The myth of left and right

Zeitgeist 3 Minutes

I’ve written before that I think the idea of politics as happening between different philosophical schools is misguided.

In this interview on The Dissenter podcast, Hyrum Lewis often strikes me as criticizing the left more than the right, but I think his thesis is basically sound. “Left” and “right” as concepts can be misleading when trying to understand contemporary politics.

(You don’t have to watch this video to understand the post, which is continued below.)

#943 Hyrum Lewis – The Myth of Left and Right: How the Political Spectrum Misleads and Harms America

But if we’re not talking about different schools of thought, or positions along an ideological spectrum, what does distinguish political positions? Interests, notably inclusive self interests, our own personal interests, and those of our friends, families, and “people like us”.

That makes the modern political parties in the US broad coalitions of interest groups, coalitions whose alliances shift over time, albeit slowly in the US for structural reasons. The enduring nature of these alliances and resulting tribalization is what provides the illusion that we’re talking about philosophical differences.

Why do these alliances only change slowly? To reduce the chances of a tyranny, the US constitution provides for separate powers between the different branches of government. It also provides staggered terms of service between the president, representatives, senators, and the judicial branch. Under this system, getting anything done requires allies in the other branches, and these alliances, to be effective, must be fairly stable to get initiatives enacted by the legislature, enforced by the executive, and sustained over time by the judiciary.

Of course, there are typically competing interests, which causes other coalitions to form. However, to be effective, these competing coalitions have to also be as broad as possible and long lasting. Which is why politics in the US tend to gravitate toward two broad coalitions. Today that’s the Democrats and Republicans. Earlier in our history it was the Federalists and Democratic-Republicans, and later the Democrats and Whigs, only settling to the current arrangement after the Civil War. But the coalitions do change over time, so what it means to be a Democrat or Republican today is different from what it meant in 1870.

The problem with these coalitions is that while their best strategy is to have as big a tent as possible, by their very nature, they will exclude people whose interests conflict with too many of their members. It’s not uncommon for the coalitions to settle into a state that leaves a substantial portion of the population out. Which is why so many Americans struggle with both parties. It also periodically makes those parties vulnerable to a new candidate bringing in new constituencies underserved by the current alliances.

Which I think goes a long way to explain how a poisonous clown and criminal can end up speaking for large swathes of the American public, and hold such loyalty. When you perceive that someone is finally championing your interests, it’s easy to rationalize away how caustic and incompetent they are. Trump remains as much a symptom of the problem in modern politics as the problem itself, that globalization and automation, while generally good things, are leaving a lot of people out in the cold, and angry. Both coalitions have been adjusting for this in recent years, but the problem is obviously still there, both in the US and in many other countries.

I was reminded of all this when reading this Politico piece trying to analyze recent decisions from the US Supreme Court. The article is often preoccupied with the left-right paradigm, and so has to add an additional institutional concern spectrum to explain the variances in decision making. I think those variances are easier to understand if we take the various judges to be representing different interests within the coalitions. We have to remember that some of them were appointed before recent shifts in the coalitions.

Anyway, I continue to think that our problems are easier to solve if we understand the real reasons for our differences. It’s a lot easier to compromise with someone whose interests just happen to clash with ours, than it is with someone we think is evil. But as Lewis notes, it’s a lot easier for parties to raise money if people think they’re in a fight between good and evil.

But as always, maybe I’m missing something?

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80 thoughts on “The myth of left and right”

  1. I tend to agree that the left-right axis has lost any utility it might have had. The division that is most important now is the haves and have nots. The haves are those who have wealth and the associated political power. The have nots are the rest of us. It was not that long ago that the wealthy felt that being political was demeaning and beneath them. Would that we could go back to those days. Currently their imagined superior is urging them to run the country the way it “should be,” that is in a way to support the very rich.

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    1. People in business are often aware that being overtly political is bad for business. It alienates a substantial portion of their customer base. But of course some businesses are heavily dependent on particular policies, and I think that group has always been political, although often donating to both parties.

      If I could only make a few changes to our election laws, after ranked choice voting, it would be to disallow all political donations. That wouldn’t get money out of politics, but it would give politicians at least the option of operating without regard to the donating class.

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  3. I would help if the Republicans didn’t rely on baldfaced lies so often… How can we debate if we can’t even establish a logical baseline reality?

    I asked ChatGPT: top 5 ideals for each party…
    Democrats
    Social Justice and Equality
    Healthcare for All
    Climate Change and Environmental Protection
    Economic Equity and Workers’ Rights
    Education
    Republicans
    Limited Government and Individual Liberty
    Free Market and Economic Growth
    National Security and Strong Defense
    Traditional Values
    Second Amendment Rights

    What I found obvious in this list is how nostalgic the Republicans sound. It’s as if they’re stuck in the 18th century. “Can’t trust the guv’ment! Fear the outsider! Don’t take my guns!” (As if the government didn’t equate to society, we’re a nation of outsiders, and “The British are coming!” is no excuse for school shootings.) And what I find most laughable is that the balance of the “Right”, those in states with limited economic and educational opportunities, fail to realize how dependent they are on the social net they so vehemently despise.

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    1. I think Chat GPT gave you the standard propaganda of each party. The reality is messier. Who can be opposed to most of those things? It’s a matter of prioritization. And prioritizing those principles just happen to be what has historically benefited the constituencies of each party.

