![]() These two political parties have had a bipartisan compromise on many economic issues for decades-mostly to the benefit of our biggest economic institutions like the insurance, oil and defense industries. A big part of America’s political dysfunction is the fact that we have two political parties representing far more than two political factions. This distorted left-right spectrum attempts to cram both an economic and social ideology into one unified front, when all available evidence tells us that is simply not how human political ideology works. The image of American politics communicated to us by our political and media establishment is that we all operate upon one ideological axis, with the Democratic and Republican Parties representing the left and right side of the ideological spectrum.Īs any freshman political science student can tell you, political ideology is typically measured upon both an X and Y axis, because not all political beliefs are the same and therefore need different kinds of measurements (the fact this needs to be said is a good indication of how distorted the traditional framing of American politics is). ![]() If you submitted a paper predicated upon the traditional American view of political ideology in a political science 101 class, it would fail. “However may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.” - President George Washington in his 1796 farewell address.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |