You’ve probably taken one of those political quizzes where you answer a series of questions about your political opinions, and then the quiz places you somewhere on a political scale or grid.
Here’s the Pew Quiz. This one is short and fun. This one has 70 questions but it’s pretty interesting. This one is very detailed but perhaps too granular. Finally, this is the New York Time’s “If America Had Six Political Parties” quiz (I ended up in the Growth & Opportunity Party, which was no surprise to me).
But it’s the Horseshoe Theory that seems to dominate our politics today.
The Horseshoe Theory of Politics observes that the extremes of left and right end up meeting, and having more in common than they might have thought. And today we’ve gone full horseshoe.
The populist right is open to higher taxes on the wealthy instead of rewarding wealth creation, demonizes big corporations instead of recognizing them as a form of innovation and production at scale, subordinates Constitutional protections to the “will of the people,” cozies up to labor unions instead of championing right to work, uses government power to reward friends and punish enemies, and places absolute trust in an elected leader instead of maintaining limits on power.
The progressive left thinks the same thing.
The reason both political extremes ending up having much in common is that they are both forms of radicalism. In fact, it’s common today for the populist right to say things like “We should use the tools leftists learned from Saul Alinsky in ‘Rules for Radicals,’” or “If they aren’t going to play by the rules, neither should we.”
Radicalism simply wants its desired outcome and sees norms and constitutional protections as obstacles to be overcome. Radicals advocate things like abolishing the Electoral College, packing the Supreme Court, making the Senate proportionately representative, and just generally using government power to impose their preferences on everyone else.
Conservatism embraces constitutional limitations and norms as guardrails that allow for social change while preventing tyranny. Respecting the Constitution protects everyone, even when we don’t get our preferred outcome.
Now, some on the right today have decided that radicalism is necessary. Anything goes to “own the libs” and the entrenched elites must be defeated by any means necessary.
Fine. But if that’s your position, own it. You’re a right radical, not a conservative. The Horseshoe Theory has you. And you’ve got more in common with Bernie Sanders, AOC, and Elizabeth Warren than you do with Ronald Reagan.