      I do think the Republican party has strayed much farther from their traditional rhetoric than the Democrats, but they’ve been fractured and under a realignment since 2015, so I don’t think their propaganda is up to date. And with Trump leading the party, it’s hard to see how they’re an effective coalition for anything other than “sticking it to the libs”.

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      1. It’s more the failure of the Right to understand how the system actually works. I’ve got a few associates/relatives who dis social support systems despite them receiving benefits under those same systems. Are really that stupid, I often ask. Logic eludes them — it’s like talking to toddlers.

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        1. Yeah, I have some friends like that too, who once leaned on support services then later turned on the idea of welfare altogether. I never probed to see if they just forgot or now blame themselves for having needed it.

          Not that liberals are immune. A lot of people in 2020 wanted to defund the police, seemingly without considering what that would mean.

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  4. Labeling (not just political labeling) is part of generalizations. People can not function in society without generalizations, and labeling allows us to sort out “us” and “them.” It also allows us to avoid intellectual discussions and thinking and go down to the propaganda level with propaganda language. On the surface, “less thinking” simplifies life immensely, which is what most people want. Never mind that “less thinking” has its consequences like more brutal relations between “us” and “them’.

    Studying labeling can be of philosophical, psychological, and sociological interest. However, I doubt such studies will lead to any practical significant changes in people’s behavior.

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    2. You might be right. Maybe the dynamics just need to play out. Just the same, I’m glad some people are trying. Maybe the rank and file won’t pay attention, but if the right people do, it could make a difference. It seems like all we can do.

      In any case, I’d be interested in the actual reality even if has no chance of making a difference, just for my own edification.

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    3. I have a bit more charitable take on this. I don’t think a lot of people have the time or inclination to dive deep into every issue to know exactly how votes should be navigated in congress or which executive action will be in their best interest. I actually think that the political parties can serve this purpose well. But the big problem is that even though both parties spend a lot of time and energy telling voters what they stand for, people just don’t pay close enough attention to it. We know that Democrats are more likely to support the poor and working class, based on the legislation they bring forward and the votes they make. We know that the Republicans are more likely to support the wealthy class based on the legislation they bring forward and the votes they make. But if you are a single issue voter, (pro-life for example) you might not vote for anyone who is pro choice or not adamantly pro-life even if that candidate is openly endorsing cuts to or reform of Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. I have plenty of relatives who post pro-life memes on Facebook at the same time they are shouting from the rooftops that “Social Security is not an entitlement!” (Don’t get me started on that little bit of Orwellian magic the GOP is pulling off).

      Party labels help us generalize about what those parties stand for. That helps people know how their vote will help lead toward the things they want out of government. But it is still on the people to know what those parties are doing in their name, and hopefully they are intelligent enough to know that they are not always going to get it exactly the way they want it.

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  6. Good job Mike.

    I completely agree with you that Trump’s toxic populist power is fueled in part by the rapidly evolving economy that has left “a lot of people out in the cold, and angry.” The tone-deaf Clintons, representing the moderate and elitist wing (Democratic Leadership Council) of the Democratic Party, tried to tell displaced workers to simply go to college and get the skills needed for the new technological oriented economy. Imagine saying that to a 50 year old displaced blue-collar worker in Milwaukee, Detroit, Cleveland or Pittsburgh? To me that explains a lot of the Trumpsters in those states that the Democrats are trying to win back.

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    1. Thanks Matti.

      To be fair to the Clintons, it wasn’t that everyone needed to go to college, but it did involve vocational retraining. I do give them credit for trying, and their solution was the conventional wisdom at the time. But it was from the perspective of highly educated people, which amounted to trying to make displaced people more like them, with the obvious problems you’re noting. And it wasn’t ever really tried anyway due to resistance from conservatives at the time.

      The question is, what’s a better approach? It’s not like we can just turn the clock back and make the industries of 1975 viable again, despite what Trump’s rhetoric often implies.

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      1. Mike, I quite agree that we cannot turn the clock back. I submit, however, that the problem is not merely economic. Most Democrats still subscribe to the Clintons’ misguided public policy theories which you have noted as upper-middle class elitists “trying to make displaced people more like them.” It cannot work and by characterizing blue collar workers as it does exasperates their anger and pushes them toward demagogues like Trump. Several analyses have demonstrated this well. I cite, for example “Revolt of the Elites”, by Christopher Lasch, “The Tyranny of Merit”, by Michael Sandel, or “Listen Liberal, or What Happened to the Party of the People”, by Thomas Frank. I think Michael Sandel expressed it very well;

        “Construing populist protest as either malevolent or misdirected absolves governing elites of responsibility for creating the conditions that have eroded the dignity of work and left many feeling disrespected and disempowered. The diminished economic and cultural status of working people in recent decades is not the result of inexorable forces; it is the result of the way mainstream political parties and elites have governed.”

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        1. Right Matti, that quote is a sentiment I often here. But my question is still what’s the alternative? I’m not asking that rhetorically. Is there a realistic solution that would give people in this position what they need? Sandel’s point, that it’s not the result of inexorable forces but the way people have governed, may be right, but what’s his solution?

