Trump's Political Compass

[Daemon Sophic]

Here's what I got for Trump, Hillary, Bernie and Gary.

Indeed, very interesting.
A question for you @Sultan Of Swing , Do you consider yourself to be primarily a centrist?



I have to ask, since I visit the forums only intermittently, and from what little I've read of your threads, I would place you up in the blue zone. But if you think that you are centrist, then that would explain how almost all 4 of the candidates (in your opinion) are shifted down and to the left from where I would place them in my opinion. Hmm.....

.........

@Daemon Sophic , for some sort of comparision you may want to look at the link below. The one to look out for is Storm Front which is a White Nationalist/neo-nazi site. You can read it as if it were overlapping a political compass.

http://lpetrich.org/Politics/Compass/DensityPlots.html

Cool. Thank you.
Depressingly similar to Trump's location are the Storm Front's site results. .

 

[Nietzsche]

Trump's political compass.

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I believe that also doubles as his moral one, too.

 

[Nietzsche]

Yeah, it's economically left and right, what did Hitler even do that was economically right-wing? He didn't seem like a big free marketer to me.

This is a common misconception. He believed in private enterprise whole-heartedly, or he wouldn't of been able to get support from Germany's massive industrial(Krupp being the big one) & chemical firms(IG-Farben leading the pack). While he wasn't against government regulation & involvement, he still believed(due to his social Darwinism) in the notion of market competition. Survival of the fittest and all that.

 

[Father Heathen]

Interesting how some of the U.S. politicians that people regard as liberal or even "socialist" actually fall towards the authoritarian/right corner of the spectrum.

 

[Sultan Of Swing]

Indeed, very interesting.
A question for you @Sultan Of Swing , Do you consider yourself to be primarily a centrist?

I have to ask, since I visit the forums only intermittently, and from what little I've read of your threads, I would place you up in the blue zone. But if you think that you are centrist, then that would explain how almost all 4 of the candidates (in your opinion) are shifted down and to the left from where I would place them in my opinion. Hmm.....

I do not choose to put the candidates there. I answer the questions, in the test, based on what their policies/beliefs are, and the political compass places them there.

When I do my own views, it places me very near the middle, at 0.75 left-right and 0 between authoritarian and libertarian. According to the compass, you could say I'm a centrist.

But no, I don't consider myself a centrist. I just think the political compass is flawed and sees some ideas as conflicting, and so cancel each other out.

And regardless of whether I thought of myself as a centrist or not would not affect where I or the other candidates appear on the map, it's not up to me, but the questions you answer on the website and consequently where they place you.

Ultimately I think it's just a flawed quiz, as it cannot resolve a lot of my seemingly contradictory viewpoints which cancel each other out and don't fall into the usual Republican/Democrat divide. For example I oppose abortion, and also oppose state surveillance, and so the two cancel as they assign authoritarian to anti-abortion, and libertarian to anti-surveillance. Further I say protectionism could be necessary in trade, while wanting less environmental regulation of companies, which in their minds conflict with each other. I also say authority should be questioned, while advocating for other 'authoritarian' measures, like believing it isn't foolish to be proud of one's country. I found it quite funny I got a perfect 0.

At least now if I'm accused of extreme views I can point to the political compass and say I'm actually a staunch centrist.

 

[Sultan Of Swing]

Interesting how some of the U.S. politicians that people regard as liberal or even "socialist" actually fall towards the authoritarian/right corner of the spectrum.

I don't know how, based on the questions they ask, I can't match it up.

 

[Valjean]

Interesting how some of the U.S. politicians that people regard as liberal or even "socialist" actually fall towards the authoritarian/right corner of the spectrum.

The US has moved far to the right in the last half century. 1968's far right is now left wing.

 

[Sultan Of Swing]

The US has moved far to the right in the last half century. 1968's far right is now left wing.

When you say far right, you mean socially, or economically, or both?

 

[Sultan Of Swing]

This is a common misconception. He believed in private enterprise whole-heartedly, or he wouldn't of been able to get support from Germany's massive industrial(Krupp being the big one) & chemical firms(IG-Farben leading the pack). While he wasn't against government regulation & involvement, he still believed(due to his social Darwinism) in the notion of market competition. Survival of the fittest and all that.

