As I’ve written more and more of this newsletter, I’ve had family, friends, and acquaintances alike insist that I’ve become more progressive over the years. Sometimes derogatory (“Wow, I didn’t realize you became such a liberal!”) and sometimes congratulatory (“Welcome to the good side!”), these claims could not be further from the truth.

At first glance, it’s easy to see why one might believe I’ve moved left: I’m vociferously opposed to the Trump Administration. I’ve argued that the right’s pearl-clutching on “moral decay” is misguided. I’ve (on rare occasion) defended the Biden administration. I even held my nose and voted for Kamala Harris.

In an age where so much of our political opinions are informed by reading the headlines of news articles rather than their entire contents, I wouldn’t blame the busy reader for skimming my headlines alone and imagining I’ve taken a large step leftward.

But I haven’t. And I think the easiest way to explain how and why I haven’t is with the concept of the Political Compass.

The Political Compass

For those unfamiliar, this is the Political Compass:

The compass is an attempt to help us understand politics better than with simple right/left definitions. Ronald Reagan and Justin Amash are both figures on the political right, but they have very different belief systems. As do Bernie Sanders and Stalin. It’s inadequate to simply call them right/left-wing.

By introducing a second axis, we can more clearly define where these types of figures sit. While Stalin and Sanders sit on the left, Sanders is far more libertarian on issues of policing and surveillance than the former leader of the USSR. And while Justin Amash would generally agree with Ronald Reagan on economic issues, they would be almost diametrically opposed on foreign policy issues.

Setting the Stage

So where have I historically sit? And where have each of the parties historically sit?

Before going any farther, I want to describe my process:

• Nearly a decade ago, I took the Political Compass test for myself, marked by the red dot on the chart below

• Before writing this article, I took the test as if I were the median member of Congress from each party, marked by party logos on the chart below (this did require some guesswork, but I tried to be as honest and fair as possible)

• I then retook the test for myself and for each party.

So, with that all being said, here’s where the political landscape lied in circa 2014:

The cool thing about this visualization is that by measuring ideology in space, we can start to measure the ideological “distance” between different groups of people. For example, let’s measure the distance between myself and each major party as of 2014:

With this visualization, it’s pretty easy to see why I became a Republican: they were closer to me ideologically at the time.

After all, the Democrats were the party of reckless spending, of finger-pointing at an imaginary billionaire boogeyman as the cause of society’s problems, of Obama’s “phone and pen” executive orders that spit in the face of Congress’ Article I powers. They were the party of the Iran nuclear deal, of California’s housing failure, and of the foolish abandonment of nuclear energy. Worst of all, they were the party of “doing something” at any cost, where action was the sign of success rather than outcomes. It didn’t matter if gun control laws, for example, actually created insane loopholes and workarounds that spun up cottage industries and increased the supply of illegal firearms to criminals—it mattered that the Democrats were trying! This entire worldview seemed objectively foolish to me.

In contrast, the Republicans were the party of the free market, of federalism and subsidiarity, of Chesterton’s fence. If the Democratic party was the party of angry teens thrashing about demanding abstract “change,” the Republican Party was the party of sensible adults in the room, accepting that some change might be nice but we should really be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. In contrast to Obama’s “phone and pen” approach, the Republicans were the party that spent years developing a cohesive framework for a fairer tax code, a stronger commitment to the Constitution, and a more confident foreign policy. It was called A Better Way, and you’ve probably never heard of it, because the modern GOP has become actively hostile to the conservative principles upon which it is founded.

The Republicans weren’t perfect for me—after all, there still was some distance between us on some issues. But they were the party that was the closest ideologically to me.

But things have changed quite a bit in the last decade.

Not conservative. Not liberal. Just Christian.

Trust in media is at an all-time low (shocking… we know), but let’s keep “walking around completely uninformed” as a backup plan.

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The Leftward Shift

If neither party had shifted ideologically over the last decade, I would actually be even more aligned with the Republican Party over the democrats (10 cells away from the Republicans, but 14 cells from the Democrats).

