Table of Contents
Definitions Matter
Before I join any debate, I ask people to define the core concepts we’re about to discuss.
Left and right are words everyone uses and no one can define. Ask ten people what they mean, and you’ll get ten different answers.
Organizations Matter
Ideas alone are useless without an organizing force. There are plenty of well‑known elite organizations that sometimes repeat left and right talking points to secure votes, but they serve their own interests, as we’ll expand on later.
When did the Democratic Party last deliver for its left wing? When did the Republican Party keep its promises to “populists”?
You also can’t map the Democratic Party onto any random European left‑wing party. Most Europeans would find the comparison mildly offensive, which tells us there’s no global left or right, only local elites with local interests.
Voters are presented with a small pool of pre‑vetted organizations that never fully deliver. Your predicted vote shapes what they say, but not what they do, unless you’re actually part of the organization. Voting, in this sense, is mostly a performative ritual to justify the ruling elite.
Bitcoin
Bitcoin is a great example of a self-organized effort that transcends the left-right divide while achieving its goals through strong but leaderless organization.
I visit many Bitcoin meetups, and there’s no shortage of people who self-identify as left or right. What unites them is an anti-authoritarian stance.
No powerful mainstream political organization is truly anti-authoritarian. Power is what they’re after, and once they have it, they expand it rather than shrink it.
Bitcoin communities are full of people getting things done, and organizing is a powerful way to transcend fake ideology and achieve meaningful change.
Echoes of Cold War
The left-right divide peaked during the Cold War, but definitions were murky even then. Some used two axes where the USSR landed economic left, social right and the US landed economic right, social right.
Since then, the US has moved all over. It shifted left under Roosevelt, right under Reagan, and left socially since the 60s. China went its own way with state capitalism and social conservatism. Neither fits a simple left-right axis anymore.
The Problem With the Axis
You’ve probably seen the famous four-quadrant “political compass” that tries to place everyone from Stalin to Ayn Rand in a tidy bracket. They’re funny because they fail, and the failure is the point. Every attempt to squeeze messy reality into two neat axes ends up exposing its own absurdity.
Left-right doesn’t work. Economic/social doesn’t work. So is there a better way to make sense of what’s actually going on?
Useful Idiots
“Useful idiots” is a Cold War term that still explains a lot.
The left is a loose set of ideas with no global organization, which is perfect for empires that need an all‑inclusive ideology. Local elites exploit left‑leaning masses for legitimacy while pursuing their own goals. I call them imperialists/globalists. The EU is a classic example, where bureaucrats push for endless expansion and federalization while ignoring local concerns.
The right is equally fractured. Its isolationism and cultural purity talk are weaponized by nationalists/localists who never deliver. The MAGA movement plays this game, all rhetoric, no results. Don’t expect real change since it’s never the goal.
Both sides feel affiliated with their elites, but elites only act when it tightens their grip on power. Globalists attack localists instead of delivering healthcare. Localists expose globalists but never deliver mass remigration or reform. The promises are the point and delivery isn’t. What matters is expanding administrative control and creating more jobs for bureaucrats.
Imperialist Values
Empires are big and strong, but they are vulnerable to internal conflicts. Historically, expansionist nations have ruled over dozens of ethnicities and religions, and most eventually collapse due to nationalism and separatism. This is why nationalists are mortal enemies of imperialists, and why the left-right divide is often just a proxy war between two elite factions competing to manage or exploit these internal fractures.
There’s a reason the US is so polarized. It’s not organic at all. US rivals deliberately fuel those divisions because that’s exactly where empires are vulnerable. You hit where it hurts.
Another example of misframed imperialism is modern Russia. Abroad, Putin is framed as a nationalist strongman. Inside Russia, he’s seen quite differently, more like Biden, with the same fixation on diversity and importing millions of immigrants without the state capacity to integrate them. The external image is nationalist while in reality he’s just another imperial manager.
Nationalist Values
Nationalist elites think that ethnically and religiously homogenous society is a safer bet. Empires are volatile, and not every nation can become one, since demographics, geography, and history all impose their limits. Right-wingers, in this frame, are mostly proxies of these organized nationalist groups.
That said, nationalism isn’t the default mode for elites. They turn nationalist when they don’t see a path to imperial expansion, or when they need to resist an external threat. North Korea, Iran, and even China fit this pattern. Each has good reason to maximize internal cohesion since they’re all targets of the biggest, meanest empire of our time.
Conclusion
Framing both camps as equal, and equally Machiavellian, might come across as cynical. But I invite people to think about deliverables instead of ideas. Both left-wingers and right-wingers end up disappointed when their favored elite group gets power. That’s the best evidence that they’re being used and kept in the dark.
Ideas are meaningless without organization. Good intentions will always be weaponized by elites to justify their rule. So when someone self-identifies as a leftist or a rightist, a good question to ask is: “Which organization, and what did it do to advance your cause?”