Where do you fit?

May 4, 2011 12:58 PM

Where do you fit? Main Street Republican? New Coalition Democrat? Post Modern? Disaffected? It's the Pew Research Center's 2011 Political Typology Quiz.
posted by box (181 comments total)

I got "solid liberal" for my response, which surprises me not one whit.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:01 PM on May 4, 2011 [14 favorites]

I'm a Post-Modern...
posted by zeoslap at 1:02 PM on May 4, 2011

Huh. Solid Liberal. Not exactly what I was expecting.
posted by brundlefly at 1:02 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

I came in as a solid liberal, which in the U.S. scale of political alignments is probably about right.

I have to say that I don't like either answer to many of these questions, though.
posted by rollbiz at 1:02 PM on May 4, 2011 [26 favorites]

I got "terrible person" for my response. They weren't even testing for that!
posted by schmod at 1:03 PM on May 4, 2011 [78 favorites]

Solid liberal as well. I wonder how I would have scored 7 years ago when I was 18 and considered myself independent.
posted by lizjohn at 1:03 PM on May 4, 2011

Solid Liberal, which kinda makes sense with be living in socialist Sweden and all.

But I would prefer if the quiz was based on d&d concept of alignment - Chaotic Good ftw.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 1:04 PM on May 4, 2011 [7 favorites]

FYI - Post Modern is described as...

Generally supportive of government, though more conservative on race policies and the safety net
Strongly supportive of regulation and environmental protection
Most (56%) say Wall Street helps the economy more than it hurts
Very liberal on social issues, including same-sex marriage
One of the least religious groups: nearly a third are unaffiliated with any religious tradition
Favor the use of diplomacy rather than force

Who They Are
The youngest of the typology groups: 32% under age 30
A majority are non-Hispanic white and have at least some college experience
Half live in either the Northeast or the West
A majority (58%) live in the suburbs
63% use social networking
One-in-five regularly listen to NPR; 14% regularly watch The Daily Show

Which is pretty accurate.
posted by zeoslap at 1:04 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Count me among those wishing for a better answer to some of these questions.
posted by tommasz at 1:05 PM on May 4, 2011 [14 favorites]

I guess "solid liberal". But, yes, some of the questions could have used a few more than two answers. For instance, I believe both that the government deserves more credit for the things it does and that it, in its current state, incurs a lot of inefficiency and waste.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 1:05 PM on May 4, 2011 [13 favorites]

lizjohn: "Solid liberal as well. I wonder how I would have scored 7 years ago when I was 18 and considered myself independent."

Heh. Yeah. I guess I still consider myself "independent", even as my views have shifted.
posted by brundlefly at 1:05 PM on May 4, 2011

Solid liberal, but it's too easy to play those questions to the answer you want.
posted by tatma at 1:05 PM on May 4, 2011

Yeah, I'm Post Modern as well, which in their ranking of things means dead center. Which is pretty accurate for me.
posted by PapaLobo at 1:06 PM on May 4, 2011

Post Modern. Seems right to me.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:06 PM on May 4, 2011

Why do I have to pick which kind of Democrat or Republican I am? Can't I hate both parties?
posted by shakespeherian at 1:07 PM on May 4, 2011 [13 favorites]

Here, let me save everyone the time; if you post/read here regularly, you will return "Solid Liberal" 9 members out of 10. The other one lies.
posted by Keith Talent at 1:07 PM on May 4, 2011 [10 favorites]

I don't think solid liberal and independent are mutually exclusive.
posted by pwally at 1:08 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

That's a terrible survey.
posted by raysmj at 1:11 PM on May 4, 2011 [12 favorites]

Solid Liberal, obviously.

A lot of stuff bugs me about this quiz, though. First of all, yeah, the binary choices here are WAY too oversimplified. Secondly, gender politics and reproductive rights aren't represented ANYWHERE in the questions. Third, WTF is a "bystander" and why does Pew consider "Solid Liberal" to be but one step removed from that? Fourth, only 58% of the general public believes homosexuality oughta be accepted by society? Really now? In the 21st century, we still have that many bigoted dipshits in this country? That's goddamn embarrassing.
posted by EatTheWeak at 1:11 PM on May 4, 2011 [4 favorites]

Solid liberal, completely unsurprising.
posted by empath at 1:11 PM on May 4, 2011

What is the best use of government money?
(a) Nuke Mecca
(b) Throw it in a big hole

What is your preferred healthcare system?
(a) Blue Cross Blue Shield
(b) None

Who was the greatest president ever?
(a) George W. Bush
(b) Barack Obama
posted by theodolite at 1:12 PM on May 4, 2011 [54 favorites]

Fourth, only 58% of the general public believes homosexuality oughta be accepted by society? Really now? In the 21st century, we still have that many bigoted dipshits in this country? That's goddamn embarrassing.

