Are democrats leftist

Answer 1

Most are, but then if you include the Libertarians in the Republican Party, particularly Ron Paul and his supporters you would have to say the same thing about them. "Leftist" and "Rightist" are not instructive terms if you are going to think deeply about American politics.

In the larger universe, democrats are leftists and monarchists are rightist. But you wouldn't call Republicans monarchists. As believers in a democratic society Republicans are leftists too. When you zoom down from the larger universe and get down to say, the block you live on, and take all those people and put them in a room you could survey them and find out who belongs on the right and who belongs on the left, but they could all still be Democrats or they could all be Republicans.

Republicans don't want to be called monarchists and they don't want to be called leftists and they don't want to be called moderates either. So it is probably best just to call them Democrats and Republicans and look deeper into their published policies and goals for insights on what they stand for.