Ceding The Nation To Conservatism
Recently while pointing out the political leanings of the two candidates I was berated for placing them in "fake" positions on the political spectrum (I didn't place them anywhere, Political Compass did) and presented with this chart showing how they're both really just way out on the left with Sanders a bit more so.... but come on! Really they're both just big old leftist liberals!
Now... I want you to look at that chart. Look at where Bernie is on it. Think about that for a minute. A lot of people on this board look at that chart and thinnk "uh-huh... looks about right! Bernie sure is a big old leftie!"
Those people have handed the country to Conservatism and they are so far gone they don't even understand what they are doing.
That chart says Bernie Sanders is as far to the left as it is possible for a human being to be. The guy who just wants a little more regulation of a still free market capitalist system and *some* increase in government involvement in critical areas like provision of health care.
As. Far. Left. As. Humanly. Possible.
Let that sink in for a minute, and then wake the fuck up people. If you think this graph is credible then you have simply internalized the massively rightwardly skewed political environment of the United States so thoroughly it no longer even registers to you what you are doing. Because the truth is Bernie Sanders is not some radical fringe leftist. Plotted on the full spectrum of political positions he's center left. He's the most centrist of any candidate running in this election. To think anything else is to accept the Republican frame that their policies are "center right" rather than radically right. If you accept the VoteMatch frame of the political landscape then you also accept this from the same source using the same assumptions:
That's their graph for Donald Trump. You may notice that using their definition of the political spectrum, which is what it takes to plot Clinton and Sanders as both way out on the left, he is significantly closer to a Moderate than Hillary Clinton. Anyone buying that? No? Of course not, when it's thrown in your face in clear terms.
If you accept this framing then what you have done is taken reality:
...and you have let the Republicans hand you a set of blinders to reshape that reality to this:
If you find yourself living in that reality, you've already given up. If that's how you want to proceed that's your call, but please don't try to drag everyone else on the left down with you by trying to convince them to surrender too.
= new reply since forum marked as read
confusing
and as I write this I"m listening to Hartmann on the radio tell us how there is no real difference between Sanders and Clinton 
I hope if I ever run for elected office that I don't have any "supporters" like Hartmann. You can't win with 'supporters' like this.
when I takes these tests I am little bit to the left of Sanders yet many of the Hillary supporters call me a right winger 
I'm a right winger!!!!! Oh I better include 
tag or this post will be back to haunt me 
