The "Horseshoe Theory"

[Roosters for ever]

(google) The horseshoe theory of politics argues that the far-left and far-right, rather than being at opposite ends of a linear spectrum, are actually closer to each other than to the political center, resembling the ends of a horseshoe. It suggests that both extremes share similarities like authoritarianism, anti-elitism, and populism. Question (1) Does the extreme left ideology give rise to extreme right wing ideology? google: The relationship between extreme left and extreme right ideologies is often described by political scientists as a dynamic of reciprocal radicalization, where actions on one extreme fuel reactions, fears, and growth on the other, rather than a direct, simple causation. While they occupy opposite ends of the traditional linear political spectrum, far-left and far-right ideologies often share a "horseshoe" structure, where both extremes resemble each other in their opposition to the political center, reliance on conspiracy theories, and use of "us vs. them" narratives.

• Similarities in Behavior: Both extremes are characterized by authoritarian tendencies, intense hostility towards opponents, a belief that violence is acceptable to achieve goals, and the spread of disinformation.
• Shared Mindset: Research indicates that individuals on both extremes are more likely than moderates to believe in conspiracy theories and adopt a rigid, simplistic view of complex societal issues. (end google)

Question (2) Are conspiracy theories and right wing extremism and extremists related? The evidence certainly suggests that. eg: The crazy vaccination denialists and the fact that the covid 19 outbreak certainly acted as a catalyst for unsupported, unevidenced conspiracy theories. Question (3) Does the rise of the Internet and social media give rise to conspiracy theories? In Australia, our government has outlawed social media for those under 16 years of age. This was as a result of a couple of teenage/young suicides, driven by online bullying. My answer to all three questions is a thumping YES! Q (1) 75% certainty. Q (2) 90% certainty. Q (3) 90% certainty.

 

[DaveC426913]

This is why the best govrnments attempt to depolarize opposing political stances and find some harmony in the middle.

 

[Tiassa]

2017: Click image for original by Mattie Lubchansky​

Lubchansky on "Radical Centrism", 2017↱:

Professor: [stands in front of a Radical Center horseshoe illustration] Welcome to Smart Guy Centrism 101. See … politics. It's just like a horseshoe! The far Left and Right? They're the same thing. Observe:

[Professor turns to two students, a black woman wearing a t-shirt with upside-down American flag, and a white man wearing a fedora and "Top Kek" t-shirt.]​

Female Student: Oppression is bad.

Male Student: Oppression of most people is actually good!

Professor: It's like I'm seeing double!!!

[Professor turns back to Radical Center horseshoe illustration.]​

Professor: It seems like our extremists here have forgotten the most important thing that smart people all know. And what's that?

[Professor looks out at clasroom students.]​

Classroom Students: [(in unison)] "I'm personally doing just fine so obviously nothing is wrong."​

†​

It's worth reminding there's a gap between the Left and Right extremes. While the radical center of the horseshoe is where we find American justifications for torture, just for instance, or bargain about the line between rape and what a woman owes, history also informs that red-brown alliances offer naught but despair. Bridging that gap relies on what remains of common appeal between two otherwise disparate ways of thinking, and that pursuit of common empowerment is, by all historical accounts, dangerous.

 

[pjdude1219]

The horseshoe theory is just lazy sloppy thinking. It conflates the left and right do to authoritarianism that can happen at the ends. The issue with that is in most authoritarian political structures maintaining power becomes the ultimate goal rather than idealogy. so of course they look the same.

 

[parmalee]

The horseshoe theory is just lazy sloppy thinking. It conflates the left and right do to authoritarianism that can happen at the ends. The issue with that is in most authoritarian political structures maintaining power becomes the ultimate goal rather than idealogy. so of course they look the same.

Yeah. Matters of authoritarianism and it's antithesis belong on a wholly separate axis from the left/right one. The only significant and meaningful commonalities between left- and right-extremism have everything to do with tactics perhaps.

 

[TheVat]

Extreme ideologies seem to devolve over time to bureaucracy. And bureaucracy only serves itself.

