Every flag
77 American political movements, grouped into 12 families. The family decides the colour on the map, the right runs warm, the left runs cool, so you can read which way the country is leaning without reading a single label.
Revolutionary Left
8Movements that want the whole arrangement replaced rather than reformed.
AnarchistNo rulers, no state, no bosses, organised from the bottom or not at all.
Anarcho-SyndicalistThe union is the government-in-waiting; the general strike is the method.
AntifaA tactic before it is an organisation: confront the far right in the street.
CommunistWorkers own everything, and the transition is not going to be negotiated.
Marxist–LeninistA vanguard party takes the state and runs it on the workers' behalf.
TrotskyistPermanent revolution, and a long-standing argument with everyone above.
MaoistThe countryside surrounds the city; the peasantry is the revolutionary class.
Black PowerSelf-determination and self-defence rather than integration on someone else's terms.
Progressive
7Civil rights, social liberalisation, and reform from inside the system.
ProgressiveReform, expertise, and the belief that the arc actually bends.
New Deal LiberalThe state builds things, employs people, and insures the rest.- Civil RightsEqual protection, won in courts, churches and streets.
BLMPolicing and racial justice, organised without a head office.
FeministEquality of the sexes, from suffrage to whatever this decade's fight is.
LGBTQ RightsFrom decriminalisation to marriage to whatever is on the ballot now.- WokeAlert to systemic injustice, a compliment, then an insult, now a whole war.
Green
4Politics organised around the environment first and everything else after.
EnvironmentalistConservation first: air, water, land, and what is left of the wild.
Green PartyEcology, non-violence, grassroots democracy, and a spoiler's reputation.
Climate MovementOne deadline, and everything else downstream of it.- DegrowthThe economy should get smaller on purpose, before it does so by accident.
Liberal
5The mainstream centre-left: regulated markets, expert institutions, incremental change.
DemocratThe big tent on the left, containing most of the arguments above.- Modern LiberalCivil liberties plus a regulated market plus a safety net.
- Third WayTriangulate. Win. Argue about what it cost afterwards.
- NeoliberalMarkets are the best tool available, so use them for nearly everything.
- YIMBYThe housing shortage is a policy choice. Build.
Centre
5Splitting the difference, and the people who have made a whole identity of it.
- Enlightened CentristBoth sides are the problem, and saying so is the whole platform.
- IndependentRegistered with nobody, courted by everybody.
- ForwardReform the voting system first, and the rest will follow.
- Rockefeller RepublicanFiscally conservative, socially liberal, and nearly extinct.
- Touch GrassDeclines to participate, and would like everyone to go outside.
Single Issue
6One question that matters more than the rest of the ballot.
Gun RightsShall not be infringed, and everything else is negotiable.- Gun ControlThe other half of the same argument, with the same intensity.
- Pro-LifeThe single issue that reorganised an entire party.
- Pro-ChoiceBodily autonomy, and the other half of that reorganisation.
- Drug ReformLegalise, tax, treat, and stop arresting people over it.
ProhibitionAmerica's oldest surviving third party, still against a drink.
Tech & Crypto
7Politics downstream of software: exit over voice, and a strong view on money.
TechnocratGovernment by people who can actually do the arithmetic.
TranshumanistThe human condition is a draft, and it is editable.- AccelerationistSpeed the whole thing up and find out what is on the other side.
- Crypto-LibertarianExit over voice: if the state cannot see it, it cannot tax it.
Bitcoin MaximalistOne money, hard, and everything else is a distraction.
DogeThe joke that kept going, and now has opinions about the budget.
Pirate PartyCopyright reform, privacy, and free information as a political programme.
Libertarian
6Maximum personal and economic freedom, minimum state, argued from first principles.
- Classical LiberalThe original liberalism: property, contract, and a small state.
LibertarianMaximum freedom, minimum state, and a very consistent argument.- ObjectivistRational self-interest as a moral position, argued at length.
- MinarchistCourts, police, defence. Nothing else.
AgoristBuild the black market until the state becomes irrelevant.
Anarcho-CapitalistEven the courts and the police should be bought on the open market.
Conservative
10The institutional right: markets, defence, and continuity with what worked.
RepublicanThe big tent on the right, containing most of the arguments below.- Fiscal ConservativeBalance the books. The rest is somebody else's department.
- ReaganiteTax cuts, strong defence, and a very good speech.
- NeoconservativeAmerican power, used abroad, on purpose.
ConstitutionalistThe text says what it says, and it said it in 1787.- PaleoconservativeTradition, restraint abroad, and an old quarrel with the neocons.
- Supply-SideCut the top rate and the rest is supposed to follow.
- OriginalistThe text means what it meant when it was ratified, and courts are the battleground.
- Compassionate ConservativeThe right with a welfare policy, briefly ascendant and then not.
Tea PartyTaxed enough already, the revolt that rewrote the House.
Religious Right
6Faith as the organising principle of public life.
Religious RightFaith organised as a voting bloc, and a very effective one.
EvangelicalPersonal conversion, scriptural authority, and a large ground game.- TraditionalistCustom and hierarchy over reason and reform.
- IntegralistThe state should answer to the church, and says so out loud.
- Moral MajorityThe organisation that turned pews into precincts.
American SolidarityChristian democracy: pro-life, pro-labour, and homeless in both parties.
Populist Right
8Nation, borders, and a standing quarrel with the establishment right.
- PopulistThe people against the elite, whoever is cast in each role this week.
- MAGAThe movement that took the Republican Party and kept the keys.
America FirstNo foreign entanglements, no apologies, no exceptions.- National ConservativeNation and family over market fundamentalism, the right's own revision.
- NativistBorders as the first question and most of the following ones.
Militia MovementArmed, organised, and deeply suspicious of the federal government.- Non-InterventionistNo foreign wars. An old American position with a new constituency.
Proud BoysStreet-level right, designated as extremist in more than one country.
Socialist Left
5Labour, redistribution, and public ownership by the ballot rather than the barricade.