But that’s not what happened. At the same time that some of my positions changed slightly on the margins, both parties underwent significant ideological changes. The Democrats began to abandon Obama’s vision of an all-powerful executive branch at the same time that Republicans adopted said vision. The Republicans lurched leftward on economic issues with their attacks on Wall Street and reliance on 19th-century tariff policy at the same time that some Democrats began rediscovering the value federalism and states’ rights to self governance.

What’s interesting is that I didn’t shift left; both parties did:

In contrast to the two major parties, I actually moved right a bit over the years. Sure, the Democrats moved left with the rise of Katie Porter’s whiteboards and Elizabeth Warren’s “greedflation,” but shockingly, so did the Republicans.

Trump’s economic plan has its many righteous critics. But amidst the torrent of stock market min-crashes and freaked out economists stands one of the loudest pro-Trump voices I have ever heard: Batya Ungar-Sargon. A regular on CNN these days, she consistently defends the simultaneously spend-happy and austere economic plan coming from the White House.

In case you’re wondering who Batya Ungar-Sargon is, here’s an excerpt from her Wikipedia page:

And here is her ideology, in her own words:

Please note, I’m not nut-picking. I’m not just going “look at this Trump supporter who’s a lefty, they must all be!” The Trump administration and its hangers-on have consistently embraced a left-wing economic vision that, so far, has been disastrous for the United States.

It is why longtime Trump advisor Steve Bannon calls himself a Leninist and props up Biden FTC Chair Lina Kahn as an intellectual heavyweight in the Democratic Party. It’s why Trump has drawn criticism from lifelong conservatives for his attempts to put price caps on medication while drawing praise from Bernie Sanders. It’s why Trump has embraced traditionally progressive policies like capping credit card interest and ending taxes on tips.

You can say what you want about these policies on their merits. But they are not conservative. These policies are the very kind of progressive “do something” policies that kept me far away from the Democratic Party for many years.

Part of this “do something” mentality is indeed Republican Party’s drastic shift toward authoritarianism. From the carcass of the party of federalism and subsidiarity arose a populist patchwork of grifters and influencers who have cannibalized what was left of the conservative party and left in their wake an economically illiterate statist blob.

If you read nothing else today, take fifteen minutes and read through Jonah Goldberg’s incredible “Don’t Call this Conservatism.” In it, Goldberg says this:

When Donald Trump says “no tax on tips,” he is making a special pleading for an interest group of voters that is diametrically opposed to the historical Republican wisdom of “broaden the base, lower the rates.” It’s not just bad tax policy; it’s authoritarian lunacy. Rather than reducing the size and influence of the federal government, he is using it as a carrot and a stick to drive allegiance.

The economic policy that has Trump touting himself as a fighter for the everyman is the same economic policy that he uses to engage in kleptocratic practices that have foreign nations openly bribing him with personal planes and special favors in order to access American markets. The executive overreach Trump is leveraging to cap medicine prices is the same executive overreach under which he is deporting and exiling American citizens.

Goldberg continues:

You might support a Trump policy here or there. But his anti-constitutional approach to governance means that you will only be favored so long as you are a friend; so long as you bend the knee. You may be a full-blown Trump supporter. But in no world can you reasonably call Trumpism conservative.

And unfortunately, this ideological shift among the parties leaves me closer to the Democrats than to the Republicans:

Let me be clear: the Democratic Party is not conservative. There simply is no conservative party in the United States these days. I stand where I have been standing. But the progressive, authoritarian lurch of the Republican Party has left me standing alone.

Ronald Reagan once said: “I didn't leave the Democratic party, the Democratic Party left me.”

I am not a Democrat. I will likely not be a Democrat. I will support Democrats where and when they deserve my support, and I will offer Republicans the same support when deserved. That is, when they stand against the tyrannical malignancy of the White House and recommit themselves to the conservative principles of subsidiarity, federalism, and Chestertonian impulses.

Until that day, I will have no choice but to say that I didn’t leave the Republican Party; the Republican Party left me.