Interesting. Didn't he raise taxes on the rich, and there was nationalisation of some industries?

 

[Sunstone]

Interesting how some of the U.S. politicians that people regard as liberal or even "socialist" actually fall towards the authoritarian/right corner of the spectrum.

Most of us don't know jack about our politicians and politics beyond the myths they've sold us.

 

[Nietzsche]

Interesting. Didn't he raise taxes on the rich, and there was nationalisation of some industries?

Taxes on the rich worked differently in Nazi Germany. The "Rich" in this instance were the Junker and such classes(basically Aristocracy), not the 'Technocrats' who owned and operated the industries. Even those were only implemented in 1943/44 onward, and was pushed forward by Goebbels, the closest you'll get to a genuine "Socialist" in the National Socialist camp running Germany. Hitler wasn't terribly interested in it.

As far as nationalization, yes. But only when the war effort began to turn sour, and even that wasn't Hitler's decision(or rather, not his idea). It was Albert Speer's, trying to eke out more and more armaments production while Germany burned down around them. This was...freakishly successful, because Speer raised armaments output by 40%(perhaps more? I'm going on memory here) in 1945...compared to 1941, before any mass bombings had begun in earnest. So despite working with with less than 50-60% of 1941's industrial capacity, he was churning out more guns, bullets and such in 1945.

So yeah. There is a lot of misinformation about Hitler on both sides of the political field, trying to class him as purely one thing or the other is going to end in an incomplete understanding. But I would say that he most certainly erred slightly more towards Private Enterprise, if not exactly free markets(he was an Autarkist, after all, and detested globalism and sought to protect German markets from the outside world. Stop me if this sounds like someone who just won an election).

 

[Revoltingest]

Cool. Thank you.
Depressingly similar to Trump's location are the Storm Front's site results. .

Storm Front looks pretty centrist.
Many Republicans & Democrats are there, eg, Jill Stein, Bernie Sanders

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

I won't do the test as if I were the Donald (I'm a terrible guesser about how other people would answer). For myself, by the way, I'm about -3.5/-3.5 (Libertarian/Left).

But what I actually think is that Trump really doesn't have a strong center, and that he is such a practical opportunist that there's really no philosophy, political or otherwise, to which he would adhere. The Donald is not, by any stretch, a deep thinker. During his presidency, I think you will find that he most often reflects the thoughts of the last strong voice he heard.

I don't have a lot of faith in the next 4 years. Thank goodness I'm Canadian (although we stand to be hurt, too).

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

I just think the political compass is flawed and sees some ideas as conflicting, and so cancel each other out.

Well, everything that tries to measure and categorize people must be subject to error. People are too complicated!

But the Political Compass at least tried to break out of that old Left/Right paradigm, which doesn't describe how practically anybody is at all. By introducing a economic (controlled or free market) axis against a social (liberty of expression v. conformity in community) axis, it at least allowed for some nuance. So I don't think quite as much is "cancelled out" as you suppose.

 

[Sultan Of Swing]

Well, everything that tries to measure and categorize people must be subject to error. People are too complicated!

But the Political Compass at least tried to break out of that old Left/Right paradigm, which doesn't describe how practically anybody is at all. By introducing a economic (controlled or free market) axis against a social (liberty of expression v. conformity in community) axis, it at least allowed for some nuance. So I don't think quite as much is "cancelled out" as you suppose.

The fact it puts me down as a centrist means that it cancels out quite a bit, haha. On both the economic and social spectrum I have views they would consider conflicting.

 

[Underhill]

Not sure I want to go through answering "as if" I'm someone else...especially since politicalcompass has already done the work...

https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2016

I think it is a useful excersize in that they base it on what he says. I chose my answers based upon a combination of his words and his actions (actions taking the cake if they are in dispute).

Came up with some quite different numbers. They put him somewhere closer to the middle (marginally) than Clinton. The problem with this exercise is I am not convinced he really has any convictions on many of these things. That's largely why his statements are all over the place. Probably also why he has taken an about face 6 minutes after he found out he won the election.


Economic Left/Right: 5.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 2.92