IDAHO, USA — Left, far right, radical left, center right. Maybe that is more like Twister instructions, left center, blue, far right, red. Either way, when people use right or left in a political context, most tend to know what, and who, they are talking about.
Democrats lean to the left, Republicans range toward the right. But why? Who decided which side is which? Where did we get these directional affiliations?
Call it teams, call it tribalism, call it politics. There are defined factions across American politics, it trickles all the way down to the smallest units of government. The directional lexicon of "The Left" vs "The Right" is right in the middle of it all. But, how did directions get so ingrained into politics?
Dr. Charlie Hunt, a politics expert at Boise State University, said the concept goes back to the French Revolution in the 1700s. Napoleon Bonaparte was the big name in politics.
"You had supporters of the revolution seated on the left side of the chamber and you had supporters of the monarchy and folks who did not want to have a revolution on the right side of the chamber and seated in different areas into their separate silos," Hunt said.
When did those terms, left and right, hop the pond and enter American politics?
"It's certainly been in American politics for at least the last hundred years," Hunt said. "This use of saying someone's on the left or someone's on the right. Of course, where we tend to hear it used the most and this is not new as a pejorative."
Dictionary definition of pejorative, "having negative connotations." Left and Right aren't really loving labels in most cases, but the meaning and connection to Democrats and Republicans is a moving historical target.
"Even in the last 50 to 100 years, it was not always clear. For example, which party was the left party, The Progressive Party, the party more eager for change or for bigger government," Hunt said. "Not all of those sort of labels were associated with the left or the right at any given time. This sort of new evolution of what it means to be on the left and on the right is relatively new."
These days, Republicans are commonly referred to as the right, Democrats the left. A major change from the earlier days of America.
"Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt were both Republicans," Hunt said. "But, you know, certainly Roosevelt was a progressive. He called himself a progressive, whereas you get Franklin Roosevelt's his relation, you know, 30 years later becoming president, a progressive himself. But he was a Democrat."
Unlike decades past, the current left and right party lines are a hard break, making definitions or characterizations on left vs right more polarized than ever.
"There are books to be written about and that have been written about how the two parties are coming to resemble two sports teams right down to the colors in the mascots. And that becomes easier to do when on the left right spectrum you are farther away from each other because it makes you feel different from each other in a way that makes you really want to be at the other side, really want to triumph over them," Hunt said.
He added the division continues to splinter, especially during election years. This congress, the 118, is on track to be the least productive in decades. For example, the House voted on bills 749 times last year, only 27 went on to become law. The fewest number since the Great Depression.
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