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          1. Mike, you’re asking for quite a lot. I’m still working on my own book. However, Sandel, in my opinion, has reasonably demonstrated the crux of the problem with liberals. In brief, as he says “They [liberals] softened the harsh edges of unfettered markets but did not challenge the central premise of the Reagan-Thatcher era—that market mechanisms are the primary instruments for achieving the public good.” That is, the market solves all problems. If it can’t be solved with a market solution, it’s not a problem. Both Democrats and Republicans tend to think of economics and politics and two sides of the same coin. As you know I do not shy away from using an ethical lens in my analysis of issues—especially politics. Sandel and I agree on that. To give an unfair but brief explanation of Sandel’s thesis let me add a bit from his book, The tyranny of Merit, “Two aspects of this [Markets serve the public good faith] … fuel populist protest. One is its technocratic way of conceiving the public good; the other is its meritocratic way of defining winners and losers. The technocratic conception of politics is bound up with a faith in markets… This way of thinking about politics … drains public discourse of substantive moral argument and treats ideologically contestable questions as if they were matters of economic efficiency, the province of experts. … In line with this faith, [liberals] embraced a market-friendly version of globalization and welcomed the growing financialization of the economy. In the 1990s, the Clinton administration joined with Republicans in promoting global trade agreements and deregulating the financial industry.” The gap between rich and poor then grew into a dangerous chasm. And it is not being addressed—certainly not by the Republicans.

            That’s certainly not a full explanation of a solution. You will have to spend some time reading Sandel’s works—especially the Tyranny of Merit. Nevertheless, it starts with accepting that sometimes the public good is served with policies that do not fit into a narrow market restraint—sometimes the market does not serve the public good.

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          2. Thanks Matti. Sorry, didn’t mean to put you on the spot. It sounds like Sandel’s solution is shift the division between markets and publics services more toward the public side? Or is it to go full socialism?

            My thinking is that mixed economies have historically worked best for overall standard of living. They’re certainly not perfect, but compared to straight communist societies, they’ve been much better. (Communism does seem to work well for quickly modernizing a society, but after that it tends to sputter, at least unless the society compromises on the public / private split.)

            That doesn’t mean the mix can’t be shifted closer to something like what European countries have, particularly the Scandinavian ones. Although we have to be careful, because what works in a relatively low population homogenous society is far from guaranteed to work in a higher population heterogenous one. Still, I wouldn’t mind seeing things go in that direction.

            Of course, the people most opposed to anything like that historically have been Republicans. It’ll be interesting to see what happens if the professional / working class re-alignment between the parties continues.

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          3. No problem Mike. I would say Sandel is often described as a “communitarian” as a political theorist. That label has nothing to do with communism which, as you say, is unworkable—except perhaps in a monastery or convent. Nor would I describe Sandel as a socialist. However, I would, if required, label Sandel as really a mix between a communitarian and a civic republican which for him is derived by way of an Aristotelian virtue ethics—very different from most liberals/progressives—who tend to admire the modern social contractarian, John Rawls. Sandel is best known for his scathing rebuttal of John Rawls’ major work “A Theory of Justice.” The work, “Liberty and The Limits of Justice” caused Rawls to rewrite and water down his political theory in light of Sandel’s devastating critique. It took him 20 years to do so. Both Rawls and Sandel are liberals—but their sources are distinctly different. And the difference has a great deal to do with how one views values and ethics. Rawlsians (most liberal/progressives) tend to view the ideal government as value neutral; Sandel demonstrates the impossibility of that position.

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          4. Thank you for posing the defining question. No magic wand. The tired answer continues to be the solutions implemented most recently by the ASIAN tigers. Prosperity is a function of productivity and productivity depends on investments, particularly in human capital and the discipline of competition (in their case, trade competition).
            The dark side: corruption. It thrives in States like Connecticut or those in the so called Deep South ( where poverty multiplies). The American people have seen their quality of life and prosperity suffer because our Pentagon absorbs a major share of our production, (not an investment but, for a few pennies on research, impure expense and massive corruption)

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          5. Maybe. Based on most of what I’ve read, globalization and automation are the main culprits. Of course, many will say globalization is a result of corruption, and I wouldn’t claim some of the trade agreements aren’t tainted by special interests, but the real culprit is changing economic and technological factors.

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  7. I’m so glad it looks like you’ll be getting dear old Donald back. Such a lovely man and of course “very, very innocent” to use his own ill educated and ignorant words.

    Left and right is indeed a myth and I am in entire agreement with you that it’s all simply a question of self interest.

    If I’m a wealthy land owner with a posh accent I’m going to vote Tory because they will let me keep my estate and pass it onto my kids.

    If I’m a coal miner working in shyte conditions for the same pay as an Amazon delivery man I’m going to vote Labour. Because Labour will put my wages up and screw the toffs.

    There is no one and no party to whom I can pin my allegiance on the UK.

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  8. Oops…fat finger. And if I lived in the US I would have much the same problem. A country run, it seems, by old men and criminals.

    As you know, I often wax religious, despite being agnostic at best.

    And in practice of course the religious have proved on average every bit as venal as your truly hideous vicious clown Trump.

    But at least the basic ethical beliefs of most religions are somehow rather more acceptable than those of any political party.

    Anyone promising to “do unto others….” Would certainly get my vote.

    As it is I will be spoiling my ballot papers in disgust.

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    1. At least in the UK you guys do get some additional parties, with the possibility of post-election coalitions. Although the first past post system still tends to keep the major players down to a couple. Based on what I’m hearing, the Tories seem to be heading toward a major defeat.

      But I see Brexit as the UK manifestation of what here is the MAGA movement. Both are a nationalistic and nostalgic backlash against globalization, which seems to be happening to varying degrees in many first world countries. I wonder if there’s anything that can be done about it other than letting it play out over time.

      My own politics here lean Democratic, at least when I have the option to vote for them, which where I live isn’t often at the local level. But I have no illusions that they’re perfect. Right now they’re just by far the lesser evil.

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  9. If you do a Principal Components Analysis of American politics, the first component – the axis along which the most variation is explained – looks very familiar. Fuller and Liu write “While standard scaling methods, like PCA and factor analysis, often recover ideology as their first dimension when analyzing public opinion data, these methods almost necessarily gloss over important subgroup variation (e.g., moderate versus conservative Republicans).” Emphasis added. Their point is to get at those subgroup variations, which is perfectly valid, but let’s not miss the forest for the sub-clusters of trees.

    The terms “right” and “left” as political labels originated in the French Revolution, with those who stood to the right of the chair supporting the Ancien Régime. Now that the presumptive Republican nominee wants effectively to be king, there’s a stark resemblance of our left-right polarization to the original one. And sure, this situation is radically different from the Republican party of Lincoln’s day, but this is where we are now.

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    1. Have to admit I don’t really understand the PCA, at least not based on a quick skim. But I’m leery of any approach that tries to reduce the variations down to a single dimension, or even a very small number, if that’s what they’re attempting. Too often it ends up being circular, not getting at why people are in the groups they are.

      Consider that right now, the Democratic party is having an issue with blacks. They’re still mostly in the Democratic camp, but there’s been substantial erosion in this historically loyal Democratic group. If you look at it across multiple dimensions, it’s not hard to see why. Blacks tend to be more socially conservative. And when race is not the dominant concern, they have a lot in common with the white working class. (Whether they’re right to conclude race isn’t a concern is another matter.) A similar dynamic has been playing out among Hispanics for years. It’s much easier to see if we’re not looking at things across one left-right dimension.

      I don’t know if you noticed, but my featured image for this post is the opening of the Estates General in Versailles in 1789.

      As to Trump, it seems clear no one else is going to save us. The voters have to reject him, if he’s going to be rejected.

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      1. Doh! I didn’t even wonder that the image might be the Estates General. Anyhoo…

        PCA isn’t circular, it’s semi-tautologous. It’s tautologous that if you have 100 measures (e.g. questionnaire items) of political orientation, you’ll get 100 principal components. It’s tautologous that if you decide ahead of time that you only want to capture 95% of the variance, you’ll need at most 95 components (very probable: far fewer). It’s tautologous that the “first” component is the one that captures the most variance in the data. But it’s not at all tautologous that it lines up fairly closely with some well known ideological disputes.

        PCA finds correlations. Correlation doesn’t prove causation. It just waggles its eyebrows suggestively and mouths “look over there”.

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        1. The problem is often what the correlations are correlations of. An example used by Weeden and Kurzban: if you ask someone whether they’re introverted or extroverted, and also whether they prefer parties or staying home and reading, you’ll get a strong correlation between the answers. It might seem meaningful, until you remember what the definitions of introversion and extroversion are. If we want to find out why someone is introverted or extroverted in the first place, the correlations don’t help.

          That’s a pretty cool site. Thanks! I’ll have to remember it the next time I don’t understand an xkcd.

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          1. Again, I’m not saying that the correlations themselves tell you a causal explanation, just that it makes sense to look for one (or more). Given that the left-right polarity dominated multiple nations’ political dynamics at multiple times, it cries out for explanation.

            Without getting into historical analysis that would quickly go over my head, here’s a causal story that you might find plausible: the disgust hypothesis. That would only explain a few features of the left-right polarity, but that could be a start.

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  10. I’ve been perplexed by the full popularity of Trump from the beginning. Given about eight years of prominence however, hopefully I’m beginning to grasp his appeal and thus the mentality of certain Americans. So I think it may be helpful to ask the question, what under served new constituencies did Donald Trump bring the Republican Party?

    I see that Matti backs the thought that Trump’s support is from blue collar anti globalization influences. Maybe so in a broad general sense, and despite that democrats generally speak to these people better than republicans do. The Clintons surely helped move the democrats more away from its union roots, perhaps giving republicans an opportunity here. I guess Obama left things about the same.

    To me Trump’s support seems extremely white, though flavored in a gun toting, “fag” hating, sense of middle America trailer park life. It didn’t take much to mobilize people like this to attack the capital for a potential coup d’état after he lost. And though this group may leave many republicans uncomfortable, few seem above getting more of what they want by means of such energies.

    I think Trump’s strong anti Mexican stance helped him quite a lot. Then when Biden naturally came in to overturn Trump’s anti immigration policies, he was overcome by migrants from the south. It was as if he’d put up a national “Welcome!” sign.

    Few I think grasp how monumental and strange our seamless acceptance of all forms of sexual orientation has been in recent years. The speed of this change astounds me. Big media was surely instrumental. Some of Trump’s support should be backlash from this.

    Then there’s the anti abortion thing. Trump knows that that could hurt him and so has masterfully blamed it all on state preferences. Of course Trump has no concern about the death of unborn babies that aren’t wanted. His concern is all about getting his power back and trying not to be held accountable for all sorts of shenanigans. We’ll all be interested to see what ends up happening.

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    1. One benefit to living in a deeply red state, and having some working class family, is I feel like I’ve had some insight into Trump’s support. It’s easy to denigrate it as the uneducated and racist parts of society. (I’ve given into that myself before.)

      It makes a little more sense when you consider the effects immigration has on the job market. Professionals always say, “Oh, they’re just doing the jobs Americans don’t want.” In reality, they’re doing the jobs at a pay Americans wouldn’t accept, actually couldn’t accept given the life they’ve had until recently.

