The political left and right is a figment of your imagination

"Coming from Ireland, I am always struck by how passionate people are about political parties. Most people I’ve met consider themselves on the left (Democrat) or on the right (Republican). When I ask them how they pick a side, they speak about how their ethical and moral values form the basis for their worldview, and help them choose a side. "

The author is misguided in attributing the "left-right" divide in America to national temperament.

There is a much more satisfying explanation: Ireland has as proportional representation in multi-member districtions with a single transferable vote. The U.S. has first past the post elections in single member districts. The latter necessarily generates a two party system and an associated coarsening of political discourse.

This is not to say that electoral system reform would lead to social harmony. But the peculiar nature of our rancor is a product of our electoral methods. If we adopted PR, we could have a legislature that reflected the true diversity of political opinion, geography, ethnicity, gender, etc. in the electorate.

https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/government-in-ireland/...

Even though I would love to be above it and agree that mere partisanship is has already crossed over into sectarianism, the 20th century's camps and gulags were filled by the same principled people who didn't choose a side and who chose to just think instead as well.

Indeed, it's not right or left, it's something much darker playing one off the other, and unfortunately, only bravery, or even just predatory boldness, will prevail. If you want a better world for everyone, respect courage and principle, and if you can't, at least try not to betray it.

"The political left and right is a figment of your imagination."

I would make a stronger statement. The The political left and right is an outright deception.

Steve Jobs to Rupert Murdoch:

> The axis today is not liberal and conservative, the axis is constructive-destructive, and you’ve cast your lot with the destructive people.

It's a shorthand and like all shorthands it limits nuance but that doesn't make it completely meaningless.

I think this is very confusing in the actual context of specifically American politics. I’m a visible minority. I’m from a country where american immigration policies actively fuck over my people when trying to immigrate. I don’t have a cute European accent, I have one of those accents that have people yelling at me to speak English in America. This strikes me as the kind of position from someone who never had real stakes, and so can play “above the riffraff”.

Sure, American politics can seem like just sports to you if you don’t actually have any risk to play. It’s a different story when one party’s leader actively calls immigrants like you a poison to the blood of the country you’re a citizen of.

With all the usual caveats about first-past-the-post and the two-party system not offering a good range of choices in the US, this guy is pretty off the mark. Democrats and Republicans are meaningfully different choices and I tend to assume that anyone suggesting otherwise is (purposefully or not) helping Republicans -- who stand the most to gain from people cynically removing themselves from the political process (as when more people vote, Democrats win, since their values are actually more representative of the majority of Americans). Plus Republicans are currently psyching themselves up for another coup attempt, while Democrats are... not. So that's a pretty salient difference.

The reason I think this guy is a actually just a right-winger posing as "above the fray" is because anyone who actually thinks Republicans are more in favor of free speech than Democrats has either been taken by propaganda or is a purveyor of it themselves. Consider how many Republican-led states are passing actual laws (e.g. "Don't Say Gay" in Florida) that prevent people from talking about certain topics, presenting themselves in certain ways, or freely traveling between states. There is absolutely no equivalence to this on the left. Which is the say the right is both worse AND different from the left in America, unlike what this guy claims.