? Neither "left" or "center-left" is necessarily synonymous with "socialist". Many high quality sources have been provided for you clearly establishing the Democrats as "center-left", and the rough US equivalent of the British Labour or Australian Labor parties. That said, we've been through the Blair thing before, and you're cherry-picking your quotes (see Third Way). You should reply to TVH's post above. Don't continue arguing just for the sake of arguing, as if you're entrenched. It's ok to acknowledge someone else made a good point. VictorD7 (talk) 00:05, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

That is the fallacy of composition, that because one member of a party is or may be a democratic socialist that the party itself is. And while not all members of the Labour Party are necessarily socialist it is, unlike the Democrats, a socialist party. It is in its constitution, members agree (unlike the Democrats) to adhere to party principles and the party is routinely described as democratic socialist/social democratic. Blair's "Third Way" is according to him a third way between Thatcherism and the traditional Labour Party but remains socialist. Clinton's third way is between (U.S.) conservatism and New Deal liberalism, but still liberal. Note that Labour was far more left-wing (nationalization, welfare) than the Democrats ever were. Blair was more left-wing than Clinton. You want me to reply to TVH? Ian Adams does not discredit the ABA. AFAIK he never mentions them. TFD (talk) 02:10, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

My post noted, “The question, What is center-left?, is answered with a sourced direct quote”... from N. Scott Arnold (2009). TFDs contention that Congressional Quarterly is not a reliable source is refuted. The ideological left including the socialist in the United States is drawn into the Democratic Party as a national party because it is center-left, not because it is socialist, — it need not be socialist to be left of the Republicans who are center-right.

The ideological left including the American socialist is not drawn to the Republicans. Ian Smith’s critique of Republicans and Democrats as equivalently “liberal” is not useful in this context examining the difference in the two major parties of the United States, --- the subject under discussion. They are “liberal” in the context of Marixian dialectic that TFD source Ian Adams writes, — in that they both serve the commercial classes as opposed to the landed classes. But that is not the context for using "liberal" and "conservative" in America today among the general readers of this article interested in distinguishing between the United States two major parties. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 10:23, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

No, TFD. Persisting in a straw man argument while ignoring answers to key questions is tendentious. Once again, no one here is saying the Democratic party is "socialist". But, per TVH's answer to your question about what the center-left is, socialists do flock to the Democratic party, as do most labor union leaders, most Keynesians, people seeking a more expansive welfare state, people seeking higher taxes, people seeking more government regulation of business, and other elements of the broad left. Blair may be more left wing than Bill Clinton (though Clinton would have governed in a more left wing manner if not prevented from doing so by a Republican congress), but if Blair lived in the US he'd be a Democrat, not a Republican. Hence all these high quality, reliable sources labeling Democrats "center-left". Perhaps it would help if you thought about this "left"/"right" thing as a matter of orientation. It's important to have the parties correctly oriented in the article, and, as I'm sure you'd agree, the peculiar "conservative"/"liberal" adjectives currently used, by themselves, don't adequately do that. VictorD7 (talk) 21:30, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Aside. @VictorD7: Well, let’s be more specific. I'm not sure socialists "flock" to the Democratic Party. Those attracted to the Democratic Party would be people seeking "higher taxes" for those paying under 10% in taxes of their net annual income from whatever source. The Republicans are right in seeking a flat tax in some respects, though it might turn out to be 17% on all income to fund war debt, a war which is not over and cannot be until the attacks on us subside. Democrats are not for a “more expansive welfare state” but for a more effective public sector for equal opportunity in education, health care, housing and employment.

Here the key distinction is opportunity versus outcomes. The center-left wants a floor of fifth grade literacy for everyone at the end of twelve years of compulsory education as a key to an individual's life opportunity and civic participation, --- socialists want more in the outcomes for their society in every respect. The Right believes you deserve only what your parents provide. If you want a better life, choose better parents. If you might need to read, your family will teach you, not the nanny state which needs to butt out of the natural order of things. And studies STILL show the most effective learners acquire literacy in the laps of their families as pre-schoolers, --- even as some few, exceptional, Republicans claim Democrats are marching us towards socialism. No socialist believes that to be the case in the United States on any front. --- btw, I stand corrected, the RNC voted not to call Democrats "socialist" in 2006; no honorable Republican has mentioned Democrats and socialist in the same breath since, now that you mention it.

