74
votes
Why isn't there a serious attempt at creating a third mass-appeal party in the US?
Because the two main parties absorb emergent third parties
Any time any third party starts to get serious traction in the United States, it eventually will find one of the major parties shifting its ...
- 15.6k
58
votes
Accepted
Is Libertarianism left wing or right wing?
The first important thing to notice is that political labels mean different things in different parts of the world and in different points of time.
In contemporary US politics libertarian is usually ...
- 2,717
48
votes
Are both parties in America becoming more liberal?
The NYT has analyzed the Republican Party and found that it has slightly moved to the right since 2000. Note that the Republican Party stood already far to the right of conservative parties in Western ...
- 34.9k
46
votes
Accepted
Has anyone attempted to scientifically determine whether MSNBC or Fox News is more biased?
I'd say anyone who tells you they have "scientific" information on media bias isn't being objective. But it is entirely possible to present a "systematic" information on media bias, and at least one ...
- 7,957
45
votes
Is Libertarianism left wing or right wing?
Libertarianism is neither Left nor Right-wing. It's on a spectrum opposite of Authoritarianism. So, as you go further towards Authoritarian, you want more and more government control and intervention ...
- 557
34
votes
Why did the leftists usually win in the media front and education system?
The simplest answer stems from the obvious point that:
Conservatives tend to like things the way they are, or at least the way they were — the status quo as they see it — and don't want much in the ...
- 65.1k
30
votes
Accepted
Shouldn't anarchism be far-right, since right-wing politics opposes "big government"?
No, because there are different dimensions. There is authoritarianism/anti-authoritarianism, versus liberal/conservative. Here are several charts which shows the possible outlays expanding on the ...
- 6,024
29
votes
How accurate is this political orientation chart?
As a preface, the idea of the chart is accurate, in a sense that there is a consensus among political scientists or pretty much anyone else with interest in politics that a multi-axis political ...
- 91.2k
29
votes
Why did the leftists usually win in the media front and education system?
Objective Truth
Academia is all about the getting closer to objective truth. The peer review process, where other academics look through your work and offer critical appraisals, is about the most ...
- 1,225
29
votes
Accepted
Is the "leftist" tendency in academia restricted to humanities?
It's surprisingly hard to find a detailed by-major breakdown of these numbers. So far, the best I can do is this study based on a “national survey of 1643 (American) faculty members from 183 four-...
- 2,811
26
votes
Why did the leftists usually win in the media front and education system?
Most of the groups you described are more educated. This includes Ivy League professors, professionals working in influential media and in fact-check websites, as well as highly educated politicians ...
- 9,355
23
votes
Is opposition to COVID-19 vaccines correlated with other political beliefs? Why?
First, are Reps more opposed? Apparently so - this study doesn't cite the numbers per party clearly, but you can see the state by state breakdown strongly correlates.
To understand why, you first ...
23
votes
What divisive issues are least correlated with political alignment (e.g. whether you're on the left/right)?
There is a YouTube video which discusses how antipathy towards corporate welfare is popular among non-politicians across the board. Nobody who isn't profiting from it likes the idea of large ...
- 1,607
22
votes
What was the cause of the MAGAcommunism movement?
I wouldn't recommend that video link. It comes across as someone really trying to be philosophical, despite being stoned. Just sayin'.
To the question... Look, Trumpism isn't an intellectual movement. ...
- 65.1k
21
votes
Has anyone attempted to scientifically determine whether MSNBC or Fox News is more biased?
I'll take you through a Thought Experiment to show why this isn't really possible.
Imagine you were trying to judge whether networks A, B, and C were 'biased' on the coverage of, say, "Should the US ...
- 2,441
21
votes
What divisive issues are least correlated with political alignment (e.g. whether you're on the left/right)?
The first thing I thought of when reading this question was anti-vaccine activism, which appears to occur on both the left and the right. Introductory reading:
Not Getting Vaccinated to Own Your ...
- 1,815
18
votes
What does "far-right extremist" mean?
Generally, words like "extremism" are pejorative and there really is no substance. However, there are some general categories of definitions in political science.
I had the fortune to meet Dr. ...
- 23.8k
18
votes
On what dimensions does the current Republican party differ substantially from the right-wing parties in Europe?
The question presented is "on what dimensions/issues does the Republican party differs substantially from right-wing parties in Europe?"
Short Answer
An answer to this question has to start ...
- 70.9k
18
votes
Has anyone attempted to scientifically determine whether MSNBC or Fox News is more biased?
Many studies have been conducted to test exactly this question. This study from 2012 asked participants 4 factual questions about international events, and 5 questions about domestic ones (questions ...
- 583
18
votes
Are both parties in America becoming more liberal?
It's really not possible to understand things like this on a left-right scale, since they're essentially libertarian issues. To a certain kind of leftist/liberal, they might be anathema because they (...
- 12.4k
15
votes
Accepted
Why does Russia specifically fund far-rights in Europe?
Why the Far-Right?
Support those who support you
With similar ideologies, support of "traditional" values and an aversion to more progressive views such as support of LGBT groups, in general ...
- 2,430
15
votes
What divisive issues are least correlated with political alignment (e.g. whether you're on the left/right)?
There are some groups that are fairly evenly split between Democrats and Republicans. One example is Catholics, so if you consider a position that is held by Catholics, such as "The supremacy of ...
- 113k
14
votes
Is Libertarianism left wing or right wing?
Semantic Drift makes political terms meaningless (or at least greatly diffuses their meaning) over time. This is especially true of -isms. For example, Thomas Jefferson was a Liberal and he would be ...
- 1,583
14
votes
Accepted
Why are states formed by nations?
A state must have a territory. A government can only govern when there is a region over which it governs.
A nation can hope to form a state only when that nation occupies a defined territory. Right-...
- 113k
14
votes
Is the "leftist" tendency in academia restricted to humanities?
(Allegedly writing from a conservative PoV) Not much detail and rather older studies, but there does seem to be a rough and ready linkage:
Surveys of professors from the early 2000s show Democrats ...
14
votes
What divisive issues are least correlated with political alignment (e.g. whether you're on the left/right)?
Term limits for the US Congress may be qualify under this rubric.
"Why term limits" claims that
76% of Democrats, 89% of Republicans, and 83% of Independents Americans support term limits.
...
- 7,658
13
votes
Is opposition to COVID-19 vaccines correlated with other political beliefs? Why?
There are some fairly pedestrian and predictable reasons for this correlation
As a preliminary observation, there are different types of opposition to "the Covid vaccines", involving ...
- 318
13
votes
Are there conservative socialists in the US?
Do historical examples count or do they have to be current?
If historical examples do count, then I would argue that the bulk of white Southern Democrats from the 1930s to the 1960s fit your ...
- 1,815
11
votes
Why isn't there a serious attempt at creating a third mass-appeal party in the US?
I'll address part of the issue with something of a frame challenge.
It is a common misunderstanding, which you seem to be falling prey to, to think of the Democratic and Republican parties as largely ...
- 16.5k
11
votes
Why is the left/right spectrum defined so ambiguously? (Europe)
(I am not going to comment on the Libertarian/Authoritarian distinction. First, because I think Libertarianism is not a very fitting term for most European political views, apart from the small ...
- 4,333
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