America's stunted political spectrum

with the 2020 presidential election fast approaching I thought now would be a good time to take a look at the American political spectrum and discuss just how little disagreement there actually is within American politics let's start with a tool we're probably all familiar with the political compass test this simple test has you answer a series of questions then based on your responses gives you a set of two values one for the x-axis and one for the y-axis which it uses to plot your overall political ideology on the chart for those unfamiliar with the compass it's a roughly accurate way to help you understand where your opinions fit in the wide range of political thought the x-axis represents economics with an economy run by a cooperative collective agency on the far left and a market left to the devices of competing corporations and individuals on the far right the y-axis represents social stances with the very top representing a complete obedience to Authority and the very bottom representing a maximization of personal freedom a lot of people get hung up on the left-right portion and conflate one side or the other with authoritarianism this is a mistake any point on the left-right spectrum is capable of authoritarianism for example you'll find leaders like Kim jong-un on the left and a Dolf Hitler on the right there's a vocal subset of figures on the right who love to claim that Hitler was a leftist but we'll get to that later in the video to give you a few examples of notable figures from each quadrant you'll find Mao Stalin Kim and Mugabe in the authoritarian left quadrant Hitler Viktor Orban Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in the authoritarian right einar and Milton Friedman Friedrich Hayek and Gary Johnson in the libertarian right and Ghandi Thomas Paine Bernie Sanders and Nelson Mandela in the libertarian left so to reiterate the x-axis is economic stances and the y-axis is social stances as a small disclaimer no simple political test is the most accurate determinant for actual human ideology a two axis chart is simply not nuanced enough to be a hundred percent correct but the political compass is a useful tool for understanding broad trends and it's helpful for this type of analysis now let's look at the compass for the 2020 presidential race interesting right maybe not what you expected there's a whole lot of yelling and name-calling between presidential candidates and their supporters and detractors but when you take their voting records and plot them on a chart like this it becomes apparent that there's really not that much separating most of the candidates and bernie sanders who many people paint as a communist barely squeaked his way onto the left side of the spectrum what's going on here the reason a figure like bernie only just passes the center line is that the political compass isn't just mapping american sensibilities but the entirety of political thought the american political spectrum stops right about here anything beyond Bernie's moderate social democratic platform is absolutely unthinkable in modern-day America so why does our national political conversation stop so close to the center line one of the biggest reasons is the legacy of the Cold War the Red Scare was scary in the days when schools had nuclear attack drills anyone even remotely critical of the prevailing American political model was seen as a communist and sympathetic to the nation's greatest enemy this led to years of crackdowns on left-leaning political groups McCarthy's communists witch hunts and the general circling of the wagons around the quote American Way of life when the Soviet Union fell and the Eastern Bloc countries got both democracy and a free market at the same time the two axes of the political compass got tangled up this bundling led many to falsely equate free-market capitalism with democracy and more left-wing politics with authoritarianism if you need proof of just how ingrained this type of thinking has become in America take a look at these pictures the terminology is always the same blank equals communism apparently keeping baskin-robbins closed so people don't die from a deadly virus as communism who would have guessed when the incredibly popular Ronald Reagan came along and launched his campaign of deregulation tax rate reductions increased military spending and union-busting he put the final nail in the coffin of American left politics since then we've lived in an era of consensus politicians may appear to disagree on many subjects and they probably truly see each other as complete opposites but the truth of the matter is that with very few exceptions the entirety of American politics is contained within a single quadrant of the political compass the entire national political dialogue is framed to begin and end on the right so for the sake of expanding the national dialogue let's talk a little bit about the neglected left side of the spectrum but first we need to put one erroneous claim to rest there are some notable figures on the right who claim that Adolf Hitler was a leftist everyone's favorite felonious filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza and fail son extraordinaire ben shapiro are particularly vocal about it their argument usually boy down to well the Nazis were called the National Socialist Party checkmate okay sure but the Nazis were no more of a Socialist Party than North Korea is democratic by the people or a republic it's the same tactic taken by autocrats throughout history they pick a term their citizens associate with something good usually freedom or democratic or peoples and they adopt it to make themselves look good Hitler himself said our adopted term socialist has nothing to do with Marxian socialism so there you go to be fair bad faith arguments like those from D'Souza are generally dismissed by most thinking people but there are plenty of older folks who get caught in the trap which is sad because they're completely unaware of the fact that they're being taken advantage of but while we're on the topic of socialism I think it would be useful to explain what the ideology really represents after all the term has made quite a comeback in recent years with a larger percentage of young people across America having a more favorable opinion of socialism than capitalism socialism in America is a blanket term for generally leftist ideology a socialist would advocate for a more egalitarian society where there's not a tiny percentage of people hoarding all the wealth they want to end pointless Wars like the decades-old conflict in the Middle East where young men and women are sent to die and murder other humans for the sake of the rich and powerful they advocate for a more humane society where the sick can get treatment and not go bankrupt in the process where small businesses aren't crushed by multinational corporations and where people are paid fair wages for their work they also advocate for worker control of or at least worker involvement in enterprise that's a key point that most Americans seem to miss when someone shouts that the government issuing a quarantine is communism they're more than a little off base government doing stuff is not communism or even socialism if the US government were to establish a more robust safety net for workers laid off during the pandemic that still wouldn't be socialism nor should such a government be considered leftist if workers don't have a say in how enterprises run you have a left-leaning centrist government at most it's important to have at least a general understanding of what terms mean when we're talking about politics you hear a lot of right versus left freedom versus communism bickering in the u.s. but when you hear something like that remember just how similar mainstream politicians are these days don't buy into the fear-mongering and take the time to educate yourself about the whole spectrum of political not just the stunted American variety while the political compass test isn't perfect it's a good place to start if you'd like to understand more about your opinions and who shares them there's a link to take the test in the description below as well as links to the eight values and nine axis quizzes which attempt to further explore your personal ideology take the results from your quizzes and use them to find books to read on the subject American political understanding is not great but by learning more you can do just a little bit to fix that problem.