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Saturday, January 7, 2017

The Horseshoe Theory and the Left



Someone asked The Omnivore if The Omnivore actually believed the Horseshoe Theory. The theory is that in the far left and the far right are actually closer (the case Wikipedia cites is anti-Jewish rhetoric) than the center or the general left / right.

The topic is too complex for Twitter, where the question was raised, so it gets a blog-post answer.

There Are Different Groups of Far-Left and Far-Right

On the ends of the Horseshoe are categories that contain reasonably unlike things. For example on the far-right end, you've got:
  • The Tea Party: (Yeah, less prevalent today). Basically a strong dislike of Obama, vocal anti-tax philosophy, no outright racism.
  • The Alt-Right: Actual Nazis. Ask about "The Jewish Question." Throw Nazi salutes. This includes the KKK.
  • The Trump-Right (Also called the Alt-Light): Breitbart-reading, Trump-believing core of voters who think everything is terrible in America because of (a) Obama and (b) Craven Republicans.
On the left we see, for example:
  • The SJW Left: The extreme, weaponized, sometimes pro-violence (or, at least, rhetorical violence) end of the social justice spectrum that results in things like defending BLM (demonstration) chants of "Pigs in a blanket" (killing police officers), aggressive call-out culture and privilege-check lectures, and so on.
  • The Sanders-Left: The Omnivore hates to tar Bernie Sanders with all this--but there's no way around it. The core of Sanders voters who flipped over to Trump after he lost the nomination still consider themselves "left" (somehow). Includes Glenn Greenwald appearing on Fox as a friendly.
These are not all the same thing.

Which Of These Are Alike?

The Omnivore is going to use three criteria for looking at "the closeness"--these three criteria are the key drivers of extreme behavior. These are the source of most of the toxicity that comes out of the "far" designator and makes behavior the least tractable to reason.
  1. Importance of Minority Racial Politics vs. Majority Racial Politics.
  2. The, erm, "JQ" (that's "Jewish Question").This is about markers of a Jewish conspiracy of international bankers and such. The use of Anti-Jewish symbolism and language. Actual policies can be quite complex. Anti-Semities who rail against Israel hate being called on it and defend their attacks as purely policy based. Conversely, a lot of people who believe in a malevolent Jewish conspiracy liked Sanders even though he is Jewish (sometimes they don't know. Sometimes they dismiss him as 'secular.'). Finally, plenty of people who hate the Jewish bankers like Israel because it hurts Arabs. As noted, you can usually look for the use of anti-Jewish symbols and rhetoric as the 'tell.'
  3. Importance of conspiracy theory to the organization's philosophy.
We can also note that these filter out almost all mainstream politics. While the left may pay more lipservice to race, neither the left nor right is promoting or at war with any race. There is no antisemetic plank in any major platform, and while it's unfortunately less common on the mainstream right, most voters still trust the Mainstream Media for the majority of their news.


The Test: Let's Compare Three And See How The Horseshoe Holds

The Sanders Left and the Trump-Right



Rating
Sanders-Left
Trump-Right
Category
Rating
Rationale
Rating
Rationale
Racial Politics
LOW
The Sanders hard-core was never that in to Black Lives Matter. They also weren’t preaching white supremacy.
LOW
The Trump-Right had Confederate flags--but did not practice racial politics like the Alt-Right did. There was racism--but no textual white supremacy (and it was anti-illegal immigrant more than anti-black--which is different).
Jewish Question
HIGH
Israel is EVIL in the Sander’s Left world. To a startling degree the Palestinians are GOOD. Iran isn’t planning Nuclear Bombs, that’s a CIA lie. There is also a serious dislike of International Banker Jews (like Soros)
MED
While the Trump-Right Loves Israel and hates Arabs, they are also wary of International Bankers. Anti-Jewish symbology flourished on the Trump-Right and not JUST in Alt-Right contexts (although much of it originated there).
Conspiracy Theory
HIGH
Bernie was literally sabotaged--direct action was taken and the emails PROVE it.