I have trouble imagining any extreme which didn't become bureaucracy, unless it was some improbable anarchic stateless thingy like Bakunin imagined.

 

[parmalee]

Extreme ideologies seem to devolve over time to bureaucracy. And bureaucracy only serves itself.

I have trouble imagining any extreme which didn't become bureaucracy, unless it was some improbable anarchic stateless thingy like Bakunin imagined.

Always been a lot of tension between my Bakuninian inclinations and my Marxist inclinations, further complicated by my Stirnerian inclinations--I am, after all, American, as much as it pains me to admit.

But the tension largely hinges upon these bureaucratic tendencies within virtually all forms and iterations of Marxism. With large populations and globalization, "common sense" dictates the necessity for such, but... over time bureaucracies tend to become vexingly (vexatiously?) bureaucratic solely for bureaucracy's sake. Though many former colonies of England have managed to turn such into a sort of farcical art form, and I can appreciate that; otherwise it's a whole lot to do about not much really. (I actually really struggle with filling out forms of all sorts, and for much of my life I've wrangled others into filling them out for me. I could probably get some kind of medical exemption for such.)

 

[exchemist]

Yeah. Matters of authoritarianism and it's antithesis belong on a wholly separate axis from the left/right one. The only significant and meaningful commonalities between left- and right-extremism have everything to do with tactics perhaps.

Not entirely. The thing about ideology is it can convince believers they must be right. The temptation is then to impose their beliefs, or to imagine, wrongly, that what they want must be what the people want, deep down, or else that they know better than the people what is good for them (e.g. “false consciousness”). We see this tendency at both left and right extremes of politics.

 

[C C]

(google) The horseshoe theory of politics argues that the far-left and far-right, rather than being at opposite ends of a linear spectrum, are actually closer to each other than to the political center, resembling the ends of a horseshoe. It suggests that both extremes share similarities like authoritarianism, anti-elitism, and populism.

Despite the realization that both have a shared ancestry born in the French Revolution (figuratively different sides of the same coin), with those initial tentative fumblings incrementally evolving in the early part of the 19th-century toward their later mature forms....

Such trepidation or caution can only be carried so far. That's because secular humanities scholars only have the left conception as a replacement for the religious-skewered moral framework of old. And the various subcategories of rehabilitated Neo-Marxism enable waves of apologetics for the tyrannical excesses and consequences of Uncle Karl's classic masterwork.

It's just too good a fit to abandon. The quest for socioeconomic utopia maps well onto the Christian idea of heaven or a Kingdom of God on Earth (whichever the heck interpretation of that). The pursuit of radical equality maps well onto what attracted pagans to a Jewish cult in the first place (the faithful poor acquiring elevated status in the afterlife, rather than perpetuation of the same old class system). And of course, the opportunistic altruism of missionary work -- aside from the recruitment angle, offers a noble facade of wealth redistribution to additionally seduce the proletariat, when converted to or adopted by collectivist ideology.

And thanks to pioneers like Antonio Gramsci abstracting a generic "ruling or privilege elite" from the original narrow specification of bourgeoisie (capitalist class), we can plug whatever group (i.e., cultural hegemony) best befits being identified as the oppressing bastards of a contemporary era. Additionally, the proletariat itself can become converted to a placeholder, so that the intelligentsia and their enforcing bureaucrats are no longer exclusively dependent on that motley band for implementing their rise to power (more upcoming on why that is important).

And therein we see how the far-left was itself a type of populism. The struggle of the common people against an arrogant establishment and privileged elite (again, the bourgeoisie and their capitalist system). The similar fear and paranoia build-up generated with respect to such (and rightfully so, given the abusive outrages inflicted on the working class of that period).

But the 20th-century problem with the intelligentsia being the champion of the proles is that the latter are the very source of bigotry (the white, hetero-male component at least). That's amply illustrated now that the bulk of them have migrated to populist ponds on the other political side (like MAGA).

