Transcription
Most Americans have no idea what the political labels actually mean. The far right, the far left, the moderates. These words get thrown around and misused to dismiss important ideas. There are five real ideological camps in American politics. And once you understand what each one actually believes, you will see politics differently. I'm going to break down all five right now. This is to show News independent media where we can tell you what's really happening. Let's talk about the political spectrum from far right to far left. Please like, subscribe, and comment. Tell me what group you think you're in.
First, the group that's been dominating politics over the last decade, the far right, which is now synonymous with MAGA. Their meta message has been America is a white Christian nation under siege and we need a strong man who can take it back. They are animated by a sense of grievance of loss. They believe they are victims in a fast-changing globalized world and they want to return to what they think of as normal, which looks a lot like the 1950s when straight white men were in charge. They're fighting for ICE and mass deportation and ending birthright citizenship because immigration isn't just a policy issue for them. It's an existential civilizational struggle. They believe this country is being destroyed by immigrants both culturally and economically, thus justifying the violence ICE is doing to them. To them, immigrants are invading their white Christian nation, and that needs to stop or America will cease to exist.
The far right is the ideological home of Donald Trump, Lauren Boebert, the old Marjorie Taylor Greene, Steve Bannon, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Tucker Carlson. This is the dominant faction of the Republican party nowadays. The far right believes in white Christian nationalism and wants abortion bans with no exceptions and they want no protections for LGBTQ folks. They are deeply suspicious of institutions like government, media, and the academy. And they believe that the 2020 election was stolen and thus they cannot answer questions like who won the 2020 election in a simple way. They love Trump with a fervor like he's their cult leader. They believe January 6 was a false flag operation by Antifa, but also that it was a righteous insurrection. They trust and love Trump so deeply, they think authoritarian leadership makes sense if it comes from him. They don't want to reform the political system. They want to dominate it. It may seem like a contradiction that they are suspicious of government and yet they currently run it. But they were born as an insurgent group and they remained that even in power.
Moments after Obama's election, the Tea Party rose up, powered by white racial anxiety, and they turned the GOP much more radical. They were all about demonizing immigration and attacking moderate Republicans who weren't tough enough on immigration. Their victories jerked the party rightward and showed how far you could go by being ruthless about immigration. Around the same time, the alt-right rose up mostly online, stoking white nationalist racism. Trump unified the anti-immigration of the Tea Party and the white racial anger of the alt-right into MAGA and took both concepts even farther.
The far right sees themselves as the real America fighting back against elites, globalists, minorities, and groomers. They believe whiteness is under attack, that white people are the true victims of modern race, and there's a lot more discrimination against white people going on than against black people. Hence, the attack on DEI and affirmative action. They have been the loudest group in American politics over the last decade and their growth from insurgent group criticizing the government to the leaders of government has changed America forever. They're the most politically activated, highest turnout group in the country. And their deep sense of white victimhood inspires them. They have clear enemies: immigrants, the left, blacks, non-white Americans, globalists, the media. They see politics as a war that can restore a threatened national culture. They think we have lost our way as a nation with all these trans people and wokeness and pronouns and sanctuary cities and blacks with good jobs and women with equal rights and stuff. They're like, "Everything was fine back in the 1950s. Can we just go back to that?"
The left often mischaracterizes them as dumb and/or hateful, and that is not always wrong. But many far-right voters do have real economic grievances because their world is actually crumbling because of de-industrialization, globalization, wage stagnation, the opioid epidemic. They're not wrong that the system has failed them, but instead of blaming corporations and the wealthy, they're blaming immigrants. And that is wrong.
Moving on to the moderate right. This is the remnants of the old Republican party whose motto was like free markets, strong military, traditional values, but keep it respectable. The number one thing the moderate right is always fighting for: tax cuts, especially cuts for the corporations and the wealthy. These are the people who believe in trickle-down economics. But it's really just a symbiotic relationship between politicians and the upper class on how to make each other richer. The richer the rich get, the more they donate to politicians, and the more politicians allow them to get richer. Rinse and repeat.
The moderate right is against so many things: the Affordable Care Act, minimum wage increases, student loan forgiveness, any expansion of voting rights, any change in gun policy, no matter what. This is the ideological home of Mitch McConnell, Nikki Haley, Mitt Romney, Ben Shapiro. This is the supposedly kinder, gentler version of the Republican party as opposed to the far right's hate-filled, clan-adjacent animal house. But that's why they seem old and out of step compared to the far right, whose fascist chic is somehow attractive to people. The moderate right voter will vote for Trump because the party has been consumed by him and they like being in power, even though they might be a little uncomfortable with some of his ways. That said, some moderate Republicans feel like the Republican party has abandoned them entirely, but they'll still vote for Trump.
The moderate right is the child of Reagan conservatism. They believe in low taxes, small government, large military, and traditional social structures. One big problem is they were willing to accept legal immigration and they were willing to make deals with Democrats to build a pathway to citizenship. Moderate Republicans never really saw immigration as evil or as a cultural issue. It was a business issue for them. And many businesses were fighting for the right to continue hiring undocumented immigrants. But the moderate right's softness on immigration led to them getting slaughtered by the far-right Tea Party, which was aggressively anti-immigration.
