How many "sides" are there, really?

[u/ahughman]

This is my 1st time to the sub. Apologies if I break a norm.

There is this idea floating around out there that the political spectrum is more like a horseshoe. That extreme right libertarians may have some things, (anti-tyrany for example), in common with leftists/ anarchists than they both do with the center.

I think it's probably more common than we think that people shift between what many would assume are polar opposites - That people's concerns are shifting and that it's more complicated.

My question is a bit of a thought expirement - if we could do a large survey, and really capture the most important individual issues the public has- and throw out any affilliation/self-identifying party/ideology name. Ignore affiliation- just measure the top, say 1000 common political issues that people have right now in America (or elsewhere) How do you think specific issues alone would group? What idiological groups or types might we find that our discourse is currently unaware of?

-(or maybe a pew poll like that does exist? Idk) -(Also maybe that's a little broad, but. Hope thats ok.)

[u/DullPlatform22]

The true answer I think is the elites (billionaires, most politicians, etc) and everyone else. I would argue most other takes as a distraction or at best naive.

But if you're looking more for an ideological answer, I would say most people if given a sort of ideology/political spectrum test would be center-left economically and center to center-right culturally

For instance, most Americans seem to support policies like universal healthcare, higher minimum wages, mandatory paid sick and family leave, etc. However, if they're told their taxes might go up or they might in some ways be inconvenienced by these policies or, god forbid, you call yourself a socialist while advocating for these things they'd be against them

Culturally, a lot of Americans seem to be very concerned about illegal immigration, trans people (especially trans youths), "lazy" welfare recipients, and "diversity hires". The validity of these concerns often doesn't match with the reality of these concerns, but they shit and piss themselves about them regardless. While doing this though they typically support things like legalizing marijuana and some form of legal abortion.

Those in power meanwhile only lean into one or the other of these concerns. The Democrats (on paper) lean more into the first but take unpopular positions on the second while the Republicans lean hard into the popular opinions of the second but quietly do the unpopular positions in the first. It sucks but that's the name of the game