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Yes there is no left-right political spectrum. I just vote Democratic since I don’t like the fascism that the republicans are selling these days.

"So, Hoover, like a lot of people, naturally assumed that the job was to just wait out the crisis and things would right themselves eventually as it always had before. So, Hoover used the power of his office to try and cushion the blow..." That doesn't make sense the way you put it. If he figured the proper thing to do was to wait it out, then why did he do anything at all? And if the supposed solution was to do what Hoover did but more, then why did the Great Depression last so long even after all this was done?

I've been trying to make this case for years. Everyone seems to agree, but then they immediately go back to using "left" and "right" as though it means anything. Of all of the dumb ideas perpetuated by the "media", this one is the dumbest and most destructive. When your basic underlying premise is nonsensical, it's no wonder the results are garbage.

Great stuff…!

You look like Michael Scott!

Frank, you look like Michael Scott

Good Job….!

Are you aware of the 2022 book The Myth of Left and Right by Verlan and Hyrum Lewis? It has the same thesis as this video, it persuaded me, and I watched this to see if your argument is the same as theirs and it is.

How was supporting safe working conditions and care for those who can’t take care of themselves seen as a threat to liberty? Can you give some specifics? This seems like mere rhetoric, but did they have specific arguments?

Did you do a video about Coolidge, Hoover, and Eisenhower?

Great channel, Frank. You should do one on the conservatism/Republicanism of Coolidge through Nixon, with a focus on Eisenhower and Nixon.

The left and right sides of the spectrum do NOT represent a "group of principles". It simply represents the amount of govt intervention tolerated. Period. You leftists try to complicate the political spectrum because if you actually stated where Facism, Communism, Marxism and Authoritarianism were it would make you look bad. Thus, you try to slide Facism and Authoritarianism on the Right and make a Y-axis when none is needed. The left and right sides are incredibly simple--The Left believe in big top down govt and increased oppression. The Right believes in smaller localized govt. Big govt, Left; small govt, Right. That's it. So, by that definition all the ISMs are on the Left, Conservatives are on the right, Libertarians are further right and the furthest right are Anarchists. Done. There's no need to sprinkle Libertarians throughout both sides like you lefties like to do. The fact that you can't precisely place all of the political entities neatly on a 1-D spectrum shows that your definition of the political spectrum is incorrect. There's no need for a Y-axis. You leftists just don't want to own up to your ACTUAL beliefs so you try to muddy the political waters by shifting Facism where it doesn't belong. Hitler was a Socialist, it's in the name of his party, duh. You lefties put Hitler on the Right because you didn't want to look worse than you already do. Conservatives, and people on the Right, CAN'T be Authoritarians because Authoritarians believe in big gov't control, Conservatives do not. Authoritarians are on the Left next to Facists. Period. Libertarians CAN'T be on the Left because they believe in minimal govt, not more?! There's no need for a Y-axis for Collectivism and Individualism. Collectivism is Left(Communism, Marxism, Facism); Individualism is Right(Conservatism, Libertarianism and Anarchy). The Right does NOT believe in a Central Authority. They believe in just the opposite-local govts/municipalities should have more power than national govts. Secondly-Nationalism & Traditionalism- Facists believe in extreme elements of this; Conservatives do not believe in the extremes of this. Also, how is Nationalism purely Facist?? Nationalism is at play in almost all belief systems except maybe Libertarians and Anarchists?! Your 3rd argument is retarded(Anti-Communism)-the only reason Facists are not on the Right because they hate Communism. Facists hate Commies because they (the supreme leader) wants all the power and does not want a polit bureau having any authority. It has NOTHING to do with being on the opposite side of the spectrum(which once again I have to spell it out for you means, ‘more centralized govt control on the left and less centralized smaller govt on the right). Facists believe in a strong military solely to keep their power and use it against their own people when uprisings occur. Conservatives believe in a strong military for national defense reasons. Heck, if we’re gonna use THAT logic you could say that Facists and Communists are on the same side since Communist regimes like strong militaries?! See, you Lefties want to try and muddle the Left/Right spectrum with this crap because if you spoke the truth it would make the Left look as bad as it should. Nope, it's real simple--the left side of the spectrum is more centralized govt control and the right is less centralized smaller govts.

You forgot the crisis of 1919 that nobody ever talks about when you listed the different financial crisis

Who else is here after an abolitionist told you to look into the collapse of the Whig party?

I think if the email jealous can ditch the Southern white grievance they pick up mid century, The format television with the devout, but divers that looks more like the populist party of the passed. There's an even stronger indication of the universities being the center of something that looks a lot like the progressive party of that same era. The other path from here is the Trump movement.Looks a lot more like the know nothings. That will be resolved in an authoritarian right regressive in the model of Victor orbon VS a coalition of essentially progressives and populists that looks more like what just won the polish election. The disruption is the disappearance of white christianity as a majority center. It was a non virtuous majority center.But that baseline is going away,. Really it's down to forty percent which is not much of a majority. The white churches would be analogous to coastal colonialism I think.

