Were the Radical Republicans left-wing?

[KaiserDave]

Thank you for speaking some sense. I wouldn't call Lincoln a leftist either, but the Radicals absolutely were and were recognized as such at the time. I wonder where some people think they got the name Radical from, or if they even think about it at all.

I would consider the Fire Eaters to be radicals also. Secessionism is a radical disruption of the constitutional order on its own.

If you were to identify the "most conservative" candidate as that would be understand under the context of the period, it would have to be Bell, not Breckenridge. I don't mean in terms of "preserving the status quo", but in terms of preserving the constitutional order and the union, but at the price of accepting Slavery's continued existence (though Lincoln overtly stated the same anyway see below). The fact that Bell got destroyed in the South in favor of secessionism, is an indication of just how radicalized the situation had become by that point.

I feel like this is just semantics. The Fire Eaters may have been "radical" in the sense that they were extremists with far-reaching goals, but they could not be any further from radicalism the political philosophy, which was inherently left of center. As you are surely aware of, prominent slavery apologists like South Carolina Senator James Henry Hammond and the aforementioned George Fitzhugh were quite explicit in their vision for a top-down society in which the "mudsills" or lower orders were enslaved for the benefit of their superiors (and for themselves). They were absolutely not radicals in any ideological sense, but rather extremist reactionaries whose mission was to extend the lifespan of a feudal aristocratic order that was slowly dying before their eyes. Their most forceful opposition came from the Radical Republicans and their immediate predecessors, which is to say radicals, liberals, and progressives.

As for the "most conservative" candidate in 1860, I think it's fine if you say Bell or Douglas (who ran as "the conservative and national candidate" according to one historian), but Breckinridge as the most pro-slavery candidate was more right-wing/reactionary than either of them.

Truman and Yankee have explained many times that Fitzhugh and similar individuals were not representative of the Southern elite as a whole, he is not a good individual to use to depict the entire group, yet you cite him a lot.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The thing to understand is that 'Left' and 'Right' are not absolute terms with clear definitions fixed for all time, but descriptive shorthands that mean different things at different times and in different places. There's little doubt that the Abolitionist cause was a left-wing one in the 1850s and 60s - in practice, in the United States, it was the left-wing cause. It is worth noting quite how many of the '48ers (radical, often socialist, German-speaking refugees from the defeat of 1848 uprisings in Europe) enlisted to fight for the Union during the Civil War. The same people were a critical element in the early Republican electoral coalition, especially at the radical end. That most later moderated and many even became conservatives is not particularly relevant - such things happen, particularly when a new order is established. And that's the other thing to note: it is useless to try to identify conservatives in the Antebellum American political landscape and to crown whoever their opponents were as 'the Left' of the day. Conservatism is only possible when there is some sort of settlement and social order to defend, and this was not the case in the United States before the 1860s.

[PSOL]

The thing to understand is that 'Left' and 'Right' are not absolute terms with clear definitions fixed for all time, but descriptive shorthands that mean different things at different times and in different places. There's little doubt that the Abolitionist cause was a left-wing one in the 1850s and 60s - in practice, in the United States, it was the left-wing cause. It is worth noting quite how many of the '48ers (radical, often socialist, German-speaking refugees from the defeat of 1848 uprisings in Europe) enlisted to fight for the Union during the Civil War. The same people were a critical element in the early Republican electoral coalition, especially at the radical end. That most later moderated and many even became conservatives is not particularly relevant - such things happen, particularly when a new order is established. And that's the other thing to note: it is useless to try to identify conservatives in the Antebellum American political landscape and to crown whoever their opponents were as 'the Left' of the day. Conservatism is only possible when there is some sort of settlement and social order to defend, and this was not the case in the United States before the 1860s.

