Differences Regarding Left and Right-Wing Politics
Political differences can be seen from nation to nation, as some nations are skewed right or left. The Overton Window represents what is politically acceptable to a population. For example, a communist or far-left party would not fall inside the Overton Window because it is not an acceptable ideology to the American people. The American Overton Window would be anything generally held by the Democratic or Republican Party. However, the Overton Window of Canada, for example, would skew farther left. Canadian free healthcare is representative of the Canadian Overton Window.
Despite the standard for acceptable politics changing from country to country, there are still objective ways to measure where certain parties, ideologies, and beliefs lie. “Right” and “Left” can be defined in two ways: culturally and economically.
Before proceeding, it is important to note that the following descriptions are heavily simplified and do not go into the extremes of either side. Furthermore, most of these descriptors are from an American perception of politics. Finally, these traits are not exclusive. A liberal can be religious, and a conservative can support LGBT+ rights. Politics are multifaceted, and each individual does not necessarily have to agree with every part of their political ideology.
The culturally right, also known as conservatives, believe in ideas such as traditionalism, religion, and nationalism. They strongly believe in practicing religion, especially Abrahamic faiths, and base part of their vote on how compatible legislation is with their faith. For instance, the Republican Party gained many of its followers by supporting anti-abortion legislation. The right also does not typically support the LGBT+ because it disagrees with certain religious beliefs. Furthermore, the right is more likely to support policies that put citizens’ interests before anything else. As a result, the culturally-right do not support illegal immigration or mass immigration. They tend to prefer monoculturalism and homogeneity. Overall, they tend to skew authoritarian as well. To enforce religious conservatism, authoritarian-skewed governments are typically necessary. However, there are culturally-right libertarians.
Economic conservatism, or fiscal conservatism, is characterized by a belief in free-market capitalism. Tax cuts, deregulation, anti-government intervention are preferred policies by fiscal conservatives. They often dislike government spending on welfare and social programs. Instead, the economic right prefers that the market funds these things by itself, such as private charity instead of welfare, and private schools instead of public schools. Free trade and a lack of government intervention in trade is also a major fiscal conservative belief.
Further, the culturally left, also known as progressives, are the stark opposite of conservatives. They usually reject traditionalism and religion and favor individual choice regarding either matter. In contrast, the left fervently supports abortion rights and LGBT+ rights. Feminists generally fall into culturally left groups and parties because of their legislative liberalism. Progressives are also strong believers in multiculturalism, and favor policies that help legal immigrants and illegal immigrants. They generally support mass immigration as well.
The economically left tend to prefer government interventionism in the economy. They prefer heavy government spending on welfare and public works and do not believe that the market can effectively handle social services. Consequently, they often support universal healthcare and single-payer healthcare as opposed to private healthcare systems. Unlike their counterparts, economic liberals support international aid to struggling nations. Lastly, they accept government regulation to some degree.
Overall, even though this is simply an American view of the political divide, political beliefs still vary vastly. Democrats and Republicans, despite both being capitalist, still have a multitude of differences in policy and ideological preferences.
Differences Regarding COVID-19 Political Views
The political divide that exists in the United States is more prominent than it has been throughout most of its history. Americans are experiencing close to a 50/50 divide on core issues, which was only amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, such a stark divide between different political parties is hardly seen out of the United States.
The United States’ political divide can be observed to be greater than other countries based on an analysis by the New York Times on data from the Manifesto Project, which uses data from elections to determine how parties stand on the political spectrum. This data shows the Democratic Party’s beliefs to be slightly left while the Republican Party was leaning extremely right, only behind far-right parties such as the Swiss People’s Party and the Netherlands’ Party for Freedom. This is to be expected, as America tends to be more authoritarian as a whole compared to other nations.
A difference in opinions regarding how governments handle the COVID-19 pandemic also exemplifies America’s political division. Based on a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, 76 percent of Republican Party supporters in the United States are happy with how the United States has dealt with the outbreak, while only 29 percent of Democratic Party supporters are satisfied. Slightly less divisiveness can be observed among many major European nations, including France, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Australia had almost all supporters of both governing and non-governing parties agree with how well their country has dealt with the COVID-19 outbreak.
This data makes sense when each country’s response to the pandemic is observed. Australia has been extremely successful in dealing with the pandemic, having only around 28,300 cases as of December 26th. In comparison, the United States is nearing 19 million cases. Since much less of the Australian population has been affected by COVID-19 infections than the United States population, it is far less likely for people to not be satisfied with their government’s handling of the pandemic. In the United States, however, much more of the population has been infected by COVID-19, resulting in far more people being unsatisfied.
The Republican and Democratic parties are clashing on economic ways to aid their citizens. Republicans generally believe that opening up the economy is more advantageous to citizens. On the other hand, Democrats want lockdowns and quarantines to continue until the threat of the virus has washed over. Currently, there is much debate in Congress about whether the stimulus checks should be raised to $2,000. Republicans, being fiscal conservatives, generally opposed this steep rise in government aid. Democrats, however, largely supported it. The House of Representatives is Democrat majority, so the raise understandably passed with 275 representatives voting in favor, and 134 representatives voting against. Because Republicans are in danger of losing their Senate majority, a difficult choice awaits them. Should they vote in favor of economic liberalism and betray their platform if it means helping citizens? Or should they stand firm in their beliefs?
Furthermore, the opinions of United States citizens are strongly influenced by the political party they support. Republicans were much more likely to be in support of the United States’ handling of the pandemic when compared to Democrats, with 47 percent more of Republicans that were surveyed being in support of the government’s handling of the pandemic when compared to Democrats.