The private sector as currently constituted is wanting as it relates to health care, — for instance, note the need to make health insurance companies co-ops to distribute huge annual profits to their insurance holders quarterly, rather than currently overcharging them years on end in an environment of shrinking health care costs. Of course, the Republicans are right to want to have some limit to medical liability so as to drive down the costs of insurance for the health industry generally and doctors serving the rural and poor in particular. Awards now amount to more than five times the expected lifetime earnings of some injured plaintiffs. Surely the punishment for unintended injury ought to have some relationship to the harm inflicted measured economically. What's the reasonable limit, three times more than expected lifetime earnings? What do the best conservative think tanks propose? TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 05:13, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Obviously I disagree with virtually everything you say here, but let's avoid derailing this discussion into a political debate or attacking one another's honor and focus instead on the pertinent fact that Democrats are properly described as "center-left". I'd be happy to debate political issues with you another time and/or place. VictorD7 (talk) 05:34, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Reposting additional sources for "center-left"

I'll repost a few of the many sources used in an earlier discussion here.

America and Americans in Australia; Greenwood Publishing Group, 1998; David Mosler, Robert Catley; Australian book; one of the authors was even a former Labor Party politician

P 83 [21] - In America, “liberal” means left-of-center....The Democratic Party in America is center/left....the center/left of the political spectrum of both nations, including the Australian Labor Party and the Democratic Party of America.....

Dictionary of Untranslatables: A Philosophical Lexicon; Princeton University Press, Feb 9, 2014; Barbara Cassin, Emily Apter, Jacques Lezra, Michael Wood; high level reference work on terminology in an international context

P 572 [22] - In the exemplary case of the United States, where the three political families (conservatism, liberalism, radicalism) are different from those in Europe, and can only really be defined through their relations to each other, liberalism clearly occupies more or less the ground of the political left as it is understood in Europe.

The State After Statism: New State Activities in the Age of Liberalization; Harvard University Press, 2006; Jonah D. Levy; author received his Ph.D. from MIT and teaches comparative political economy at Berkeley

P 198 [23] - In the corporate governance area, the center-left repositioned itself to press for reform. The Democratic Party in the United States used the postbubble scandals and the collapse of share prices to attack the Republican Party ... Corporate governance reform fit surprisingly well within the contours of the center-left ideology. The Democratic Party and the SPD have both been committed to the development of the regulatory state as a counterweight to managerial authority, corporate power, and market failure.

Politics across the Pond; National Review piece by Michael Barone, a notable commentator, primary author of the influential biennial reference work The Almanac of American Politics, and the most widely respected political scientists in the country over the past few decades (a brilliant guy, known for being able to offer encyclopedic knowledge off the top of his head about political trends in every county in the US).

[24] - British politics has a familiar look to Americans, with a center-right Conservative party and a center-left Labour party resembling America’s Republicans and Democrats.

Please don't put up partial data (Demographics section)

for example on the demographics section. it's a mish mash of races and ethnicities and it's very confusing. don't just put up ONE ethnicity, but up for example the top 5, example hispanic ethnicities(Mexican, Cuban, Argentinian, etc) X %, German Y %, Italians Z %.

Convulating hispanic with non hispanic ethno-linguistic groups, with racial groups and ethnicities, is dreadfully confusing and amateurish.VC19 (talk) 14:49, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

You obviously haven't looked at the source which clearly shows the Non-Hispanic white population alone. Leaving that material out of the section equates to you cherry-picking the data; that is not acceptable. On top of that, my edits included the 2014 statistical update which you removed for no reason whatsoever. I don't follow what you're confused about, the section is very clear. -- Somedifferentstuff (talk) 23:48, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

inclusion of partial data equates cherry picking. where are the non-hispanic blacks, asians, etc? VC19 (talk) 09:51, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

My 2 cents. I was just about to ask regarding the demographics section just before it got edited. I agree, adding multiple ethnic groups/race/nationalities is confusing. One example adding together all the ethnic groups gives a percentage over 100%. At least to me who is not well versed in american racial lingo. I prefer the more organized version. SWF88 (talk) 13:39, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

VC19, you still haven't looked at the source currently being used in the section [25] --- To answer your question, "where are the non-hispanic blacks, asians, etc?" --- The reason they are not listed in the section is because the source makes no mention of them; while at the same time the source makes clear mention of Non-Hispanic whites --- I won't edit war with you (the warning on your talk page is sufficient) but if anyone else is interested in the changes I made before he reverted me, which included the 2014 statistical update, you can see them here [26] -- Somedifferentstuff (talk) 17:26, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

A typo in the introduction

“[…] 50 states, a federal district of Washington, D,C., five major territories, […]”

Obviously, there should be a dot, not a comma, between D and C.

