Something interesting I’ve been mulling over recently is the idea that instead of a linear left-right political spectrum, its more like a horsesoe. As you get closer to one end you actually get closer to the other and at the very end there is almost nothing differentiating you from the other side other than that small gap. You can see where this line of thinking makes sense when you look at extreme right wing facist governments (eg. Hitler, Mussolini) compared to extreme communist governments (Stalin, North Korea). Despite them being on complete opposite sides of the traditional spectrum, they more or less look the same to an outsider, authoritarian dictator, impoverished citizens, state propaganda and war-mongering. But put onto the horseshoe diogram it makes a whole lot more sense, the horseshoe model accounts for the extreme left/right much more neatly than the common one does.

The idea is by no means perfect but its a good way of highlighting problems with the binary left/right thinking that so much of our media abides by.