For much of my adult life I would have described myself as centre-left on the political spectrum and with some concern for environmental issues (amongst a range of other issues).
When I was growing up the left-oriented party, the Labor (sic) party would stand up for workers rights and social justice whereas the right (the Liberals) were more interested in big business and sound economic management. It was said that one voted Labor to fix the country then voted Liberal to fix the economy.
But in the last 15-or-so years there has been a merging and blurring of some of these distinctions when the left appealed to the ‘aspirational voters’ and took a more centrist position. The right then seemed to shift left to counter these territorial claims. In those last 15 years the right has stood stationary (or taken a step or two to the left) whereas the left-left has gone ‘progressive’ at a great rate of knots.
As a result of this shift in the political divide, my position just left of centre has rapidly become mildly right of centre. Over the past few years my wife and I have recognised and discussed this shift in our political leanings. We’ve realised that our views haven’t shifted so much as it has been this movement of the left to the far left that has resulted in our alignment coming more to the right.
I heard a snippet on the TV last night that much of this was initiated by the Whitlam Labor Government picking up the tab for University education from the early 1970s–with the resultant increase in University education and the generally leftist/progressive influence of many educators in that sector.
Somewhat bizarrely Elon Musk has also been considering his political positioning and tweeted a diagram illustrating how he perceives such things.
I don’t really know what to make of all of this yet. I guess I’m no fan of either side of politics since so many politicians seem to be driven by self-interest and the desire to exercise power rather than let us constituents get on with our lives.