Left versus Right doesn’t work any more
A century ago, Left vs. Right meant progressives and unionists vs. big business and maybe the Ku Klux Klan. But that was before nuclear weapons could destroy life on the planet, before the civil rights movement and women’s movement, before the insurgent radicals of the religious Right came back into politics, and before saving the planet from ecological destruction and globalization became a huge issue. Both the issues and the constituencies of the US have evolved, but our political rhetoric stays frozen in century-old lingo and metaphors, and so have our political parties and our politicians.
When we add new data about values and political positions, it becomes obvious that this image of our politics is beyond inadequate, it’s hopelessly wrong and misleading. With only 31 percent of the population fitting the image of Left versus Right, it simply doesn’t have a future.
But I could have told you that without a test anyway...
