"Slightly Left" but the only journalist you trust is Rachel Maddow? That is a very interesting take, I have never heard Maddow described as anything remotely resembling slightly left, only as a caricature of the extreme left.
Every time I read one of these threads I’m reminded that the American “far” Left is broadly equivalent to the European centre-right.
That's pretty funny. On many topics, the whole spectrum of acceptable political thought has been compressed in the US (and much of the west) so that you're either a little bit pro-business ("extreme left") or very pro business ("extreme right"); a little bit pro military ("extreme left") or very pro military ("extreme right"). Radical ideas are allowed to exist only as long as they don't stop the flow of money. Hence the current focus on culture war over anything else.