I don’t have the technical ability to draw this on my site, but imagine a graphic in which one axis runs from “Self-Interest” to “Values” and the other from “Elitism” to “Populism.” The various groupings in the two parties would fall in the following quadrants:
- PBPs and CLs: Elitism/Self-Interest
- Progressives: Elitism/Values
- The Moderate Left: Populism/Self-Interest
- Reactionaries: Populism/Values
You might initially object to the placement of Progressives in the Elitism/Values quadrant, but the fact of the matter is that most relatively wealthy members of the left identify with experts and vote against their economic self-interest (their wealth and status derive from factors that have nothing to do with government) in an effort to protect the country from the cultural excesses of the reactionary right. In that sense, they are truly the other side of the coin from the Reactionaries, who consistently vote for GOP members who oppose programs that would help them in order to save, as they see it, the primacy of traditional moral and political values. Members of the moderate left–typically, although not exclusively, workers and minorities–vote for Democrats who promise them real, if limited, economic benefits and protection from the right. Finally, the PBPs and CLs believe that only they have the right and the ability to run the country, and vote for GOP members who deliver them tax cuts and deregulation.