I hear people say things like “if Obama (or anyone left of Republicans) did what Trump did, there would be hell to pay.”
Why isn’t that argument taken more seriously by people on the left as an implicit admission that the left is politically weaker or less effective at wielding power?
If one side “can’t get away with” actions that the other can, doesn’t that suggest a real imbalance rather than moral superiority?
As a leftist I can assure you, yes the left is significantly weaker, and there is a deep imbalance.
The left, specifically in America, has suffered gravely over the past century. The Red Scare era made it functionally illegal to be a leftist. Many leftists were fired, some were killed, and leftist thought was purged from our education system.
The following Cold War era pumped our populace full of anti-socialist propaganda. The majority of people over 50 believe socialism is just as bad as fascism, and that socialists are the enemy.
The American left has yet to recover from these deep wounds.
That sums it up perfectly. Even the Dems can’t bring themselves to support socialists.
That’s because Dems are capitalists and always have been. Even when they had the support of powerful unions it was only the class collaborationist unions, never radical unions. The Dems were social democrats when there was a strong socialist movement that threatened capital interests, making it necessary for the capital owners to co-opt and redirect it. FDR implemented his reforms in the interest of preserving capitalism, not for the benefit of the working class. He saved the ruling elites from their own hubris, and they hated him for it.