Thankfully, however, the aforementioned offshoots of Neo-Marxism (critical theory, analytical Marxism, French structural Marxism, political Marxism, cultural studies, CRT) -- the expanded and refined social justice that they exemplify -- have enabled the replacement of the hate-oriented hoi polloi with marginalized population groups. So that now the morally noble philosopher kings (applicable literary intellectuals or their politician disciples) and their regulating civil servants are free to ascend to their proper thrones without a heavy taint of racists, misogynists, LGBT+ phobes, etc being among their supporting masses.

So despite mistakes of the past and that contended blending of the far-right and far-left (really more of a conflating taking place at a point on a circular spectrum rather than a horseshoe)... That's really based on the deeds of the now vastly less dominant classic far-left (which would still take the proles back in a heartbeat). Rather than the renovated new left that has cast off those handicaps, error-prone conceptions, and embraced a legit segment of the population to be Lord Protectors of.
_

 

[Roosters for ever]

Despite some interesting comments on this subject, I'm still of the firm belief that the extremes of the political spectrum, are as bad and even as evil as one another, even if driven by different goals.

(5 minute video on the subject of left and right. While I sit on the left according to that short video, (5minutes) and vote Labor, (our present Australian government) I still don't like being categorized as either left or right. I prefer being on the right side, as distinct from being on the wrong side. Labor governments in Australia have given us many benefits...a universal health care scheme, the NDIS, (national Disability Insurance scheme) Employer contributed superannuation, reasonable pensions and other social welfare, and probably most importantly, respect and consideration for our first nations people, the oldest living culture on the planet. Examples of the far right in our country is given by a Pauline Hanson and an example of one of her stunts is In November 2025, she was suspended for seven days and censured by the Australian Senate after wearing a burqa into the chamber, a stunt intended to protest against full-face coverings for national security reasons. The move, similar to a 2017 incident, drew widespread condemnation, with Senators calling it a disrespectful, and divisive act that targeted the Muslim community. On the other extreme side, the left, the best example I could give is sadly a first nations woman named Lidia Thorpe as shown in the following...

(threatening to burn down Parliament House isn't conducive to her cause. The other example of course are the black leather clad white supremacists that sadly also exist in our country. The far left and far right are the two sides of the same coin. It's like comparing Stalin and Hitler.

 

[scorpius]

Learn something our msm dont tell you

 

[Seattle]

Despite some interesting comments on this subject, I'm still of the firm belief that the extremes of the political spectrum, are as bad and even as evil as one another, even if driven by different goals.

(5 minute video on the subject of left and right. While I sit on the left according to that short video, (5minutes) and vote Labor, (our present Australian government) I still don't like being categorized as either left or right. I prefer being on the right side, as distinct from being on the wrong side. Labor governments in Australia have given us many benefits...a universal health care scheme, the NDIS, (national Disability Insurance scheme) Employer contributed superannuation, reasonable pensions and other social welfare, and probably most importantly, respect and consideration for our first nations people, the oldest living culture on the planet. Examples of the far right in our country is given by a Pauline Hanson and an example of one of her stunts is In November 2025, she was suspended for seven days and censured by the Australian Senate after wearing a burqa into the chamber, a stunt intended to protest against full-face coverings for national security reasons. The move, similar to a 2017 incident, drew widespread condemnation, with Senators calling it a disrespectful, and divisive act that targeted the Muslim community. On the other extreme side, the left, the best example I could give is sadly a first nations woman named Lidia Thorpe as shown in the following...

(threatening to burn down Parliament House isn't conducive to her cause. The other example of course are the black leather clad white supremacists that sadly also exist in our country. The far left and far right are the two sides of the same coin. It's like comparing Stalin and Hitler.

What is your definition of "evil"?

 

[Roosters for ever]

What is your definition of "evil"?

The extremes of the political spectrum, left and right. eg: The fanatical YEC and skinhead nazis, and white supremacists on the far right, and on the far left, the ANTIFA calling for the total destruction of private property, and capitalist system in general, total state ownership of production, abolition of police forces, prisons and even borders. Both are destructive, both are undoable, and both are evil....Like Hitler (far right) and Stalin (far left) Both practised authoritarian, nationalistic, and totalitarian methods.