I think it’s clear we started the new realignment in 2016 with the victory of trump in the republican primary we see the infighting of the Republican Party especially with things like Liz Cheney getting primaried out or even Matt Gatez removing Keven McCarthy for not supporting the new wing of the party enough

We have one political party today, the Democrats, throwing their political opponents into jail because they don't see those opponents as legitimate.

This is great until you drop things after the New Deal. It would seem you've been asleep for the last 30 years. There is a massive realignment happening now and you don't even approach it.

Love your channel I have learned a lot about the Jacksonian era which I am very fascinated by!

Well Presented!

мои дети в восторге

Dude, what happened? Where’s the next episode? We got left on the side of the road before we talked above t the “next realignment”!

The American pendulum may be a product of Republicanism. Unlike Monarchies or older nations, America has no central cultural tradition that unites the nation. America is an experiment that's less than 300 years old. The pendulum motif is a function of finding its core values as a nation. Unfortunately, the obsession with individualism negates the effort to create consensus, particularly as no central cultural and historical value is shared by all, and there never will be.

8:48 he kind of sounds like Tucker Carlson

Carter, Clinton Dems abandoned New Deal decades ago, now mostly work for Wall Street, billionaires, lobbyists

why does everyone now pronounce "neither" as neye-ther?

This 1st New deal always sends chills down my spine: a corporatist big state idea that seems just so incredibly wrong that I’m always surprised that more people haven’t opposed FDR at that point of time. But it’s quite clear many were quite fascinated by non-democratic countries of the time.

Love your content, but can't get behind this one... Liberal is left, Conservative is right. If this is the case - there's no such thing as Democrat or Republican, no one completely agrees 100% across issues.

the Republicans are still the knowing nothing party take a look at their policies and the people they try to elect.

Fascinating! As a Brit, I had never heard of the American Whig party or President Polk. The British Whigs also imploded in the 1860s. Wonder if there was a connection?

McKinley was one of our best Presidents, so it's good that WJB lost to him twice.

Rest in peace Huey Long. Every man a king!

Hope is an overused hypothesis. History is a record of what happened, not what should happen. History reminds us daily that people do not learn from history. History is today! What you're doing today will shape your and the nation's future. If we keep electing foolish, greedy, incompetent leaders, we will get what we have today: foolish, greedy, incompetent leaders. This is a problem for the public. The public sucks - not politicians!

History is created in the present. Speculation and hoping only hamstrings individuals and nations. Do right today, deal with the problems of today, then, and only then, we may be able to deal with the future.

I just discovered your channel, Frank, and it's fantastic. I'm a great lover of History - I was raised in Britain, where it's forced down your throat. Strangely, after traveling around the world, I learned to really appreciate History. I've ordered your book: The Next Realignment, and am anxiously awaiting its arrival. I find your quirky, positive insightful presentation and vision a welcome and needed resource. I'm writing a satire of the American Civil War, comparing the periods 1850-1870 to 2000-2024. I'll be happy to send along some samples for your perusal if that's appropriate. I plan on watching all your videos a few times, for their brevity and insights. Thank you so much for your efforts. Be well.

7:30 running in a third-party after losing in one party no longer possible due to sore-loser laws

2:39 Populists - rural workers, farmers - were locked out of the educated, religious urban middle class Progressives' prosperous industrial revolution. Third Great Awakening Christian Reformers plan to change rules, institutions - rather than minds - via "social gospel" 4:43 educated middle-class women in the Progressive movement: ban child labor, improve working conditions, social work, anti-trust legislation, efficiency, fight corruption, promote conservation, temperance, public education, womens suffrage 10:00 Republicans the social, moral reformers but Protestant / evangelical 10:54 Teddy Roosevelt becomes president after William McKinley assassinated (TR had been chosen as VP to help offset McKinley scandal)

Shame this guy is a weirdo conservative just like all these American historians. I don't have an issue with conservatives, but it's this particular breed of them that seem to be pop up around this subject matter that I find particularly grating.

Left = supports more equality Right = supports more inequality Center = supports neither

Dude! This is the 6th system we are coming to an end to. It started with the election of 1980.

The two parties are a conglomerate of various groups and ideologies that otherwise wouldn't have anything in common with each other except that they somehow ended up in the same party. Progressivism and liberalism were originally two completely different ideologies until they were merged in the Democratic Party. Same thing with free market liberalism and social conservativism in the Republican Party.

What about Ranked Choice Voting?