Well there was Slavery and King cotton. That was a defensible structure then.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Except that in most of the territory covered by it, Slave society and King Cotton were both new. Our perspective is I think a little warped by over a century of Lost Cause propaganda and related nostalgia for an idea of a timeless Antebellum South that never existed - Gone With The Wind and this idea of the Southern Gentleman and so on. It's all nonsense: slavery did not spread West of the Appalachians and into the bulk of the Black Belt or the Delta until the early decades of the 19th century. And further east it expanded beyond its older heartlands in the Tidewater deeper and deeper into the Piedmont at the same time. The bulk of the South was as much a 'pioneer' society as the Old North West at the same time. And from Calhoun onwards we no longer find slavery defended on grounds that, if you squint hard enough, you can maybe see as conservative,* but something new: I don't think it can be seen as anything other than a radicalism of the Extreme Right. Which is a useful realisation because it helps explain the behaviour of Southern politicians in the mid 19th century: they weren't desperately trying to defend their way of life against a tide of change, they thought that they were winning and with good reason.

_{*Though I would tend to see it as a liberalism warped beyond all logic in the service of abhorrent, cowardly hypocrisy.}

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I agree with Al on this, especially with the concept of "liberalism warped beyond logic by in service of hypocrisy"

This is the point that I have never been able to get across to Henry and that is the possibility of and even likelihood that an otherwise "liberal" mindset can be denied further extension to other groups, because of prejudice and then even warped to justify such continued oppression. For example Jefferson was a liberal, who maybe on good days dreamed of a different situation and advanced some policies to restrict slavery (Old Northwest), but was bound by prejudice and lets face it, his own debts. That doesn't make him a Conservative as OC runs around the forum exclaiming in ever ridiculous attempts to shoe horn the history into his paradigm, it makes him a prejudiced liberal who believed in a set of ideals for one group of people but not for another.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The thing to understand is that 'Left' and 'Right' are not absolute terms with clear definitions fixed for all time, but descriptive shorthands that mean different things at different times and in different places. There's little doubt that the Abolitionist cause was a left-wing one in the 1850s and 60s - in practice, in the United States, it was the left-wing cause. It is worth noting quite how many of the '48ers (radical, often socialist, German-speaking refugees from the defeat of 1848 uprisings in Europe) enlisted to fight for the Union during the Civil War. The same people were a critical element in the early Republican electoral coalition, especially at the radical end. That most later moderated and many even became conservatives is not particularly relevant - such things happen, particularly when a new order is established. And that's the other thing to note: it is useless to try to identify conservatives in the Antebellum American political landscape and to crown whoever their opponents were as 'the Left' of the day. Conservatism is only possible when there is some sort of settlement and social order to defend, and this was not the case in the United States before the 1860s.

Well there was Slavery and King cotton. That was a defensible structure then.

It depends on your time scale and backdrop. If you are speaking from a British perspective with time scales on the hundreds of years, you have more established structures and traditions to preserve. To  such a perspective the few decades of American History seems but a blip on the historical radar and thus "they are all a bunch of 'liberals' quibbling over the degree to which they should be liberal". It kind of gets back to the joke I made about the Revolutionary War being a bunch of people of Whig principles rebelling against a mostly Whig political establishment, for not being Whig enough and deriding them as Tories to discredit them.

Is the South preserving their power structure?
Is Lincoln seeking to preserve the republican principles of the founding?
Is Bell trying to preserve the constitution and the Union as it is?
Is Douglas trying to preserve national unity around a completely unworkable proposal?

Are these desires both sincere as opposed to wishful thinking and are the structures and traditions desired to be preserved "established enough" to justify being labeled as conservative. I think Bell and Lincoln in that order have the best "relative" claim to such, being both ex-Whigs and both ostensibly seeking to preserve the founding principles though against different opponents/evils, which strikes to the heart of the break down of the Whig coalition.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

_{*Though I would tend to see it as a liberalism warped beyond all logic in the service of abhorrent, cowardly hypocrisy.}

"Everything is slavery except for actual slavery, which is fine." An unfortunately extant style in the crankier byways of American right-liberalism even today.