 

[Tiassa]

… on the far left, the ANTIFA calling for the total destruction of private property, and capitalist system in general, total state ownership of production.

And this kind of make-believe illustrates the banality of evil.

The amount of bothsidesing that requires make-believe in order to either drag down the Left or buoy the Right is one of the reasons these false equivocations are suspect on sight.

"The ANTIFA"?

†​

There are two things going on that make the pretense of equivalence suspect.

First, phrasing rightist extremism as something out there (fanatical YEC and skinhead nazis, and white supremacists on the far right) while holding leftism, progressivism, and liberalism to a specific word in circulation, "the ANTIFA". The creationists, neo-Nazis, and white supremacists are the Republican Party; antifa is a broader concept Part of the point of this distortion is to hide right-wing extremism by pretending it is remote.

Second, "the ANTIFA" is just another iteration of conservative excrement that's been around since the Red Scare. Back in the '80s, that was the complaint about "Commies" and "pinkos", and compared to what the Democratic Party does, or the proximity of white supremacism, Nazis, and YEC to the Republican Party, there really is no comparison. The exaggeration is the point; without it, the false equivalence falls apart.

Additionally, consider, for instance, that after over a year of white supremacist complaint from Nick↗ Fuentes↗ and other prominent rightists↗, Vice President Vance finally responded by saying anyone who talks about his wife like that, whether Jen Psaki or Nick Fuentes, is full of shit. It stands out that Vance couldn't criticize the right without prefacing his criticism with a liberal chaperone, but remember, compared to badmouthing his wife and kids for being nonwhite, as the rightists do, Psaki's ostensible offense was asking Usha Vance if she is okay, if she's alright, how she's holding up under the stress of those kinds of attacks.

It's not just the fact of the exaggerations, or magnitude, or even ridiculousness. Rather, consider the values that fulfill the exaggeration. What does it mean if J.D. Vance really sees no difference? What does it mean if the criticism of political extremism requires a false assertion in order to build the juxtaposition? Indeed, the comparative isolation of the YEC/Nazi/whisup axis would be one of those sketchy things we tend to pass over except that it coincides with other signs. The false equivalence is one thing; the one-two combo of minimization and exaggeration is another, and, let's face it, hardly unknown.

Antifa are neither anarchists nor communists. The phantom leftist of oppositional lamentation hasn't changed much over the last forty-five years; it's true, if you've heard it enough times before, there comes a point at which it just doesn't sound like an accident, anymore.

So, yes, it reads like every other attempt to whitewash conservative malice by juxtaposing it with something that doesn't exist.

Thus, for the innocent, one more reminder: It's called asymmetric polarization, which, by its very name, describes something that does not take place equally within disparate comparative ranges. That is, it's asymmetric. And, if I'm being honest, it's unclear how smart people fall down this hole, largely because they can't tell us. Among actual conservatives, the asymmetry is in no small part a result of epistemic closure, but for the ostensible moderates, independents, and middle-roaders there remains a question of how it is they so easily fall down such holes.

And, lastly, sure, it's one thing if I'm approaching this from an American perspective, but I don't really see much difference on this part: Exchemist↑ is not wrong to observe, "We see this tendency at both left and right extremes of politics", but even in that straightforward form, where there is no exaggeration to account for, the functional difference is that leftist extremism is held at arm's length and even rebuked by liberal voters, while rightist extremism is the conservative agenda. One of the extremes is a fearful speculation based on exaggeration, the other an affecting partisan influence empowered with governance.

 

[Ken Fabian]

Similarities, yes. Regimes established by force tend to reject the presence of independent rule of law, checks and balances, unbiased media, fair and democratic elections and that seems to be independent of specific ideology. They often use similar means to maintain their dominance. That looks more of a right versus might thing, or right versus wrong (given ethics and oversight get downgraded in the presence of uncompromising power).