@3:25 well duh they were only pundits. The unifying factor for the entire conservative movement is opposition. They are nothing but contrarians solely for the purpose of contradicting. They offer nothing and stand for nothing

What's the point of having party primaries? It makes more sense to have multiple parties in the general election.

Huey Long, Caughlin, and Townsend were pro Hitler and pro Fascism

Great info!

These are outstanding.

I know this channel seems to be inactive but i figure some people will still watch the videos and read the comments. I definitely think there are issues with the left-center-right spectrum for sure but I think it's a little disingenuous to say it's not at least pretty vaguely defined. For at least the last century or so the left has been more associated with individual autonomy and collective needs, freedom, equality, solidarity, justice, internationalism, participatory self-governance and economics, social progressivism and acceptance of differences, science/education, etc, (more simply put socialism, direct democracy or consensus methods, and social egalitarianism). While the right has been more associated with centralized power (liberal nation states, monarchism, fascism, theocracy, etc), rigid hierarchical social/ruling/economic formations, reactionary/conservative views, nationalism, ethnic supremacy, anti-intellectualism, traditionalism, strict social order and rigid social norms, upholding class distinctions, simultaneously demanding hyper-individualism in some scenarios (bootstrap, no safety net, every man for himself, etc) and hyper-conformity in others (submitting to those in power without resistance or question be it all to the state, woman to man, child to parent, etc, punishing anything perceived as "different" even when its something natural like same-sex relationships or pushing against gender norms, generally pushing for cultural hegemony, etc, etc, etc), religious dominance, etc. And the center being those who attempt to blend these things in some way and generally tend to have an incoherent worldview. However, there are those that defy all of these things like the U.S.S.R which was a wild blend of left and right and in many ways undermined itself constantly by doing so creating the very contradictions that lead to it's collapse. They claimed to want peace, freedom, and prosperity for all yet were almost fascistic in their approach, institutionalized violence in a way that was no different from a right-wing state and engaged in imperialism just the same, largely replaced the party with the aristocracy and the state with the bourgeoisie leading to little change in social relations (state capitalism and party dominance instead of semi-feudal mercantile and liberal capitalism and royal/aristocratic rule), etc. They claimed to be internationalists while constantly undermining socialist movements that didn't align with them and taking over the ones that did and being closed off to much of the world. They were just as prone to bigotry and patriarchal norms. All that and more which has lead to mamy viewing them as a right-wing deviation and even "red fascism", or fascism with a red paint job because their rhetoric, symbols, and stated ideals, intentions, and goals were typically dramatically different from their actions and results. Prior to Lenin very few accepted that level of authoritarianism and centralization as having anything to do with socialism (which they never achieved in all those years despite having it prior to the October Bolshevik Coup 🤦🏽‍♂️), Marx woulda been jumping off bridges. There are also states that are technically monarchies that have some of the most egalitarian and free living situations and places like the US that are a complicated mix of things that rarely makes sense. There's also the issue of the "Overton Window", or the acceptable range of discussion in a given area. What's called "left" in the US is dramatically different than what is viewed as "left" in a place like Cameroon which will be a little different from Laos which will be a different from Uruguay, and so on. So it's definitely mushy in that way. There is no perfect spectrum, always exceptions, a lot to consider and factor in, and better ways to discuss these things imo, but to act like left and right are just totally vapid and ill-defined just isn't the case. Just cause so many in the US are historically, politically, economically, and socially illiterate doesn't mean the whole world is. But again, I agree that it's a weak tool and at best a shorthand that only really tells part of the story. And democracy doesn't naturally split the population into 2 groups. Ideally it would split the population into many groups that work towards a compromise. So, the fatal flaw in your analysis is you're not separating what these groups want in the immediate term compared to their end goals and it's really those end goals that you'd judge left vs center vs right on. Pretty much no one is happy with the way things are and would like to see some dramatic change, thats not really a factor. A traditionalist/ conservative/ reactionary doesn't wanna keep things as they currently are, they're tryna retain some mythical lost past most of the time, they want radical change just like pretty much every other group. It's really where they're trying to go (and how they want to get there) that tells you where they stand. Libertarianism historically was a shorthand for libertarian socialist or anarchist or something along those lines, it wasn't til the Rothbard/Friedman era of the mid 20th Century and later that they stole the term and abused it to the point that it slowly became associated with right-"Libertarianism" despite them openly admitting they weren't actually libertarians at all. And they're right not because of their love of the power of the state but because capitalism is right-wing by pretty much every standard and they believe it should be the ruler of society with all the inequality and coercion that comes with it. Power comes in many forms, the state is just one. Again, I absolutely think it's a flawed method but it's not as complicated as you're making it out to be imo.

This video made me subscribe instantly, great work

Frank DiStefano is an Italian-American. I love Italian-Americans.