The Left-Right political spectrum doesn't really capture the breadth of political sentiment in America. Derek looks at a 2021 study by Pew Research on political typologies—as well as Jean-Pierre Faye's horseshoe theory—to better understand the multivariate dynamics at play, as well as its implications for democracy in America moving forward.Show NotesPew Research: Beyond Red vs. Blue: The Political TypologyRational Wiki: Horseshoe Theory
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As with everyone in the country, as with everyone listening right now, I have my own political views.
And even as this report states, even these nine groups do not completely capture the sentiments of every individual.
Some views cross over into other groups.
So the purpose of this episode is to just cover the typologies and not to choose sides.
I will comment a little bit about my views now, and then just go more into observation mode.
Because I want to point out something that I've also teased on social media, which is a contentious issue.
It's Jean-Pierre Fay's Horseshoe Theory, and I believe it offers a useful roadmap for what we can experience in conspirituality.
So the general idea is that instead of treating political typologies as linear, The far left and the far right are more similar to one another than either is to the center.
Now, Fay coined this term to discuss a small contingent of the Nazi party called the Black Front, and they broke off from Hitler's regime to criticize capitalism, and this was later applied to support breaking issues within groups around fascist regimes.
Now, as I said, the series is not without critics, and I discovered that very quickly.
A lot of the criticism came from proponents of the far left in other countries than America.
For example, Canada.
And while it is true that America is generally a centrist nation, and that fact is supported by this Pew study, we do have a far left here.
And I understand it may not be as active or fervent as in other countries.
But some of that pushback involved people saying there is no far left in America and that simply is not true.
But remember that this episode is focused on the American political spectrum.
So I do apologize to listeners in other countries because I know from our data.
In our podcast, something like 45% of our listenership comes from outside of America, most predominantly Canada, the UK, and Australia.
Honestly, I can't really speak to the far left or far right of the countries that you're in, so you have to take that into consideration while listening to this episode.
Now the other criticism of horseshoe theory, and this transcends our social media feed, but it was also mentioned there, is that Faye developed the theory to describe specific political situations, and it's not fair to accuse the current left of wishing the same outcomes as the right.
And that's totally valid.
We have numerous examples.
We have critical race theory here in America.
We have the transgender issue right now.
There are many issues where the left and the right are completely opposite in terms of what they want for outcomes.
I'm arguing that horseshoe theory isn't limited only to outcomes, but also to sentiments.
And namely, the sentiment of having a certain righteousness in the fervency of belief.
So from my readings, the far left doesn't like being compared to the right in any capacity due to the purported political outcome.
And that's, as I said, abortion rights is another one, right?
Race, trans rights, all valid.
That's not really what I'm describing here.
Because there's a subset of horseshoe theory that describes attitude.
And it's best summated in the you're either with us or against us sentiment that's shared at the extremes.
And this proliferates in social media.
And that's the manner in which I'm focusing on the term.
And if you're a horseshoe theory purist, then this argument won't jive with you.
But there are thinkers who have extrapolated from Fay's ideas and applied them more broadly.
And that's what I'm doing.
Because again, I kind of consider it like the triune brain model that was developed in the 1960s, this idea that there's three different layers evolutionarily of our brain, from reptilian to human, that provide a roadmap in understanding the different brain regions.
Also a contentious issue in neuroscience, it doesn't match one-to-one, or one-to-one-to-one in this case, but it has utility.
And I think it's really important Because there's a longstanding sentiment that I've experienced in my life that people don't like being put into groups very often.
So from my perspective, I'm thinking of the grunge rock scene in the early 90s.
An example I often think of is Nirvana.
The Bleach Purists, their debut record on Sub Pop.
Well, if you weren't there then, then when Nevermind came out and they hit MTV, you weren't really a fan.
There's this purism idea that exists.
And once a band crossed over into the mainstream, they extended beyond the small group of hardcore fans.
And the people who were in that original cohort of fans didn't like being typed with the more mainstream aspect of the band.
Now, I know that seems a little far afield, but again, roadmap.
We don't like being put into a bucket, and yet the problem about that is that's how our brain works.
For example, something we do that's very useful as a heuristic is chunking.
And that means that we take all types of something and put them in a general category.
Think of birds.
There are, I don't know, tens of thousands of types of birds, but when we see a bird in the sky, unless you're someone who takes birds very seriously, you're probably like, that's a bird.
Maybe you're like, that's a crow.
That's a Robin.
But in general, Those things flying around are birds.
Now that heuristic is important because if we had to stop and identify every bird for its individual species every time we saw it, we probably wouldn't get very far on our walks.
And we do this with everything.
At its worst extreme, it leads to stereotypes.
Because we'll chunk, erase and put them all into one place.
And that's one of the dangers.
But part of the reason our brain evolved with the capacity to take in and remember so much information is because of chunking.
And so these typologies are a type of chunking.
You may differ on small things but there's a general sentiment experienced in this cohort which then helps explain the broader society.
So I think it's very useful on those terms.
A little more about horseshoe theory before we dive into the research.
Political scientist Jeff Taylor said that the far right and far left converge toward populism, while others have shown that it also connects in a shared anti-Semitism.
And that's actually part of the connective tissue we find in conspirituality.
General shared themes between the extreme ends of political groups include a tendency toward conspiratorial thinking, an insistence on orthodoxy, and a shared belief in strains of pseudoscience.
And again, you can find all of those in many of the conspiratorialists that we cover.
And again, this is not the entirety of either left or right, but these throughlines have been observed for centuries.
And you'll notice some of these themes in the Pew research of these nine political typologies.