Someone with editing privileges, please fix this. Thank you.

90.154.70.240 (talk) 04:20, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Fixed, thank you Sheepythemouse (talk) 13:11, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 29 April 2016

The link for Avatar the movie does not link to the movie, rather it links to the more general term of avatar. The link should be changed to take readers to the 2009 film Ckonopka (talk) 04:27, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

 Done Thank you for pointing that out. Ian.thomson (talk) 04:36, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Last polity admitted

Drdpw mistakenly removed “last polity admitted” as "unnecessary & somewhat confusing, and not part of the nation's original establishment. Also, most people would think "states" and "admission to the Union" rather than "territories" become a party of the US.."

But territories are a part of the establishment of the United States as it exists today by the Constitution of 1788. Editors sometimes confuse the existing United States fundamental law with that preceding in the now superseded Articles of Confederation — a similar construction of American history led to the Civil War. It is an incomplete view of the United States as of March 4, 1789 at the inauguration of the U.S. Congress under the new Constitution. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 06:08, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

USA IS NOT AMERICA

http://www.usaisnotamerica.com/ fix it--193.163.223.128 (talk) 15:20, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

Fix what? The article does not call the U.S.A. America, it just says that it is sometimes called that. TFD (talk) 15:25, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

It does. In the first line. And America redirects here, America is not the USA, it's the AMERICAS--193.163.223.128 (talk) 19:01, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

It's the common simplified name. No other country or region is referred to as "America" in the singular.Mattnad (talk) 19:14, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

The first line says, "The United States of America (USA), commonly referred to as the United States (U.S.) or America." Is it wrong to call it America? Possibly. Do some people commonly refer to it as America? Yes. Does the article refer to it as America? No. As for the redirect, for most English language speakers, the Americas are two continents and America normally refers to the U.S. (Europeans generally count it as one continent called America.) For readers looking for the Americas article, there is a link at the top of the article, which all fits in with disambiguation policy. TFD (talk) 19:40, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

This subject has been discussed in other language sites of Wikipedia, mostly among Spanish-speakers and, to a lesser extent, Portuguese. Outside the Iberian/Iberian-American realms, though, "America" is often a synonym for the United States. If it is inaccurate or ambiguous, it is still common usage and must be mentioned. While it's one thing to substitute "America" for "United States" at will -- the British magazine Economist actually standardizes "America" in place of "United States" in its style book -- it's quite another to suppress all mention in WP-EN of the usage "America" for "United States." As for the nationality called "American," it remains widespread in most languages. (There was a debate about this in French Wikipedia, where some editors wanted to standardize "états-unien", the French equivalent of "United Statesian". The name failed by a large margin in a vote of WP-FR editors a few years ago.) The debate around this topic is often ideological, with a strongly anti-U.S. backstory, so it does come up now and then. But it's probably a lost cause in the English-speaking world.Mason.Jones (talk) 23:41, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Agreed. The redirect of "America" to this article has been decided through consensus. This has been discussed multiple times, as can be seen in the archives. Thus, I oppose any changes to the redirect or to the text of the article about this issue. PointsofNoReturn (talk) 19:14, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

As we do not own or control that website, I fail to see how we could be expected to fix their error. --Khajidha (talk) 12:52, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

For what it's worth, there's a USA.com, but no America.com. InedibleHulk (talk) 12:01, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

Not much since .com are commercial domains. America.gov and USA.gov both exist, and are both hosting (or redirecting to) USA government services. Arnoutf (talk) 14:38, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

Aye, just found it trivially interesting. As to preference, I used to be offended by the common usage as a North American child, but heard it repeated often enough that it became OK. Fun Fact 2: USA.ca doesn't exist and America.ca redirects to CheapTickets.ca (originally Hawaiian). InedibleHulk (talk) 05:19, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

U.S. condemned by the World Court for international terrorism (Nicaragua)

The sentence and references (see [27]) about the U.S. condemnation for international terrorism (UN, 1986) has been removed twice.