      Biden at least seems to be attempting a course correction on the southern border. Who knows whether it will be enough. It’s natural to wonder if he’d be doing it without the threat of Trump, but it’s worth remembering that Obama’s border security was fairly tough, and he took grief about it from Hispanics. Not that it stopped Trump from claiming the borders were wide open, just as he’s claiming that crime is skyrocketing, despite the actual statistics.

      Yeah, the change in attitudes toward LGBTQ in recent years is remarkable. Certainly not anything I could have predicted 20 years ago. It does make you wonder how enduring it might be. I think of all the heat around transgender issues in recent years.

      I have no idea what’s going to happen in November. I’m not convinced people will turn away from Trump just because of this conviction, although I’m glad it happened. But people need to be sold that he will be bad for them. I think we’ve thoroughly established that moral outrage won’t be enough.

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    2. Eric, my old friend, I wish to add a clarification to a remark of yours. “I see that Matti backs the thought that Trump’s support is from blue collar anti globalization influences.” I actually said that it “explains a lot of the Trumpsters.” Please understand, I think his success is complicated. I did not intend my remarks as the only factor explaining Trump’s success as a demagogue. I think some of it is explained by the long-term efforts of Republicans over the years to woo disaffected and fringe voting blocks into the GOP camp. It started with a GOP strategist, Kevin Philips. In mid-century the Democrats were a powerhouse. He advised a Southern strategy to win over the so-called Dixiecrats who walked out on Truman because of his civil rights plank in the national platform. Over time it worked. That strategy elected Nixon in a landslide. The GOP then put out the welcome mat for fundamentalist Christians in the 80’s—a group ignored for years. I think now that tail of fringe groups wags the dog so to speak.

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      1. Right Matti, I’d forgotten about the bible thumpers. Come to think of it, Trump does have a sort of phony televangelist look and demeanor. Of course after getting caught he’d never cry on television to his faithful about sinning, like Jimmy Swaggart. And maybe Trump’s non-accountability plays well to his faithful. Maybe this feels empowering, like he’s a great tool who’d do anything for them regardless of needing to use unsavory methods.

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  11. I’ve always seen the divide as progressive politics vs ‘tradition’ politics. Here in Australia the divide is the same between our Conservative party and Labor. The authoritarian strongman figure is an old tradition that half of many countries around the world want to try on again. Fortunately its not a popular option down under. Currently we have a federal progressive party and six out of seven state Labor govs. But in 20 years who knows how it will degrade.

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    1. Sounds like you guys are in a lot better shape than much of the English speaking world.

      I think strongmen become a danger when a society seems unresponsive to most of the population’s needs. Eventually the population starts seeing the whole system as corrupt and doesn’t care anymore about governing norms. There is a lot of rhetoric along those lines in the US, but I’m hoping we’re still well short of actually being at that point.

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  12. Many political labels are misleading, like left and right parties (which refer to named human body parts), progressive (there is no agreement on what progress means), etc.

    It makes sense to look at it from a broader, long-history perspective. For tens of thousands of years, there was one dominant ideology – “the end justifies the means.” (autocracy in all forms, intolerance towards non-believers in a particular religion, leader, etc.). For tens of thousands of years, people have become accustomed to it. Such an ideology is a default, mainly unconsciousness ingrained position. The opposite ideology – “the end does not justify the means” (democracy, tolerance, the rule of law, tolerance, etc.) is a recent invention. The latest, most significant 20th-century autocratic regimes were fascism in Germany and bolshevism in Russia. Let us label the “the end justifies the means” ideology as “autocratic” (“bolshevism”) and “the end does not justify the means” ideology as “non-autocratic.” Such labeling can be applied to any country or political system.

    In that sense, Trump is the USA’s most significant “bolshevik”; he symbolizes “the end justifies the means” approach. That is the deepest, often on an unconsciousness level, reason for people to endorse and believe him. People want to return to their roots, the life with “the end justifies the means” ideology.
    The other reason for the current crisis in the USA is that the so-called “the end does not justify the means” party (“democrats”) revealed how much they surrender to the pressure from extremist “progressives” who want to achieve their goals by the same “the end justifies the means” approach.

    If we put together people voting for “the end justifies the means” approach (Trump or “progressives),” we will probably have over 50% of the adult USA population. That is a deep crisis.

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    1. It seems like we can get Machiavellian strategies in both parties. I think of FDR. His policies were generally aimed at relief of suffering during the Great Depression, but his tactics were often ruthlessly political. And he wanted the US in WWII for good strategic reasons, but he knew the public wasn’t ready, so he helped things along by basically provoking the Axis powers.

      And he and other Democrats before Truman accepted racial segregation in the south because it was crucial to his coalition at the time. We wouldn’t see him as the success he was if he hadn’t made that deal with the devil. He helped minorities when he could, but he wasn’t interested in hopeless causes.

      Of course, the criticism might be that it may not have been as hopeless as he surmised. But I think we know from Truman’s travails that it would have derailed his agenda.

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      1. Machiavellian strategies can help a little bit in the short run, but they cannot fix huge problems in the long run.

        The long-run problem is that politicians (and those serving them as analysts) do not perform long-term analysis, which are necessary for long-term policies. I discuss that with numbers in my upcoming book, “Directionality of Humankind’s Development. History.” Even the most significant world powers did not have the tools to do such an analysis before the 17th and 18th centuries. However, even in later times, the strategic horizon time was too short worldwide and in all countries. The most common approach is to “kick the can down the road” to achieve short-term and very short-term goals, like re-election. We can see how this blind-sighted approach is still used right before our eyes. The latest examples are the USA and, more broadly, Western World, policies about Russian aggression against Ukraine and Hamas aggression against Israel.

