Can someone please explain these graphs to me?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

Hillary Clinton:




Elizabeth Warren





Thank you in advance

[PoliticAverse]

1. They're "political compass" and "Nolan Chart" graphs..

They try to show you where on the political spectrum someone is, based on
their answers to certain questions.

For more info see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_compass
http://politicalcompass.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nolan_Chart
http://www.gotoquiz.com/politics/political-spectrum-quiz.html

[Fred Sanders]

2. Playthings of a propagandist?

[HERVEPA]

3. Yes. They're stupid

[Scuba]

4. +1

[rock]

5. Sure, it game cards from "Random Dots"

Never played? It's like Monopoly but not as intellectual.

[Nitram]

6. Not a scientific determination.

But you could take the statements made by each individual and chart them like this. You'll notice that while Obama, Clinton, Biden and Edwards are in the Authoritarian/Right quadrant, they are actually all close to the center. By virtue of being in office and being electable, they probably avoid statements that put them clearly in the Libertarian/Left quadrant.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

8. I might as well come clean...

I have taken the tests and am familiar with the methodology. I posted it to bring attention to the fact that the little space between this and that national Democrat is so small that the fighting about which one is more liberal, progressive, leftist, what have you is silly.

It basically comes down to differences in style, rhetoric, and presentation.

[HappyMe]

7. Oh dear! lol!

The dots chart lives!

[PatrickforO]

9. Well, the top one kind of says it all.

The constant right-wing rhetoric, attacking everything on 1,000 different fronts, day after day, year after year since the middle of the 1970s has driven everyone to the right. Now, the Democrats are basically a little to the right of Eisenhower Republicans, and the Republicans are a bit to the right of Barry Goldwater - more John Birch Society really.

That's why our middle class is so endangered and all the New Deal social safety nets are on the bubble.

[Igel]

11. That assumes we know the assumptions into where to place the (0,0) for that graph.

And what the scaling factor is.

There's an implicit assumption, however, that there's a single fixed origin--not just that after knowing the assumptions that all's cool, but that there can only ever be one center. A different set of questions or ranking for what it means to be "liberal" or "libertarian" could easily shift that origin right and up, or left and down. Suddenly Biden's in the left quadrant, or suddenly they're extreme fascists.

That's the glory of all advertising campaigns, including Lakoff's "framing": You buy into the framework proposed by the ad men or framer so that the question's already answered, and indisputably so, before the question's even asked. (And the role of critical thinking is to challenge this kind of preordained answer, esp. by having those answers we think are the most attractive and most obviously correct questioned.)

[PatrickforO]

12. Assumptions are always the issue.

The problem is that anything like this is necessarily an estimate. You attempt to make reasonable assumptions and use the best data possible. I'm not sure how these questions were normed, or even whether they were. A secondary problem is that I feel intuitively that the names are in approximately correct positions in that first box. The rhetoric has moved so far to the right, in my opinion, that what is now considered left wing is to the right of center, and the right wing has nearly gone off the grid.

Funny, when Obama was first elected I had these great fantasies of a 21st century New Deal - end of war, trials for war crimes, dramatic cuts to 'defense' and the NSA, repeal of the Patriot Act, getting rid of private prisons for good, repealing the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, strengthening labor unions, having our Bill of Rights respectfully returned to us, single payer health care, strengthened Social Security, affordable postsecondary education, and some happy revisions to the corporate and capital gains tax rates. I even (sigh) had the happy but elusive thought that Obama might just get rid of the Fed and establish a national central banking system. Then we would not be out of money for stuff that actually helps the American people.

Unfortunately, his administration has followed the lead of W's to far too great a degree.

So, Igel, will a new and charismatic populist arise who eschews fascist corporate sponsored nationalism for policies that promote social and economic justice? Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore!"

[pampango]

10. I don't like what they show, therefore they are stupid and meaningless.