Hi!
I apologize for opening this website with contrarianism, but it is incredibly important to understand before anything else that political positions exist to fulfill emotional needs. A political ideology is not a collection of beliefs nor a series of misconceptions. It is a relationship.
Also: this is the point where I stop both-sidesing. I am a utilitarian and my most firm belief across my entire life has been that humans do not exist in a hierarchy of worthiness. I consider the concept of morality - the idea that someone's actions can make them "better" or "worse" than another - to be unethical. This viewpoint is guaranteed to color every element of my website.
Also: I’m from the US! This site is talking about America, for the most part. Sorry.
For as much as I talked about each group working for its own ego, politics itself is messy and tied together and most people lack knowledge which would further their ability to actualize a fair, just society. While evidence is unlikely to convince someone of something they do not want to believe, it is perfectly capable of convincing someone of something they did not know they believed, or did not know they should care about.
America has hundreds of social movements, most of which the average person does not understand - if they did, the social movement would not be needed. I want to compile them, and talk about them. Not to convince, but to aid.
I also enjoy messing with things. I’m trying not to take this too seriously.
Left vs. Right
It’s hard to get far in politics without having to discern between the vague terms “left” and “right”, with the extreme of the left being communism and the extreme of the right being… well, it depends who you’re talking to, but most people would agree on nationalism. Already we have a contradiction; many communists were famously also quite nationalist. So let’s start over with new definitions.
The left aims to be a-hierarchical. The right aims to be hierarchical. Generally, the left believes that we can accomplish the most good via equity, community, and inclusivity, while the right believes that we can accomplish the most good via competition, individualism, and differentiation. The left worries about injustices becoming worse or being maintained, the right worries about morality becoming worse or being maintained. This is not where a person’s politics comes from, but it’s where positions can most easily be traced back to.
Capitalism is ruthlessly hierarchical, and as such is most often championed by the right (tax cuts for the rich, deregulation, privatization, enforcement of private property) and disliked by the left (tax increases for the rich, regulation, unions, redistribution of wealth, socialization). The right sees being rich as proof of responsibility and vision; the left sees being rich as proof of exploitation and greed.
Most individual groups on each side are allied not necessarily because they have similar goals but because they have similar beliefs behind their goals, and as such they have similar opposition. Legalizing weed does not do much for feminism, but feminists are much more likely than misogynists to be pro-legalization because the opposition to weed comes from essentially the same people for essentially the same reasons, and both feminists and marijuana activists understand that they are stronger together than alone.
And so you have the left: feminism, racial justice, drug legalization, prison reform or abolishment, workplace democracy, environmentalism, animal rights, disabled advocacy, LBGTQ rights, public housing and transportation, socialized healthcare, anti-capitalism, anti-fascism, free college, welfare, children’s rights, landback, sex education, free love, pacifism, civil rights, gun control, abortion, immigration, and… a lot more. I probably missed several big current things.
And then you have the right, whose social movements… commonly lack names. They’re less movements and more concepts, ideas oftentimes held as default. Most of their work is in disagreeing that social movements are necessary in the first place.
An example: The left wants to solve the wealth disparity between black people and white people through social programs, education, reduced systemic problems, and so on. The right wants to solve the same problem by taking away all progress the left has made, believing that welfare makes people lazy and state-reliant and that teaching people about racism only exacerbates the problem.
I’d say the difference between center-x and far-x is less their policy and more whether or not they believe they are helping everyone. The center-left believes that more egalitarianism will help everyone; the far left believes that more egalitarianism is not possible without hurting the people who caused the problems (rich people). Same for the right, but with “the people who caused the problems” being an exponentially larger group. Far-x is also more likely to believe that, even if the facts aren’t on their side, nothing can change their moral superiority. Even if communism would hypothetically cause problems, the marxists-leninists do not care, for capitalism is to them an existential threat to humanity.
Under my definition, the most left group would be anarchists (ancoms) and the most right group fascists. Anarchists believe that hierarchy is inherently corrupting and coercive, to the point of disliking democracy for its ability to appoint representatives and enforce laws. fascists believe a lack of hierarchy is inherently corrupting and coercive, to the point of mass murder. I think these poles make sense.