        I’m sorry, but this comment is not directly related to your post and discussion. I mention it because, in the long run, continuing this failed approach can lead to a global defeat of democracy. Then, the problems with the political spectrum will disappear along with the political spectrum itself.

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  13. Things must have changed a lot since I got my degree in Political Science 30 years ago. I don’t think anybody was saying that politics can be reduced to “things must change” vs. “nothing can change”. I’ll watch the rest of the video, but that whole first section is a bit of a straw man in my opinion.

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    1. I wouldn’t be surprised if the typical academic has a more nuanced view, but it’s not uncommon for people in the media, some of who presumably have political science degrees, to talk in terms of a single dimension. Or like the Politico piece, one dimension plus another grudgingly added to explain observations that don’t fit.

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  14. As is often the way for me, I think there’s some truth to both ways of looking at it. The former UK supreme court judge Lord Sumption argued that democracy is essentially a means for ruling by compromise, with political parties forced to come up with compromise positions that will gain as wide support as possible in order to please their members and then voters. He made an interesting suggestion that our political system is getting more polarized because fewer people are now members of political parties, so they have to first appeal to a more extreme base, before they can look at how to appeal to the wider public.

    But I don’t think we can exclude the ideological side. I remember hearing years ago how voters for the British Nationalist Party and voters for the Green party listed the same priorities that decided their voting – things like the housing shortage and lack of jobs. They’re concerned with the same problems, but their beliefs lead them to seek different solutions. That’s an extreme example, but I think it’s overly cynical to suppose that all differences between political parties is driven solely by interests and not by genuine beliefs.

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    1. I agree with your first paragraph to an extent. It’s why I wish we could have ranked choice voting, because of the effects the primaries have here in the US. The people who vote in those tend to be the most extreme, and candidates have to get through them to even get to the general election. (I’m not familiar with the equivalent stage in the UK to comment intelligently.)

      I wouldn’t say ideology has nothing to do with it, but the question is, why does someone choose one ideology over another? Even if we say they were raised that way, what led to the surrounding culture being that way? Eventually we have to get to non-ideological reasons.

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      1. There’s pretty much the same problem for the similar stages in the UK, except I think the parties’ central executives play a bigger role. It’s confusing and complicated and most of us don’t really know how it works.

        I don’t think we do have to eventually get to non ideological reasons. Well, I suppose if we trace the causes back to pre humanity we do, but I don’t think that’s an approach that will provide much insight. I think it’s a mistake to try to reduce beliefs to self interest and alliances. Beliefs have a logic and power of their own, even though they’re influenced by lots of other factors.

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        1. I don’t think we have to go back that far to understand the reasons why people choose particular ideologies. Although evolution can provide a useful lens. And remember it’s not just self interest, but inclusive self interest, including the interests of friends, family, and people like us. So it’s not like everyone is being selfish all the time. And I’m sure some people are motivated by high minded ideas, but most of us have too many pressing concerns to think that way all the time.

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  15. Living in a purple state makes it pretty clear to me that the left-right division is fairly messy. I know lifelong democrats who voted Trump, and probably will again. These are people who voted for Obama. It’s unthinkable to me, but it happens.

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    1. There was a substantial overlap in support between Bernie Sanders and Trump in 2016. That makes no sense in a left-right frame, but does when we consider that they were both addressing the needs of people whose positions were eroding. And I still remember Michael Moore’s warning and later postmortem of the election, explaining how those lifelong Democrats could make that switch.

      I do wonder what those people are thinking about this time around. But we have to remember that most people don’t pay that much attention.

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      1. So true that people aren’t paying attention, and they don’t remember what little they do hear. I’m afraid this whole business with Trump’s case will be long forgotten by the time of the election, but his ardent supporters won’t forget.

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  16. It’s very rare to meet an American who actually agrees with everything their preferred political party stands for. I think that’s part of the frustration pretty much everyone feels right now. I want to support issues A, B, C, and D, but in order to do that I have to cast a vote in support of issues E and F as well. I wish we had more of a multiparty system, like they do in pretty much every other democracy in the world. That would still come with problems, of course, but I think it would end up being more representative of what the American people actually want.

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    1. The multiparty system does have advantages, but one big disadvantage is that the coalition often has to be strewn together after the election, may not be very stable, and becomes subject to control by people skilled in rapid coalition building. A prime example in recent years is Israel. It had multiple elections in a row because the parties couldn’t form a coalition, and when they finally did, it wasn’t stable. It also gives an advantage to someone like Netanyahu, who’s willing to get in bed with whoever he needs to to hold onto power.

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      1. That’s true. I remember being really excited for some of the centrist coalitions that were trying to form in Israel. I thought that might lead to some really fundamental change. And then what happened happened.

        But I still think the two party system we have in the U.S. is broken. We need something different.

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  17. I somewhat disagree. While the pure binary left/right division is far too crude to capture important nuances, I do not see it as meaningless, as long as we remember that it may well apply differently to different “dimensions” of one’s overall stance. Thus one can be left wing socially and right wing fiscally (or vice versa), as the most obvious example. Hence people are often surprised on rare occasions when they *do* get into a meaningful conversation with somebody firmly in “the other camp”, that there are areas in which they very much do agree, and that their opponent is far from as unreasonable as they’d assumed.

