I am really suspicious of that middle point whenever it comes up. To me it mostly seems to be giving non-US center-left parties credit for decades-old welfare state policies which they passively support. I doubt 2024 Labour, for example, would create the NHS if it didn't already exist.

The thing about the NHS, and broadly Europe’s socialized healthcare, is that it’s hard to overstate how much the war played into allowing the freedom to effectively rebuild the state from scratch

I agree with this. I think you can actually make a good case that the US democratic party is in many respects more progressive than its peer center-left parties.

The Democrats are well to the left of European social democrats on race/gender issues. But if an EU SocDem proposed price controls, no one would say “you communist!” and if one did, say in France, they’d respond “vous avez tort, the Communists sit over there, this is the Socialist fraction”

There have been certain British commentators saying the DNC in general this year was to the left of the current British Labour Party. Although I’m sure some would say that it wouldn’t take much to make it left of many things.