The moderate right is the group that gave all the power in the country to big business. They demonized unions, refused to raise minimum wage, argued that corporations are people, all of which facilitated a massive transfer of wealth from the middle class to the upper class, and that has left us with massive wealth inequality. But the moderate right's loyalty to big business on immigration allowed MAGA to sneak in with a more populist, anarchist, anti-immigrant message that made moderate Republicans look like wimps to Republican voters.
Moving on to the center, which isn't an ideology per se. It's more of a posture. It's more of a vibe. Their vibe is both sides are crazy. I just want things to work, or I don't choose a side because I'm above politics. There's at least two kinds of centrists: the low-information, disengaged voter who doesn't follow politics, and the high-information, no-labels type who believes both parties are broken. The "both sides-ism" kills me. The notion that not believing in either party is some kind of a virtue kills me. They believe not taking a side makes them seem smarter than everyone else, when what it really means is you don't really understand politics, or you're so privileged that you can float above it. You're not smarter than everyone because you see problems in both parties.
This is the group of Joe Manchin, David Brooks of the New York Times, Matt Yglesias, the No Labels crowd, the mainstream TV shows that fetishize balance over truth, the obnoxious guy in the corner of the party patting himself on the back for being above the partisan divide. At a time when the dominant political movement in America is overtly racist and fascist, to conclude that both parties are equally at fault is pathetic.
The moderate left is what we think of as the institutional Democratic Party: the Obamas, the Clintons, Joe Biden, Gavin Newsom, Josh Shapiro, Thomas Friedman, most of MSNBC. They say, "Let's fix the system. Incremental progress is still progress." The moderate left believes in expanding the safety net, addressing racial inequality, and using government as a force for good, but always within the existing capitalist, pro-business framework, which makes them kind of blah. That is the central complicating factor for them. They want to help the people, but not so much that it hurts business.
The moderate left fought for Obamacare, which was essentially a moderate Republican policy instead of single-payer, which the far left favored. So, they want more people on health insurance, but they're against Medicare for All. They support civil rights and diversity, but not reparations. They support a pathway to citizenship for immigrants, but they're not sure about abolishing ICE. They know affordability is important, but they're not sure about massive wealth taxes. They understand that we have a police violence problem, but they're not in favor of defunding the police, even though the right mischaracterizes them as being in favor of it. The moderate left tends to be pro-Israel, or at least pro-ceasefire, but they won't call it a genocide, and they won't vote against sending military aid to Israel. The moderate left isn't for anything that's so bold that it excites anyone.
I talked about how on the right, getting meaner and tougher on immigration helped energize white voters and propelled the far right to prominence. The moderate left saw in the '90s and 2000s that the percentage of Latino voters was rising in this country faster than any other demographic, and they thought, "Over the long haul, identity politics will lift us to big victories." In every presidential election in the last 30-plus years, most white Americans have voted Republican, while an overwhelming percentage of black voters have consistently voted Democratic. Moderate Dems thought the rising number of American Latino voters will give us a new voter base that will help us overcome the GOP's huge white coalition because we are anti-racist and not anti-immigration. So, of course, they'll vote for us. That has not happened at all. Where blacks vote for Dems at around 85% to 90%, in most presidential elections, only about 60% of Latino voters vote for Dems. That is solid, but not nearly enough to challenge the GOP's advantage with white voters. The far right saw the rise of Latinos coming and played a much more aggressive game of identity politics aimed at white victimhood. And that has changed America forever.
The last group, the far-left or the progressive left, says the system is not broken. It's working exactly as designed. Tear it down and build something new. The far left is Bernie Sanders, AOC, Zephyr Teachout, Democracy Now, Hasan Piker, The Crystal Ball, me. The far left sees politics through the lens of structural inequality. The problem isn't policies, it's the system. We support expanding the welfare state, adding wealth taxes, regulating corporations to combat wealth inequality. The far left is open to democratic socialism and all kinds of socialist ideas like universal basic income because we understand that capitalism itself is a problem.
The far left supports Medicare for All, free public college, a Green New Deal, abolishing ICE, defunding or radically restructuring the police, ending mass incarceration, adding wealth taxes, and supporting trans people. The far left is very pro-Palestine and openly critical of Israel's military politics and in favor of ending military aid to Israel and creating a two-state solution.
The far left is actually torn over its involvement in the political system at all. A large part of the far left believes the Democratic Party is structurally incapable of delivering the change we need because they are tied to big business. Part of the far left believes the party will never give a true progressive a chance. And they point to Bernie Sanders's primary loss in 2020 as proof that the Democratic Party will put its finger on the scale to prevent a progressive from becoming the nominee. But some far-lefties believe we can and must work within the Democratic Party to achieve change. Teachout's win suggests that the far left can win big elections. For now, the Democratic Party remains controlled by its boring moderate wing, while the Republican party remains controlled by its loud radical wing. And that has created the modern political landscape. That's the crux of the American political landscape. Let me know in the comments which group you think you're in. Thank you for watching.