    As for the actual meaning, politically, of the left/right labels, like many non-scientific concepts they do not have a precise definition and the meaning can only be captured by what Jung called circumambulation: by talking/thinking about and around it until the core concept takes shape without having a clear definition. Nevertheless, over years I have come to a simplified characterisation of the two positions which works well for me. And it goes like this. Left wing views look more to the future (often unrealistic) than to the past and are motivated more by hopes than by fears. Right wing views are the opposite — they look more to the past (often misremembered) and are motivated more my fears than by hopes.

    That, I think, is a distinction well worth hanging on to, as long as it is not applied with too broad a brush. Neither of those stances are a binary “all or nothing” and neither can be assumed to apply to all aspects of one’s worldview. But they do say something meaningful, which is not captured by other labels.

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    1. The future / past distinction is pretty similar to the progressive dimension that Lewis talks about in the interview. The problem is that there are many cases that don’t fit, and seems to call into question the overall reliability of it as a guiding principle.

      Consider Elon Musk. I think by many standards, he’s forward looking, pushing forward online banking, spacecraft improvements, electric cars, brain implants, and dreaming of Mars colonies (whether that’s realistic or not). For a time he seemed like a progressive icon. But in recent years he’s swung decidedly toward the Republican lane. I think because as a billionaire industrialist, he perceives his interests as better served there.

      Or Caitlyn Jenner. People were shocked when she, as a trans-woman, supported Trump and the Republicans. It’s a little less shocking when we remember her business and sports background.

      Interestingly, Abraham Lincoln was pro-business, but in his day it was a forward looking perspective, one that was looking past the then current reality of a primarily agricultural society. Of course, as the economy transitioned to an industrial one, it became increasingly seen as a conservative stance, at least by those who thought we needed to progress to a more worker centric society.

      I don’t want to say it’s not useful in some contexts, like social values. And contemporary Republican rhetoric is certainly nostalgic (“Make America great again“). But their coalition, including some of their biggest funders. includes people with a forward looking view, albeit one that many of us might strongly disagree with.

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      1. That’s not the way I see it. The “progressive dimension” is, I think, distinct from the left/right one, as your examples in fact demonstrate. I certainly used to be a fan of Musk’s, but I never saw him as a figure of the left and while I am very disappointed by his embrace of the fairly far right position, it came as no great surprise. After all, he is was motivated by his fear of the future, not by his hopes for the future.I see no inherent tension between a right-wing person being progressive (out of fear what the future might bring otherwise) or a left-wing one being anything but (through misguided hopes for what future will bring).There are, of course, confounding factors. E.g. really far left and really far right positions tend to look remarkably similar. (One reason why I am dismayed but not surprised by Russia’s evolution into a fascist state.) Another is the recent-ish development of right-wing rhetoric learning to adapt left-wing vocabulary of hope — which is, for example, how Brexit was sold in Britain, disguising itsroots in dislike of ongoing social changes. (There is a parallel here with peddlers of pseudo-science getting really quite good at adoption the vocabulary of genuine science.)

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        1. My own fan phase of Musk was actually pretty brief. I remember seeing him interviewed on Fareed Zakaria’s show c. 2013 and actually being impressed by how intelligent his remarks seemed. But within a few months he started saying crazy and pseudoscientific stuff, and I started becoming progressively more leery, particularly after his association with Mars One, a complete scam. Buying and screwing up Twitter just confirmed my worst suspicions.

          But I’ve become reluctant to base analyses on people’s motives. Part of the reason is just about every time someone who disagrees with me talks about my motives, they get it wrong. It’s too easy to make assumptions that explain away actions that don’t fit our model of that person, rather than update the model. This is particularly treacherous with political stances.

          Which isn’t to defend Musk or the other people you discuss. Whatever their motives, I disagree with their actions and stances. And to your point about adopting language, one tactic from conservatives that I’ve come to detest, that whenever an institution doesn’t support their positions, they create their own versions of those institutions to provide a counter-narrative, which tend to be little more than propaganda factories with a thin front (if that) of legitimate activity.

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          1. Well, I was going by Musk’s own words as to what motivates him. But you are quite right — applying a generalised classification to any particular individual is always risky. Moving “up” from an individual to a broad category necessarily ignores the complexity that makes that individual unique. Moving “down” in applying a category to an individual, contextualises that individual — possibly misleadingly in particular cases, but usefully overall. The risk is real but insufficient to make categorisations useless. Without them we would be lost in complexities of the world.

            So, to return to your main theme, I do find the left/right distinction pragmatically useful in capturing something harder to capture in other ways. I suppose so are myths. 🙂 YMMV.

            P.S. It occurs to me that I used a wrong word in my last post. I was surprised by Must and by Putin — I am no “super forecaster”. I should have said that I wasn’t astonished.

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  18. What should be (and what actually is) important for voters – political labeling, perceived parties distinction, a position on some priority issue for the particular voter, or some core trends?
    Parties are changing their positions. A good example is a reminder that the US Democratic party in the past was a Ku Klux Klan party.

    It is essential to look beyond parties distinctions, whether those distinctions are fundamental or just pronounced and used as a tool in a fight for voters. Is there a thread of politics that goes unchanged or slightly changed through the consecutive administrations of changing ruling parties? If yes, was it explained to the public?

    I see such a trait in the USA’s foreign politics—a desire to stay in control to be able to support countries’ “interests” even if those interests could change. One could say it is a forward-looking position. Unfortunately, the time interval of the strategic horizon used for decisions on that position is really short. It is a basis of awful mistakes, past and current, with long-lasting consequences.

