This video is sponsored in part by Newsvoice
I’m Mr. Beat If you regularly watch this channel, it is
almost certain that you know about and have probably taken the Political Compass Test.
Despite it definitely having many flaws, it remains one of the most popular websites to
quickly see where one’s values and beliefs fit on a political spectrum. The spectrum
is based on two axes, a social one, and an economic one. The social one ranges from authoritarianism/fascism
to anarchy. The economic one ranges from collectivism/communism to libertarianism/liberalism.
Two of my biggest criticisms of the test is 1) that every issue doesn’t fall neatly
into just two spectrums, ok? I think you need a lot of different spectrums. The 8values and 9axes
tests do a better job simply because they offer more spectrums.
And 2) the questions are just not the best
They are often loaded and you can’t just give a neutral response- it lumps you into
a box pretty quickly.
And I get it, you gotta draw the line somewhere, but that’s one reason why every time I take
the quiz I get different results.
It’s also a mysterious test- no one knows who exactly runs it, but apparently it was created
by a New Zealand political journalist named Wayne Brittenden. Some even speculate that
it’s designed to make everyone think they lean libertarian.
Ok, so yeah, the test is far from perfect, and it probably won't tell you where you really stand politically, but screw it. Let’s have some fun with this test, ok?
anyway. I'm pretty much apparently now known as the American Presidents history dude on YouTube, so let's say that
every President in American history was actually able to take the Political Compass Test. I think
I know enough about each of the Presidents that, I may be able to pull this off.
Emperortigerstar and I chatted about this, so I give full credit to him for the idea.
Now, the Political Compass test folks did release this chart:
And Trump, Obama, Bush Jr., Reagan, Washington, and Jefferson are on there, but just to be
safe, I’m going to take the test again for them as well. And yes, that would require
that I take the Political Compass Test 44 times, pretending I am each of the 44 Presidents
throughout American history. There are 62 questions on the test, and according to my calculations, that means I will
be answering 2,728 questions. Ok...crap. I better get started.
(2 weeks later)
I'm Mr. Beat. I think I already said that, at the beginning of the video. But yeah, hey! The bad news is, I haven’t
slept much lately...but the good news. I have the results. Ellie, could you please put those
up. No, click that right there...the Power Point. Yeah. It's my cat, I'm still training her to help me out with these videos. Yeah, right there. Yes.
Thank you. Oh hey, could you maybe play some music as we run through these? There we go.
(calming indie rock plays)
So there you have it. Now as I pretended to be different Presidents
taking the tests, it was quite clear that some of the questions were specifically geared
toward what’s going on right now. Take this question: It’s a sad reflection on our society
that something as basic as drinking water is now a bottled, branded consumer product.
Obviously, George Washington would have no freaking idea what bottled water was, so I
had to imagine what George would think if he did know what bottled water was. That's how I answered the question. Oh, here’s
another example: No broadcasting institution, however independent
its content, should receive public funding. I mean, if Andrew Jackson DID know about PBS he
probably WOULD have been against it.
This question was also problematic for so many of them
Mothers may have careers, but their first duty is to be homemakers.
Ok so I think many of the Presidents would not only not want mothers having careers but WOMEN having careers
so that question was a particularly difficult one to answer.
Most of them would likely be ok with marijuana legalization, but today that seems to be
more of a left leaning position. Here’s another pattern. If Presidents were
more ideological, I tended to put “Strongly Agree” or “Strongly Disagree” more,
whereas if they were more pragmatic I tended to put just “Agree” or “Disagree”
more. Again, I really wish there was a neutral option.
There was one big trend that I just did not see coming. And I guess I was naive here,
but I predicted that most of them would lean libertarian due to all of them being, you
know, AMERICAN, and valuing things like a limited government and democracy. But boy
was I wrong. Most lean authoritarian. I did predict that more of them would lean to the economic
right. Free markets and capitalism and all that jazz has been a huge part of our culture
going all the way back to the colonial era.
Other surprises? Most of the left libertarian results I did not see coming...especially
Bill Clinton. Also, I honestly was very surprised to see Woodrow Wilson is way up here. Perhaps
I was too biased while answering questions pretending I was him.
You know what? That’s probably where I should end this analysis. My own biases definitely
affected how the perception I had of how each President would answer these questions. Plus, by the time
I got to Herbert Hoover, I probably got a little sloppy answering these things due to
fatigue.
Regardless, this was one of the most fun videos I have ever made. So I don’t
care if I didn’t sleep. Hahahahahahahahaha
But what do YOU think? Let me know which ones you disagree with.
This video is once again sponsored by Newsvoice. Newsvoice is my favorite place to look at
the news. It’s a free app that is breaking people out of those news bubbles and is revolutionizing
the news landscape. Newsvoice gives you a personalized news feed by aggregating major
news sites, including international and independent media. The best part about it? It shows multiple
sources for the same stories, and tags the bias and perspective of each source. You can
upvote stories you find interesting and add stories or links that are missing. So dig
deeper, and try Newsvoice by clicking the link to download it in the description and
pinned comment. Thanks to Newsvoice for sponsoring this video.
Seriously? What do you think? Which ones do you disagree with? Which ones do you agree with? Let
me know in the comments below. Also, what is your favorite political ideology quiz, because I know
the Political Compass Test is kinda lame these days. Alright, I'm getting pretty tired now. I think I'm going to go ahead and go to sleep.