Just a nitpick; there is no alt-left: leftism has deep historical roots in the French Revolution that predate liberalism (which is by definition a centrist ideology). The left is the left, the right wing just calls centrist liberals leftist.

Just to nitpick some more. Alt-Right is a new term, a neologism. In current research it’s seen as a conflated term. This is due to it not actually being an “alternative ideology” since it matches to already existing ideologies. It’s a set of ideologies that are under Far-Right politics on the Left-Right political spectrum. [1]

While there is literally not an “Alt-Left” there are 100% Far-Left ideologies that a a hypothetical “Alt-Left” movement would most likely match to. The Left is the entire spectrum of the left, which is many things. [2]

Liberalism as a whole is not Centrism, . Social liberalism fits in Centrism which is a subset of liberalism.

Mind you also the Left-Right political spectrum does not equal the American Left and Right. It is a long history of observation including Alain’s reflections on the French Revolution and the study of international relations today. Hypothetically, the American Left could very well be on the Right and the Australian Left could be on the Left.

[1]: A mix of references from Timothy Snyder, and his book “On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century” and George Hawley’s “Right-wing Critics of American Conservatism”

[2]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory

The “alt-left” label is a bit eye roll inducing to me because it seems completely synthesized as some tit-for-tat term for political argument and slurring. Whereas alt-right originated from reactionaries as a more of a self descriptive term (for some reason I thought it was Steve Bannon who first coined it but Wikipedia says it originated with Richard Spencer). Admittedly though it got appropriated as another boring catch-all slur.

The American left is absolutely centrist at best. The real “left” legitimately believes in socialism / communism at some scale. If actual socialism isn’t part of your policy position, I struggle to say you’re on the left.