[Senator Incitatus]

Neither left- nor right-wing disease had infected the American mind until the 1920s. It is nonsensical to use the terms in any context but downright malicious to attempt to introduce them where they were not even whispered.

[PSOL]

Well ok

Is the South preserving their power structure?

Yes
Is Lincoln seeking to preserve the republican principles of the founding?
No, he is following the will of his party—made up of certain sectors of the manufacturing business elite, labor representatives, radical immigrants, and revolutionary abolitionist advocates themselves active in precursors of the modern socialist left— in trying to limit slavery
Is Bell trying to preserve the constitution and the Union as it is?
Yes, he is trying to keep the favorable conditions the South has electorally and, with time, hopes to expand the planter aristocracy
Is Douglas trying to preserve national unity around a completely unworkable proposal?
Slavery in all its forms is prone to fail, especially with the unstable nature of having a reserve labor force in poor, primarily Scots-Irish Southern whites

Karl Marx stanned Lincoln for a reason, he and his coalition were the “left” of the time and many Radical Republicans themselves became swept up in the Socialist Party and socialist movement thereafter. The cherry-picking of a few figures who became part of the establishment is irrelevant here.

Neither left- nor right-wing disease had infected the American mind until the 1920s. It is nonsensical to use the terms in any context but downright malicious to attempt to introduce them where they were not even whispered.

A significant amount of European leftists, after the Napoleonic War, looked to the US government system and several US philosophers—Thoreau, Paine, Robert Owen and the other utopian settlers, and oddly a rail magnate from the Civil War whose name I can’t recall—as inspiration. That these ideas don’t have any roots in US history from its (pre)historical beginnings till now is not true, compassion isn’t limited to one side of the Atlantic.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Well ok

Is the South preserving their power structure?

Yes
Is Lincoln seeking to preserve the republican principles of the founding?
No, he is following the will of his party—made up of certain sectors of the manufacturing business elite, labor representatives, radical immigrants, and revolutionary abolitionist advocates themselves active in precursors of the modern socialist left— in trying to limit slavery
Is Bell trying to preserve the constitution and the Union as it is?
Yes, he is trying to keep the favorable conditions the South has electorally and, with time, hopes to expand the planter aristocracy
Is Douglas trying to preserve national unity around a completely unworkable proposal?
Slavery in all its forms is prone to fail, especially with the unstable nature of having a reserve labor force in poor, primarily Scots-Irish Southern whites

Karl Marx stanned Lincoln for a reason, he and his coalition were the “left” of the time and many Radical Republicans themselves became swept up in the Socialist Party and socialist movement thereafter. The cherry-picking of a few figures who became part of the establishment is irrelevant here.

"Cherry picking of a few figures". Far more Republicans quickly folded into "the establishment" then resisted it and departed the party as a result (People like Ignatius Donnelly).

It is rather telling that largely same base of voters sticks with the Republicans even as these "figures" transcend into more radical and populist movements (and internally seeing themselves on the losing side of the dominant industrial interests and what they want).

The majority of Northerners and the majority of Northern Republicans are not radical abolitionists and the only reason the Republicans succeeded is because 1) Lincoln recognized this fact and 2) the South's radicalism convinced the North that the Slave Power was a threat to them politically, economically and/or socially. It also speaks to why Reconstruction collapsed as a point of interest for the North relative to bread and butter issues.

The Republicans were not, and never were, going to be a vehicle for the left or for socialist movements aside from being temporary allies on the opposition to slavery and that is very clearly established by the subsequent history and why so many of these figures ditched the Republicans in the ensuing decades.

As to denying that Lincoln and the Republicans sought to preserve the founding principles is to ignore the legions of references to Jefferson and Jeffersonian principles as well as the "clinging to the Declaration more than the Constitution". Clearly at the time, there was a view that Southern Slave Power was eroding the principles of the republic for its own benefit and this was manifested via the south's actions over the course of the 1850s. To this interpretation, the view expressed by the likes of Buchanan and Taney were seen as a departure from such founding tradition, not the adherence to it as was claimed by the Slave Power at the time and now ironically, by the revisionist left seeking to back date 1850s mindsets to 1787.