    I do not see a common trend in the internal policies of the USA, but I could be mistaken.

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      1. James, Per the article you referenced, The Ku Klux Klan was not formed by the Democratic Party, but many KKK members were Democrats. That is not misleading.

        Anyway, parties’ positions, actual or perceived, and their place on the political spectrum change.

        It is relevant to this discussion to note that “left and right,” or whichever distinction we discuss, is not static.

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        1. Your statement was: ” US Democratic party in the past was a Ku Klux Klan party.”

          First of all, the party was formed before the Civil War and before the KKK.

          The Democratic Party split over the issue of slavery and ran two separate tickets in 1860, one proslavery and one antislavery.

          The KKK after the Civil War was probably composed mostly of Democrats because the South was Democratic and the KKK was largely a Southern phenomenon.

          Since then, the KKK has been composed of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents.

          “By the 1870s the Klan had died out since white Southerners had retaken control of state governments “through their campaigns of violence and intimidation.” When a new Klan emerged in the 1910s, it attracted members from both parties, as well as members affiliated with no parties.”

          But in no case was the Democratic Party a KKK party.

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          1. KKK never was a political party. I agree that the use of the term “KKK party” should be avoided.

            Let us agree on this statement.
            Some Democrats, as well as some Republicans, were members of KKK.

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    2. It seems to me that it’s rational for voters to look at a party’s platform (to the extent one exists) and its recent history, in relation to their own interests. I actually think most voters do a decent job at that, although both sides like to think the other side is confused and not voting rationally.

      Definitely what it means to be a Democrat today is very different to what it meant a century ago. Parties are messy coalitions of interests, and those are always shifting.

      There used to be a saying during the Cold War: “Politics stops at the water’s edge.” It implied that foreign policy was consistent across both Democratic and Republican administrations. And with a few exceptions, it was, following strategies like the containment doctrine. But that consensus largely vanished in the 1990s.

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      1. It might be rational to look at platforms but I’m not sure many people do or even care apart from a few deeply ingrained in politics or the specifics of a particular issue.

        Things do change. From the thirties to the Civil Rights Act the Democratic Party was a weird coalition of northern liberals and southern white conservatives. I think it was Johnson said he thought the Democrats has lost the South for a generation (or their lifetimes according to Bill Moyers) after the Act’s passage. Republicans rushed to get the George Wallace voters and Johnson’s prediction proved true.

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        1. I was being imprecise with the word “platform”. Definitely hardly anyone looks at the official platforms, which is why no one noticed when the Republicans didn’t even publish one last time. I was using that word to refer to what candidates were generally saying and promising in the current election. Still requires paying at least some degree of attention though.

          Yeah, in retrospect Johnson was being optimistic that it would only be a generation. I can tell you where I live (Louisiana) that Republicans dominate. We have a sizable black population, so Democrats can occasionally break through (like our previous governor), but they’re rare exceptions.

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          1. If that’s what you meant, for sure I agree.

            I live in Georgia and with the growth of Atlanta, in another 10 years or so, the Democrats might be competitive. Even with two Democratic Senators and the state going for Biden last time, the Democrats have little or no power in the State government and it would still be a minor miracle if the State goes for Biden again or either of the two Senators manage reelection.

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          2. It’s not looking that good for Democrats in this election, although there’s still time for things to change. I follow https://www.electoral-vote.com/ and yeah, it’s not showing Georgia as particularly close this time. Of course, I don’t think it was showing it as close last time, so who knows. But there’s no doubt for my own state.

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          3. It’s hard to know what is going on the electorate. Participation rates in polls years ago was 20-30% and it could almost all be done by landlines. That rate has fallen to 5-6%. Who is picking up the phone to answer the pollsters? Not me. It’s a huge self-selection error potential. And in today’s environment, there is a reasonable chance some of the respondents are simply lying or using the poll as a chance to air a grievance. In other words, it might be the polls are slanted in favor of the aggrieved, which would lead to a Trump bias, I imagine. I certainly think that could be behind the questions about the economy, which by any objective standard is about as good as it gets.

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          4. I’m really hoping that’s true. I have seen some analyses that Biden does better with likely voters. Still, I hope no one on that team is taking anything for granted.

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  19. Right vs left continues to underpin the politics of politics abroad. Yet in the US one can see a damning example of human egoism. When Cubans arrived in the early sixties, generous Americans and their political leaders offered major assistance to desperate Cuban migrants. From food to college loans American generosity was present enabling this multitude of migrants to embrace the American Dream. Today those immigrants and their American descendants bitterly oppose any assistance to other desperate migrants.

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  20. I put it mostly down to, which group will uphold my rights of individual discourse, expression as if they had the ‘rule of law’ strap-taped to their policy initiatives and heralded their essence.
    ‘Corporate stakeholdership’ is my opinion our biggest threat as a species in the political realm. Everything else is almost an afterthought. The individual is supreme. The divinity of the individual is sacred. A party which espouses that more than the other is ONE. Left and Right pluralism and associations of them is from a bygone era.

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    1. Sound pretty libertarian. That view held appeal for me when I was younger, but it’s become more apparent to me over the decades that we all need help at times, and freedom of discourse can’t include shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater. So it seems inescapable that we’re talking about a balance, with exactly how we do that balance open to reasonable discussion.

      I do think no one’s freedom should be curtailed without good reasons, with a high evidentiary bar for those reasons.

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