How asymmetric is the left-right polarization?
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  How asymmetric is the left-right polarization?
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Author Topic: How asymmetric is the left-right polarization?  (Read 1274 times)
buritobr
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« on: March 11, 2017, 09:34:09 AM »
« edited: March 11, 2017, 09:39:24 AM by buritobr »

In the left-right polarization, the two sides are not equal.
While all the leftists consider themselves leftists, many rightists consider themselves centrists, or they say that "the left-right polarization doesn't make sense anymore after the end of the Cold War" or "the left-right polatization never made sense".
I think that more than 70% of the texts in which the words "left" and "right" are used for politics were written by leftists. Many rightists reject the use of the labels left and right.
The word "right" for politics are used as an ugly word more often than the word "left".
In the German elections, the party "Die Linke" has 10% of the votes. There is no party "Die Rechte" which has 10% of the votes. We don't see the CDU leaders calling themselves "right-wing".
In the french elections between François Mitterrand and Valery Giscard d'Estaing in 1974 and 1981, Mitterrand considered that the election was about left vs right, while Giscard d'Estaing considered that the election was about far left vs center.
The same situation happenned in Brazil in 1989. Lula considered himself "left" and considered Collor "right". Collor considered himself "center" and considered Lula "far left".
There are many groups in the Left: anarchists, social democrats, American liberals, socialists, marxist leninists, trotskists, maoists.
There are many groups in the Right: non American liberals, American libertarians, conservatives, traditionalists, religious fundamentalists, fascists.
Although there are many groups in the Left, many of these groups share the same symbols: the red flag, the word "conrade", the May 1st. Many of them think that they belong to the same club and that they should have solidarity among themselves.
In the Right, we don't see the notion that all of them belong to the same group. Libertarians don't think that they should have solidarity with fascists (or at least they don't say in public, many Brazilian "libertarians" have positive views on the fascist leader Jair Bolsonaro). There are few rightists who think that all the rightists should cooperate among themselves despite these differences. They think that libertarians and the religious right can cooperate. But they are usually former leftists who learned that the polarization left-right was very important when they were leftists.
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SingingAnalyst
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« Reply #1 on: November 17, 2017, 06:18:04 PM »

Lots of good points, especially about labeling.

Many rightists in the US call themselves centrist or libertarian or even "classical liberal" or argue that labels make no sense anymore.

Leftist have greater influence in the media, academia and Hollywood; rightist strength is in small towns, rural areas, and culturally isolated (and in many cases isolating) churches-- the "good ole boy" network if you will.

Rightists are also ideologically diverse: conservative Christians and Ayn Rand devotees are both about equally despised on the left, and for about the same reasons.

Rightists have more of a "lost cause" mentality and are often apologetic. Leftist, in contrast, are proud of who they are and confident that their views will eventually universally prevail.

Rightists let leftists label them "conservative" and are much less intellectually sophisticated than leftists.

Rightists are not found much in Washington, DC (4.0% Trump in '16); Cambridge, Mass. (6.5% Trump); San Francisco, CA (9.2% Trump) or New York County, NY (10% Trump). Similarly low percentages for Clinton could be found in three Mississippi counties: George (10%), Itawamba (11%), and Tishomingo (12%)-- places few have heard of.

Many rightists are unaware of the "moving target" nature of left/rightism: in early 2016 I considered myself centrist (by Atlas standards); now I'd say I lean ever-so-slightly to the right.

So, yeah, it's asymmetric.

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omegascarlet
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« Reply #2 on: November 18, 2017, 04:20:40 AM »

Centrist is a BS term to describe being in between the two mainstream ideologies. It does not mean "not right wing in the absolute sense".

Also:
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lol
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seb_pard
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« Reply #3 on: November 18, 2017, 02:21:46 PM »


That is actually true for Ibero-american politics (Latin America+Portugal+Spain) where the word "right" is associated with human rights violation and the dictatorships before 1990. That's why you have in this part of the world many people saying that there are independents (including politicians) but you understand very easily that they are right wing.

And that's why you have right wing parties with the word "social-democratic" in their name in Brazil and Portugal and a party so culturally right wing as Ciudadanos in Spain saying they are progressives (or used to say).

In Chile happens the same thing, the right loves to say they are independent and hate to say they are right-wing.
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vanguard96
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« Reply #4 on: November 18, 2017, 03:06:29 PM »

Centrist is a BS term to describe being in between the two mainstream ideologies. It does not mean "not right wing in the absolute sense".

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lol

And left anarchists / an-coms / syndicalists saying they are not authoritarian. Also LOL.
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Leinad
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« Reply #5 on: November 19, 2017, 04:04:02 PM »
« Edited: November 19, 2017, 04:05:57 PM by Leinad »

It's because of connotations that have developed over time, mostly influenced by media and academia. Left is associated with compassion and equality, so far-left is considered naive, not evil. Right is associated with authority (especially outside the US, where liberty is core to our history, therefore leading conservatives to have a liking for libertarian appeals), so far-right is thought of as totalitarian and evil.

The left-right divide is in and of itself absurd, and brought about by the "us vs. them" nature of political parties (specifically in the US and other two-party systems). And it makes the right more of an ideological hodge-podge. The idea that libertarians inherently have things in common with nationalists, fascists, or the religious right is laughable, when they have completely different core values/motives.

In reality, there are many more than two political ideologies. Unfortunately, organized politics leads these sides to form alliances, sometimes strange ones, in order to win majorities, thus blurring the lines between the nuanced or even fundamental differences they have. This is compounded further when you have these "coalitions" being two whole parties, thus leading to a duopoly of politicians parroting one of two Accepted Views (which sucks, but I'm not going to rant about that again Tongue).
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Pennsylvania Deplorable
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« Reply #6 on: November 22, 2017, 07:14:33 PM »

The left-right spectrum is absurd on its face, so this is best looked at on individual issues. For example, a Vox poll offering 7 options ranging from most liberal to most conservative found that most people were left of center on marijuana while about half were right of the GOP on immigration (this poll was conducted during the primaries and helped explain why Trump was able to defeat the GOP establishment using that issue).

I've noticed that people are more likely to identify as conservative than liberal on exit polls, but the self described moderates tend to lean to the left (perhaps because the media's idea of the center is actually quite a bit to the left so they think they're dead center when they're not). Conversely, independents usually lean right and slightly more people are registered democrats than republicans.
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