Online subscribers to The New York Times receive a daily “newsletter” that a couple days ago included a link to “Quiz: If America Had Six Parties, Which Would You Belong To?” Maybe the quiz is intended as interactive fun, a bit of subscriber-friendly click bait—if so, it worked on me. You answer twenty questions and they assign you a place on their graphic together with the name of the political party closest to your views. My result is shown above.
I think the NYT has me pegged but there are things about the graphic that surprise me. For example, the party that brands itself “Christian” is all-in on economic conservatism but apparently a little squishy on social issues. Immigration? Race? Guns? If you take the quiz, you’ll see that the social issues probed are mainly those three plus abortion and gay rights, and I’m reasonably sure the “Christians” are with the “Patriots” on abortion and gay rights. But to be a perfect fit for the Christian Conservative Party you have to strongly agree that “[w]ealthy people spur innovation,” strongly disagree that “[i]t’s the responsibility of government to reduce income differences between people,” and be strongly opposed to:
—government regulation of business
—raising the minimum wage
—raising taxes on income north of $200,000.
More patriotic than the patriots!
It’s also interesting—or symptomatic?—that the upper-left quadrant of the Times’s graphic is empty, indicating perhaps that there is no political home, even with six parties, for those who are “economically liberal” and “socially conservative.” This suggests that not many Americans (for example) think abortion should be illegal in all, or almost all, instances—and that government should generously support poorer citizens who are raising children.
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