Votes were changed or altered in multiple states to deny him his rightful victory.

Hillary is a serial killer with a literal string of bodies she has killed or had killed.

The MSM is the enemy.
HIGH
The Republican Governance allowed Obama to have his way because they are cowards.

Obama is an unconstitutional Tyrant.

Jade Helm is a prelude to Martial Law.

Etc.

The MSM is the enemy.

Analysis: The Horseshoe theory works pretty well here. The difference is specifically around Israel, but it's suddenly no mystery about Greenwald on Fox.

Now Let's Compare The SJW Left to the Trump-Right


Rating
SWJ-Left
Trump-Right
Category
Rating
Rationale
Rating
Rationale
Racial Politics
HIGH
The SJW progressive approach is all about race (and class, and other axes of privilege).
LOW
The Trump-Right had Confederate flags--but did not practice racial politics like the Alt-Right did. There was racism--but no textual white supremacy (and it was anti-illegal immigrant more than anti-black--which is different).
Jewish Question
LOW
While there is dislike for Israel, there is no grand Jewish Conspiracy.
MED
While the Trump-Right Loves Israel and hates Arabs, they are also wary of International Bankers. Anti-Jewish symbology flourished on the Trump-Right and not JUST in Alt-Right contexts (although much of it originated there).
Conspiracy Theory
LOW
The “Hands Up - Don’t Shoot” story was bad reporting and a rumor--but it wasn’t a conspiracy theory. The SJW Left still mostly trusts the MSM for their news.
HIGH
The Republican Governance allowed Obama to have his way because they are cowards.

Obama is an unconstitutional Tyrant.

Jade Helm is a prelude to Martial Law.

Etc.

Analysis: The Horseshoe theory fails here for these two factions. The SJW-Left is incompatible with the Trump-Right in almost every area.

Conclusions

If you hate the horseshoe theory, you're probably not going to like this--even though it fails one out of two tests. That's because if you hate the horseshoe theory, you're likely closer to the one that passed.

5 comments:

  1. I'd say that when you position yourself as an outsider rebel against the Establishment[tm], you're going to find a lot of appeal in views that are diametrically opposed to that of the Establishment[tm], which constrains the space of positions you can hold to the point where you're more likely to have overlaps with other groups that style themselves as outsider rebels against the Establishment[tm]. That is going to happen whether said group is left, right or even center [1].

    On the other hand, the "SJW Left" [2] has a complicated relationship with the Establishment[tm]. The Democratic Primary split them between the Sanders camp and the Clinton camp, and while there are many reasons for the fissures between the "Sanders Left" [3] and the "SJW Left", the primary produced a lot of them.

    [1] And there's some basis for the argument that the Trump-Right is not as far to the right as the GOP establishment types like, say, Paul Ryan.

    [2] The Omnivore's un-ironic yet un-stupid use of the term "SJW" has thrown me for a bit of a loop, I must admit.

    [3] My problem with this term is that it seems to not only exclude Sen. Sanders himself, but also most of his primary supporters.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. [1] - agreed. There are a variety of ways to parse it.
      [2] - I'm incredibly happy with your phrasing there.
      [3] - I'm cagey about including Sanders. The "majority of his voters"? I don't know. The guys on Twitter? Definitely.

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    2. Yeah, the Twitter guys are definitely more pro-Sanders than Sanders.

      I'm reminded of how a few of the PUMAs from 2008 (the Hillary dead enders--remember them?) ended up opposing Hillary and supporting Trump. Believing that you're a voice in the wilderness decrying a corrupt establishment is a hell of a drug.

      Delete
  2. You missed the fact that the Jews that each side hates are different Jews, but taken together they represent all Jews. The left hates the Israel supporting Jews because Palestine is Apartheid and the right hates the social justice J Street Jews because useful idiots.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. These being different people is a good point--at the point of the "JQ" I think it's more or less 'all Jews'--but yes, this is an insightful point.

      Delete