The American political spectrum is a joke. The acceptable range of ideas is small enough already. And it's completely unacceptable. It should be compared to the larger political atmosphere as a result.
For example, Obama is precariously pro-business, supports foreign intervention to protect American interests*, supports extending mass surveillance, and other conservative policies (all of which are the basis of modern Republicans and Democratic platforms in obfuscated ways), but since he's in the Democratic party and has supported some social policies more progressive than the mid-20th century he's a "leftist menace." If had been a Republican, he'd have been lambasted as a "conservative terror" by the American left.
*: E.g., those that benefit corporations. Not to protect the American people.
It's interesting that many of those countries those countries you listed that are "conservative," many of them share Western-sans-US "leftist" policies. For example, most (maybe all?) of them have a national healthcare system, yet even the Democratic party has been unwilling to commit to such a policy, even when there was a Democratic majority and a Democratic president.
And frankly, the excuse of countries with similarly bad policies, or worse policies, is absurd. We (as a country) should look towards improving, not excusing our failures with flimsy examples. When income inequality is high, we shouldn't say it's worse in Poortonia--we should instead look to those who do better, and act accordingly. We shouldn't say our healthcare system isn't as bad as Zombiebwe, we should look to those who do better, and act accordingly. The same goes for the rest of the issues corroding our country.
In no universe did the developed countries I listed have "bad policies". Singapore and Hong Kong are leagues better in living standards than most of Western Europe, in no small part due to their pro-business policies. Moreover, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan either have a history of pro-business policies or a pro-business party in power currently, and they rival or even exceed Western Europe in living standards. If we include Western European countries with actually bad policies, like Italy, Spain, Portugal, and perhaps Belgium, then the countries in East Asia blow Western Europe out of the water. Chile is the only developed country in South America due to its pro-business policies. The former Soviet Bloc is doing incredibly well, in no small part due to their pro-business policies. They survived the Great Recession far better than Western Europe as a whole, and they have higher growth rates in general. I could go on.
Furthermore, being pro-surveillance is nothing unique to the Dems. Tony Blair of the British Labor Party created the PRESTON mass surveillance program, which rivals and in some cases exceeds what the NSA is doing in intrusiveness - and the next Labor PM, Gordon Brown, continued it. The program was all documented in a Snowden leak. Britain is supposed to be left of the U.S., but their own left wing party engaged in mass surveillance. Britain, with is political spectrum that apparently isn't a joke, is still doing this right now.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/12/snowden-state-surveillance-britain-no-limits
The subtitle is important: "Whistleblower and former NSA analyst [Snowden] says UK regulation allows GCHQ snooping to go beyond anything seen in US". Most Western European nations other than Britain have documented mass surveillance programs as well, which also equal the NSA in intrusiveness
at the very least. Yes, Britain has a Conservative government right now, but as I said before, the Labor party was completely complicit in this too.
Now, this of course, is not to excuse U.S. mass surveillance. This is merely to say that there is, quite frankly, an NSA in every country. Some countries just have better PR.
You also have to consider the reason why healthcare is ostensibly better in countries with single payer (which, I should add, is not equal to universal healthcare) is because the U.S. subsidizes the healthcare of the rest of the world. The U.S. accounts for 46 percent of global life sciences research and development, a proportion far higher than any other country, even adjusting for GDP or population. In fact, it produces many more (I mean way more) medical inventions than the entire EU, which has about 200 million more people. That is not in spite of, but
because of, the U.S. private system.
And the U.S. doesn't get paid for about half of it. The process is something like this:
1. U.S. Firm designs new drug/piece of medical equipment. The process is extremely expensive not just due to development but to rigorous testing and FDA hurdles.
2. U.S. Firm accumulates huge cost from this process.
3. U.S. Firm must price invention highly in order to recoup cost and have money left over for further operations before the patent expires.
4. Most single payer countries set drug/equipment prices - so they buy the invention at a mandatory small price that's hardly enough to help the firm recoup costs, let alone have more R&D money.
5. In order to recoup R&D, U.S. Firm must price even higher in the U.S.
In a sense, the U.S. has to go through the bother of shouldering the costs of people who will never pay back. If you live in a country with single payer, and you've even gone to the hospital, got a checkup, etc., you've almost certainly been helped by a U.S. invention - a private, as much as you might hate the word, invention. And you've almost certainly passed the bill across the ocean for an American to pay. The private system saves far more lives (on the order of hundreds of millions, or at least tens of millions) than any government-run system, but those millions aren't paying.
There are some, of course, who point to the marketing expenses or compensation at U.S. medical companies as evidence that the firms are just pricing out of sheer chutzpah, I guess, but that ignores the facts that:
a) Even if the CEOs and high executives took no payments it would have a negligible effect on company finances. You could probably liquidate all their assets and not see a difference. Large compensation means 100 times as large a firm. What's a few million dollars to billions in R&D? Nothing. The millions are too paltry to even advance one drug.
b) Marketing in general actually helps the company recoup costs faster to the point where the company has more R&D money if they marketed than if they hadn't.