Rjensen, you justified the last revert with "false POV reading of document -- it never mentions terrorism". However, the term terrorism is used in the second of the two references. I assume you haven't noticed that, and I revert again in good faith. Marlytoss (talk) 11:06, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

Not good for the lead....plus need to talk about source and wording--Moxy (talk) 11:18, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

As a consequence of the US intervention in Nicaragua, the US became the only country condemned by the United Nations (UN) World Court for international terrorism.

it's not true-- a) the Court never used the word terrorism and b) Chomsky indeed said it many times but I don't see RS agreeing with him. That makes him fringe on this topic. c) Nicaragua withdrew all the allegations--it's blatant to leave that fact out. Rjensen (talk) 11:33, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

a) This is just what the meaning of terrorism is -still, I added the original wording now. b) Noam Chomsky is a leading intellectual, so why requiring additional Reliable Sources? Still, there are many available, so I added another one. c) I personally don't think that's relevant here, but I don't oppose if you want to add it. Marlytoss (talk) 13:18, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

• pls see Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources .... if reliable published sources do not include the information that you have found only at some random website, then that information is—by definition—not important enough to include or is a fringe idea.--Moxy (talk) 11:03, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

Is this even important enough to be included in the article regardless of if it is true? Ignoring the obvious fact that plenty of nations have supported terrorism, such a minor detail would be better put into an article about the Cold War in Latin America. This article is supposed to be an overview, and it is somewhat bloated as it is. PointsofNoReturn (talk) 00:00, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

References

The relevant policy is "balancing aspects" - facts are given the same significance they are in reliable sources. Do books about the U.S. routinely mention its actions in Nicaragua in the first paragraph of the introduction? No. TFD (talk) 05:11, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Sentence on origins of the Internet

The sentence below is okay although I think it can be improved. This statement is an important one, and here it is in arguably the most important, most viewed, article in Wikipedia which is a gateway for many readers. The purpose of Wikipedia, like any encyclopedia, is to inform readers and so if we make the statement below we should note there is more to the origins of the Internet otherwise we give the impression there is not. A two sentence note or something similar that sparks readers' interest, if they wish to click on other blue links and read further, is exactly the aim of Wikipedia, giving inquisitive readers access to the information that is here. A to change the linked text "Originating in U.S. defines networks" would also help so that it links to the main article History of the Internet rather than ARPANET. Whizz40 (talk) 06:58, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Current: Originating in U.S. defense networks, the Internet spread to international academic networks, and then to the public in the 1990s, greatly impacting the global economy, society, and culture.

Proposed: Originating in U.S. defense networks, the Internet spread to international academic networks, and then to the public in the 1990s, greatly impacting the global economy, society, and culture.

References

The footnote, which is the main difference between the two texts, isn't showing.

The origins of the Internet date back to research and development commissioned by the United States government, the United Kingdom government and the government of France in the 1960s to build robust, fault-tolerant communication via computer networks. This work led to the primary precursor networks: the ARPANET, in the United States, the Mark 1 NPL network in the United Kingdom and CYCLADES in France.

As I've said in my edit summaries, I don't think that this much detail belongs in this article. Dhtwiki (talk) 11:44, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

This makes sense to me. If there are no objections to the smaller part of the change, i.e. changing the piped link from ARPANET to the main article History of the Internet which covers ARPANET better in the lead, then this part of the change only could be made with no visible change to the text. Whizz40 (talk) 20:51, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

I hadn't noticed the wiki-link change. To link both the history and summary articles for the Internet in one sentence seems to be overdoing it, although it fits the phrasing better. People are going to find their way to the history article, if they're really interested. I suggest dropping the first link entirely, unless you link just "U.S. defense networks" to "ARPANET" (i.e. U.S. defense networks), which gives, I think, linkage to a somewhat greater variety of articles. Dhtwiki (talk) 04:17, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Agree the latter is better, here is a source which essentially says the same [28]. While there is more to it, for example the Internet Society cover the origins of the Internet here, I agree this detail is for other articles. Whizz40 (talk) 11:21, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Why is the statement useful to the reader? Were the pre-WWII packet switching networks developed by Telex substantially different from the Internet in any meaningful ways? EllenCT (talk) 20:37, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

Poverty subsection underdeveloped

In section 7.1, "Income, poverty and wealth," the discussion on poverty is glaringly underdeveloped. It references narrow elements of poverty but does not speak broadly to it within the country or relative to other countries the way income and wealth are OR the way poverty is in the "Poverty in the US" article linked to at the top of the section. Specifically, it makes no use of the poverty threshold to create data-backed insights. The last sentence in the section is a weak attempt at this, and really requires a definition of "poverty" to be useful.