The view you express is similar to the one advanced by the Gravel Institute, whose video on this subject is very informative as to the left interpretation of these events. That the Republican Party was a leftwing revolutionary movement that was then "hijacked by conservative businessmen". In actuality, a less biased interpretation of period is the "Grand Coalition" interpretation I have advanced that the Republicans by 1860 through moderation on the opposition to slavery, an accommodation with business and financial interests by embracing much of the old Clay economic agenda, and overriding all the ever increasing demands of the South pushing more people in the North to oppose them and their designs, led to the creation of a broad political movement united by a desire to restrict slavery and protect the institutions from corruption by the slave powers (even just ignoring the composition of the coalition, this on its own is a conservative formula).

Once the war ended and reconstruction played out, this coalition pulled apart with most of the "egalitarians" leaving the party, realizing that Republicans had become in effect a latter day Whig Party bereft of its former Southern allies. With this in mind, the reforming of that old alliance (manifested in the Southern strategy), seems almost inevitable as early as the 1870s held back only by Civil War legacy and divergent economic interests on things like trade.

In the mid 1850s when the party was a single issue anti-slavery party, composed almost exclusively of free soilers and conscious whigs you might have more of a case. But with the absorption of the Know-Nothing's Northern wing in 1856, and more conservative elements of the Northern Whigs in 1860 with Lincoln's nomination, this becomes a much harder sell.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Well my argument is not that the Radical Republicans were not on the Left - they were! They clearly defined whatever 'Left' could possibly mean in the America of the 1850s and 60s - nor that Southern defence of slavery was not a right-wing position - of course it was! - but that a) it isn't particularly surprising that many former Radical Republicans became conservatives of a sort after political and social order was finally imposed on the United States and conservatism became possible and that b) the Southern defence of slavery was not a conservative political position but (at first) a perverted and warped liberalism and then a frankly sinister position of the Extreme Right. Or to put the first argument a different way, and to make a literary reference, Iowa's transformation from the 'shining star of Radicalism' to a bastion of agrarian conservatism in the space of a single generation was the logical result of the victory of the Radicalism that its citizens were strongly associated with and as such does not negate or cancel out the reality of that former Radicalism. There's no contradiction here, it all makes sense.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Well my argument is not that the Radical Republicans were not on the Left - they were! They clearly defined whatever 'Left' could possibly mean in the America of the 1850s and 60s - nor that Southern defence of slavery was not a right-wing position - of course it was! - but that a) it isn't particularly surprising that many former Radical Republicans became conservatives of a sort after political and social order was finally imposed on the United States and conservatism became possible and that b) the Southern defence of slavery was not a conservative political position but (at first) a perverted and warped liberalism and then a frankly sinister position of the Extreme Right. Or to put the first argument a different way, and to make a literary reference, Iowa's transformation from the 'shining star of Radicalism' to a bastion of agrarian conservatism in the space of a single generation was the logical result of the victory of the Radicalism that its citizens were strongly associated with and as such does not negate or cancel out the reality of that former Radicalism. There's no contradiction here, it all makes sense.

I firmly stated the Radicals, especially those of free soil and anti-masonic background were in fact left wing much earlier in the thread and when I branched off of your previous post it was highlighting the most famous example of "misguided" or "misapplied liberalism", namely Jefferson. I have talked previously about this degeneration of the Southern politics in stages, reaching the point where slavery is robustly defended as as positive for the slaves by the 1850s. It is no accident hat this radicalization of Southern politics coincides with the ever irresponsible demands and the resulting reaction to this in the North.

In terms of the last part, of course it makes sense, yesterday's revolutionaries are often tomorrow's establishment being overthrown. That is a fundamental concept in Marxist Revolution, overthrowing the previous generations revolutionaries. There is also any number of reformists who have come to power and then become the target of the next reformist movement.

