Living in eastern Europe, social democracy has been seen as left-wing since the fall of socialism in the 90s.
But the fact is, it’s a very centrist position, hardly even taking “social” aspects into consideration. Politics moving towards a center has created a void in political culture where radical (be it left or right) thought can achieve power only by means of accepting the centrist position (to some extent).
In Croatia, a center-right populist party is in coalition with a far-right partner. They tolerate some aspects of the other to maintain a stable power structure. It has also happened with fringe “center-left” or big-tent coalitions in the past.
This has paved the way for fascism, social inequality and rise of capitalists threatening the stability of the already fragile welfare state.
None of the social democrats addressed these issues. They seemed to drift more toward the center of the political spectrum.
I feel like in contemporary politics, social democracy is an oxymoron, rather than a synthetic pseudo-marxist position it’s sometimes portrayed as.