I am almost exclusively a user rather than an editor of Wikipedia, and I came to this section to learn the basics of how broadly poverty existed in the US and how it compared to other developed nations. I came away from this page with nothing, though it seems the data and appropriate language can be found elsewhere, e.g. "Poverty in the US." I am requesting that this be imported into the US article at a high level to satisfy the basic criteria for high level encyclopedic information applied to income and wealth in the same subsection.

Lastly, there's a small grammatical error in paragraph two, sentence four. The phrase in question should be changed from "tax filers incomes" to "tax filers' incomes."

Thanks 67.183.142.93 (talk) 19:58, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Please see WP:UNDUE. Let's see. The current section in this article already mentions: the widening gap in wealth distribution; stagnant incomes; high concentration of wealth; household debt; homelessness; and food insecurity. In fact, nearly every sentence in the section already discusses the brutal severity of poverty in the United States. So your statement that you "came away from this page with nothing" simply means that you need remedial education in reading comprehension skills such as close reading. --Coolcaesar (talk) 21:21, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

As for the issue of going into specific comparisons to other nations, that violates WP:UNDUE. For example, the Law of the United States and the Interstate Highway System are both horrendously complex topics that get virtually no treatment here, because it would take at least three paragraphs just to begin to summarize each of them properly and another three to begin to touch upon comparisons to other nations. The point is that in an article on a subject as broad as the United States, it is impossible to dive into any subtopic in any level of detail and all editors must compromise. That is what hyperlinks to other articles are for. The current section already adequately hits the highlights.--Coolcaesar (talk) 21:29, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

I'll address your first response first. Wealth gap, stagnant incomes, high concentration of wealth, and household debt may suggest, but do not imply poverty. Homelessness and food insecurity are correlated but it's not intuitive to what degree. But more importantly, why would we speak indirectly about poverty when we speak directly about income and wealth in the same subsection? There is a widely used measurement called the "poverty threshold" that can be used to indicate the prevalence of poverty.

To reiterate my initial point: What is the first information given at the top of the paragraphs on income and on wealth? A broad fundamental measurement for the US, and a statement on worldwide context, explicitly referencing "income" and "wealth," respectively. This is important and useful basic information that frames the discussion on these topics, and is conspicuously absent in the discussion on poverty. It could be as simple as copying in these sentences from the summary of the "Poverty in the US" article, which would not give undue weight: "In 2009, 13.2% (39.8 million) Americans lived in poverty. Starting in the 1930s, relative poverty rates have consistently exceeded those of other wealthy nations." (67.183.142.93 (talk) 00:00, 30 March 2016 (UTC))

Coolcaesar is correct. This broad country summary article shouldn't be your final destination for researching details on poverty. In fact most editors think there's already an undue, agenda driven emphasis on poverty in the article that's almost always absent in other country articles. Some of what you suggest here, and a great deal more, has been in the article in the past but has been since been removed, along with all sorts of other material (including absolute poverty comparisons, facts on amenity ownership by the American "poor", and various other non-topline/niche national comparisons), and a frequent complaint is that the article is still too long. One problem with simply adding a total "lived in poverty" figure is that there are differing definitions resulting in differing figures (even the Census recently changed its own definition), and the cherry-picked fact alone would be unacceptable and frankly meaningless without further explanation. VictorD7 (talk) 01:42, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

What exactly was removed? EllenCT (talk) 14:45, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

The number of Americans in poverty and poverty rate: 1959 to 2011. United States.

Would an update to this graph help make up the difference? I propose including [29] from [30]. Any objections? EllenCT (talk) 20:39, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

Independence from

The parameter in the infobox should state the US gained independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain, not the British Empire. The country now known as the UK was officially Great Britian in the 18th century. While the US was part of the British Empire, the British Empire was not itself a country (like the Roman or Ottoman Empires were), but rather a collection of territories ruled by Great Britain and later the UK. I'd undo the recent change myself, but a tendentious editor has put me at three reverts already today. Calidum ¤ 18:40, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Official name of the state?

Wouldn't it be correct to name this article "United States of America", as this is the official name of the state? The same goes basically for the "United Kingdom" article, even if that would be a fairly long title ("United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland"). --Malcolm77 (talk) 11:44, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

See WP:COMMONNAME, we generally (as here) use the most commonly used name as the title, as opposed to the "correct" name. For example, Bill Clinton instead of William Jefferson Clinton, or Russia instead of the official title of Russian Federation. - Aoidh (talk) 12:05, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 2 June 2016

116.58.205.107 (talk) 03:44, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

Not done: Blank request — JJMC89 (T·C) 04:02, 2 June 2016 (UTC)