However, in acknowledging that reality, it becomes necessary to acknowledge the selective nature of the radicalism for some and maybe even many, though certainly not all "radical Republicans". Someone like Schuyler Colfax was all for Civil Rights and radical reconstruction, but he loved big rail/finance money too and that was later his undoing. It also not like business profits were "set aside" for the duration of the war as a priority, to appease the more egalitarian coalition members.

[Agonized-Statism]

The abolitionist movement no doubt had some socialists, maybe even people reading Marx and Engels as contemporaries. It's difficult to say given how recent the codification of left-wing theory was in their time, though: John Brown is celebrated among US leftists then and now as a proletarian hero, although he rooted his abolitionism in Calvinism rather than any political theory. Maybe if he had the opportunity to read theory, he would have identified with it. Maybe not. But I'd be interested if anyone knows of any particular Republican politicians at the federal level who weren't just classical liberals, and can prove that they actually were socialists. These were the politicians who ushered in the Gilded Age after all.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

It might also be worth noting that the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, in its (effusive) article on Lincoln, described the Radical Republicans as representing "the most progressive faction of the bourgeoisie" or some such formulation, "progressive" of course being a word that in official Soviet historiography meant "closer to being like Us, Comrades, than were their main opponents". Obviously the Great Soviet Encyclopedia is, thank God!, not the final word on who in history is and is not a leftist, but it should go to show that a left-wing interpretation of the Radical Republicans is not some sort of post-woke novelty. The Civil War was, at least "at the level of ideas", a conflict between bourgeoisie and slavers, not between bourgeoisie and proletariat, and old-school commie historians recognized that fact and assessed its various factions accordingly. Even utterly race-agnostic leftist historians of the early twentieth century such as Charles Beard recognized this!

[PSOL]

Well there was Horace Greeley.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

They were Secular and Dixiecrats we're Traditional after FDR got Elected due to WO Douglas the colors reversed due to Industrial Revolution ended Chain Gangs in 1955 abd slavery in 1865


The GOP were the Compassionate Conservative party and Dixiecrats we're the Traditionalists, Secular means liberal but the R party were Big Bank Corporatists and Dixiecrats we're left on Big Banks

The colors reversed themselves in 1900 because of the Cold War and Jay Edgar Hoover coziness with Russia and Right militia groups killed Civil Rights leaders

Dixiecrats changed party stripes with Thurmond and Reagan Realignment

[Wikipedia delenda est]

It might also be worth noting that the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, in its (effusive) article on Lincoln, described the Radical Republicans as representing "the most progressive faction of the bourgeoisie" or some such formulation, "progressive" of course being a word that in official Soviet historiography meant "closer to being like Us, Comrades, than were their main opponents". Obviously the Great Soviet Encyclopedia is, thank God!, not the final word on who in history is and is not a leftist, but it should go to show that a left-wing interpretation of the Radical Republicans is not some sort of post-woke novelty. The Civil War was, at least "at the level of ideas", a conflict between bourgeoisie and slavers, not between bourgeoisie and proletariat, and old-school commie historians recognized that fact and assessed its various factions accordingly. Even utterly race-agnostic leftist historians of the early twentieth century such as Charles Beard recognized this!

Another interesting historical tidbit that isn't widely known about is Georges Clemenceau's involvement in American politics. The young Radical Republican spent the latter half of the 1860s in this country, where he wrote forcefully in favor of Radical Reconstruction and against the reactionary policies of the Johnson administration. As I've said numerous times (though no one has seemed to notice until now), European liberals and radicals (not to mention socialists) were near-universal in their support for the Northern (Radical Republican) agenda, whereas the conservative and reactionary elements of the Old World (such as the Papacy) looked to the Southern Confederacy as a defender of traditional values against the liberal Yankee onslaught. And as PSOL pointed out, many of the leading abolitionists (like Wendell Phillips) went on to become leading leftists (which, of course, they had been all along) after the war against slavery was won.

