I could be wrong about this – I so often am — but I’m pretty sure the original graph is set up in such a way that it actually does have a straight, vertical line, separating right from left. If Mac is using the one from Political Compass, at least. As in, his additional red line, from the top left to the bottom right isn’t the actual left/right divide.
If I understand his point, he’s saying Williamson, for instance, is right on the edge of the left/right divide. I’m betting she, as the vertical line indicates, is roughly a sub-block and a half to the right of that.
No biggie, obviously. Just a very minor point. But I think the whole point of the way they created the quadrants was to upend the usual left to right horizontal line, by making it vertical, while adding a new factor in authoritarian versus libertarian . . . . the latter to show that both the left and the right can be authoritarian or anti-authoritarian.
That’s always news to most righties I talk to. Most can’t conceive of lefties being libertarian/anti-authoritarian. They assume we’re always basically Stalin — either openly Stalinist or covertly. I try to remind them that the history of anti-authoritarian/libertarian leftists goes back many centuries prior to its emergence on the right . . . and the left’s version has always been far more consistent, logical and comprehensive.
As you guys know, the left’s libertarian tradition has advocated for an end to all concentration of power and wealth, for instance . . . public, private, wherever . . . whereas the right’s seems solely concerned with ending it in the public realm. They actually advocate for more inequality via that concentration in the private realm. In fact, if they had their way, there wouldn’t be any public realm, outside their minarchy/night watchman model.
Anyway . . . the main point Mac is making is solid and important. There are so few politicians left of center. It’s actually pretty depressing.
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