[Wikipedia delenda est]

It might also be worth noting that the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, in its (effusive) article on Lincoln, described the Radical Republicans as representing "the most progressive faction of the bourgeoisie" or some such formulation, "progressive" of course being a word that in official Soviet historiography meant "closer to being like Us, Comrades, than were their main opponents". Obviously the Great Soviet Encyclopedia is, thank God!, not the final word on who in history is and is not a leftist, but it should go to show that a left-wing interpretation of the Radical Republicans is not some sort of post-woke novelty. The Civil War was, at least "at the level of ideas", a conflict between bourgeoisie and slavers, not between bourgeoisie and proletariat, and old-school commie historians recognized that fact and assessed its various factions accordingly. Even utterly race-agnostic leftist historians of the early twentieth century such as Charles Beard recognized this!

Another interesting historical tidbit that isn't widely known about is Georges Clemenceau's involvement in American politics. The young Radical Republican spent the latter half of the 1860s in this country, where he wrote forcefully in favor of Radical Reconstruction and against the reactionary policies of the Johnson administration. As I've said numerous times (though no one has seemed to notice until now), European liberals and radicals (not to mention socialists) were near-universal in their support for the Northern (Radical Republican) agenda, whereas the conservative and reactionary elements of the Old World (such as the Papacy) looked to the Southern Confederacy as a defender of traditional values against the liberal Yankee onslaught. And as PSOL pointed out, many of the leading abolitionists (like Wendell Phillips) went on to become leading leftists (which, of course, they had been all along) after the war against slavery was won.

...of course George Clemenceau etc supported the Radical Republicans. That doesn't prove your point, even if I'm inclined to agree that the Radical Republicans were left wing, for the same reason that the US supporting the Soviet Union in WW2 doesn't prove that the Soviet Union was a right wing power. Geopolitical alliances and personal sympathies are often a factor of specific circumstances, and even when ideological, of relative rather than absolute alignment.

Also, the Pope didn't support the Confederacy: the Confederates liked to claim he did because Pius referred to Davis as "Honorable President" in a letter, but no diplomatic recognition was ever actually extended and it both is and was considered nothing more than a formality (Judah Benjamin, for instance, described it as a "mere inferential recognition, unconnected with political action or the regular establishment of diplomatic relations"). Besides, if you really wanted to point to a force sympathetic to the Confederacy, William Gladstone was the one who described the Confederates as having "made a nation" and thought that the North was wrong to try and restore the Union (although he did oppose the slavery): Was the Confederacy a liberal state, by your logic?

I am aware of the British government's support for the Confederacy, yes, but that was done by both the Liberal and Conservative parties for opportunistic reasons and, as you pointed out, such things are not always ideological. What was ideological was the overwhelming support for the Union among left-leaning intellectuals and activists, as opposed to politicians or ministers in positions of power (like Gladstone) who had state interests to consider. It was Marx himself who helped organize the movement of trade unionists opposed to the efforts of the British ruling class to intervene on the side of the Confederacy.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Also, the Pope didn't support the Confederacy: the Confederates liked to claim he did because Pius referred to Davis as "Honorable President" in a letter, but no diplomatic recognition was ever actually extended and it both is and was considered nothing more than a formality (Judah Benjamin, for instance, described it as a "mere inferential recognition, unconnected with political action or the regular establishment of diplomatic relations"). Besides, if you really wanted to point to a force sympathetic to the Confederacy, William Gladstone was the one who described the Confederates as having "made a nation" and thought that the North was wrong to try and restore the Union (although he did oppose the slavery): Was the Confederacy a liberal state, by your logic?

Pius IX, far-right and reflexively anti-freedom ghoul that he was, absolutely did support the Confederacy on a personal level. It's to his credit that he had enough sense to restrain himself from fully committing the Catholic Church as an institution to his personal approval of the Slave Power.

[Vosem]

The only really consistent definition of left-wing and right-wing that I've found is that the left's dominant value is equality (of some kind: whether between races or classes or sexes, whether equality of outcome or opportunity, just 'equality'), while any form of right-wing thought has some value that it feels is more important than equality.

So: of course. The Radical Republicans were distinctive because they were much more committed to the controversial form of equality at the time (equality between the races that lived in the US) than the other political groupings of the day. They were left-wing.

[TheReckoning]

The only really consistent definition of left-wing and right-wing that I've found is that the left's dominant value is equality (of some kind: whether between races or classes or sexes, whether equality of outcome or opportunity, just 'equality'), while any form of right-wing thought has some value that it feels is more important than equality.

The problem I have with this definition is that it seemingly lumps together many ideologies under the label of “right-wing” that “right-wing” becomes virtually useless for actually describing what an ideology stands for. “Not believing equality to be the most important thing” applies to both anarcho-capitalism and fascism strongly, but those 2 ideologies have virtually nothing in common.

I understand that this definition is still used most dominantly among serious political scientists more than any other definition, but it’s never made the most sense to me. Also, does it imply that a theocrat who seeks to end racism because the theocrat believes that all humans are God’s people is left wing? Because theocracy is often thought of as being far-right.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Everyone wants to own Lincoln and that fact is a testament to his success. If both sides can see themselves in Lincoln for obvious reasons that is healthy for the country.

We also should distinguish between those radical Republicans who were pro labor and those who were well on the sunny side of bought by business interests.

http://www.asjournal.org/60-2016/abraham-lincoln-european-popular-culture/
I came across this when seeing how famous Abraham Lincoln was overseas.
Interesting stuff.

[Vosem]

The only really consistent definition of left-wing and right-wing that I've found is that the left's dominant value is equality (of some kind: whether between races or classes or sexes, whether equality of outcome or opportunity, just 'equality'), while any form of right-wing thought has some value that it feels is more important than equality.

The problem I have with this definition is that it seemingly lumps together many ideologies under the label of “right-wing” that “right-wing” becomes virtually useless for actually describing what an ideology stands for. “Not believing equality to be the most important thing” applies to both anarcho-capitalism and fascism strongly, but those 2 ideologies have virtually nothing in common.

I understand that this definition is still used most dominantly among serious political scientists more than any other definition, but it’s never made the most sense to me. Also, does it imply that a theocrat who seeks to end racism because the theocrat believes that all humans are God’s people is left wing? Because theocracy is often thought of as being far-right.

There is obviously much less unity and much more diversity in right-wing thought than in left-wing thought. I don't really think either of these is a coherent thing, but "right-wing thought" seems utterly incoherent as any kind of natural unit.

I think, for theocrats, it would depend on context. Generally, when considering the English Civil War, it is the more religious side that strikes contemporaries as the more "left-wing" side. Most contemporary theocrats are pretty clearly right-wing, though.

(And, ultimately, the whole left/right dichotomy is not necessarily an incredibly useful way to think about regimes or history; virtually every political movement in any country, left or right, supports certain sorts of equality but not others. There are hardly any parties in Western countries that would not profess to believe in equality before the law, for instance, but I don't think this makes it useful to think of them as left-wing.)

[TheReckoning]

There is obviously much less unity and much more diversity in right-wing thought than in left-wing thought. I don't really think either of these is a coherent thing, but "right-wing thought" seems utterly incoherent as any kind of natural unit.

One thing that I will say about this is that while I agree, ironically, many people say that left-wingers are far more disorganized and divided amongst themselves than the right, which is why leftists never accomplish much.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

There is obviously much less unity and much more diversity in right-wing thought than in left-wing thought. I don't really think either of these is a coherent thing, but "right-wing thought" seems utterly incoherent as any kind of natural unit.

One thing that I will say about this is that while I agree, ironically, many people say that left-wingers are far more disorganized and divided amongst themselves than the right, which is why leftists never accomplish much.

The right being more heterogeneous philosophically but the left having a harder time pulling together in practice is one of the classic ironies or paradoxes of modern politics, yeah.