It was probably closer to 2% fifty years ago. Cultural change takes time.
posted by empath at 1:13 PM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

Huh. Last time I took this quiz it told me I was a Rocker. Now it says I'm a Mod.
posted by The World Famous at 1:13 PM on May 4, 2011 [7 favorites]

Ah, the annual exercise in false dichotomies as a method of determining your political stance. To wit:

This country should do whatever it takes to protect the environment

vs.

This country has gone too far in its efforts to protect the environment

I believe neither of these statements. It is entirely possible to believe that this country should do less than "whatever it takes" to protect the environment, without believing that it has "gone too far" in what it is doing now. For example, I might believe that the country should do more than it is doing now, but not everything under the sun.

In general, the phrasing of these questions shoehorns you into supporting extreme positions that have little to do with your actual feelings. Which, I suppose, is an accurate reflection of the democratic process in the US these days...
posted by googly at 1:14 PM on May 4, 2011 [21 favorites]

Libertarian... but very dissatisfied with many of the choices given.
posted by gyc at 1:15 PM on May 4, 2011

The other one lies.

About masturbation?
posted by PapaLobo at 1:15 PM on May 4, 2011

Pretty tame survey, and of course, I ended up a solid liberal. What I didn't realize is what a typical solid liberal I am: female, graduate degree, irreligious, listens to NPR, watches the Daily Show and reads the NYT, buys organic food, passport holder, parents are immigrants.

I'm a fucking walking stereotype.
posted by msali at 1:15 PM on May 4, 2011 [15 favorites]

Says I'm a Solid Liberal. Too bad we don't have a liberal party in the US any more.
posted by QIbHom at 1:15 PM on May 4, 2011 [20 favorites]

Huh. Last time I took this quiz it told me I was a Rocker. Now it says I'm a Mod.

Great are we going to have a big Meta about your deletion habits now too?
posted by shakespeherian at 1:16 PM on May 4, 2011 [3 favorites]

See, my problem is that while the 'Solid Liberal' descriptor is fairly accurate for me, the only way to self-identify political party-wise seemed to indicate that independent was between the two parties. I'd call myself an independent because I don't find a comfortable fit in either the frother-moron conservatism of the Republican/Teabag side, or the pewling ineffectual moderate conservatism of the Democrat side.

Altho it was funny that in a dichotomy questionnaire, I could just go down the left side and not read the right side, saying either 'Yes, that's mostly reasonable, I agree with this' or 'Good god, that's imbecilic, I'm selecting the opposite of this no matter what it is'.
posted by FatherDagon at 1:17 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

I think these questions are pretty transparent, but then again, I also thought the same of the questions in Bob Altemeyer's - The Authoritarians (asked in a survey style with an Agree/Disagree scale):

___ 1. The established authorities generally turn out to be right about things, while the radicals and protestors are usually just “loud mouths” showing off their ignorance.
___ 2. Women should have to promise to obey their husbands when they get married.
___ 3. Our country desperately needs a mighty leader who will do what has to be done to destroy the radical new ways and sinfulness that are ruining us.
___ 4. Gays and lesbians are just as healthy and moral as anybody else.
___ 5. It is always better to trust the judgment of the proper authorities in government and
religion than to listen to the noisy rabble-rousers in our society who are trying to create doubt in people’s minds
___ 6. Atheists and others who have rebelled against the established religions are no doubt every bit as good and virtuous as those who attend church regularly.
___ 7. The only way our country can get through the crisis ahead is to get back to our traditional values, put some tough leaders in power, and silence the troublemakers spreading bad ideas.

Surprisingly, plenty of people diverge on these kinds of questions, even though they seem amazingly transparent.
posted by odinsdream at 1:17 PM on May 4, 2011 [3 favorites]

Libertarian. I'm more-or-less okay with where that puts me on their spectrum (right of center, but not that far right of center) but I wouldn't say that I have much in common ideologically with actual libertarians.

I believe both that the government is entirely within its rights to do just about whatever the hell it wants but that doing so is a bad idea most of the time. Where does that put me?
posted by valkyryn at 1:17 PM on May 4, 2011

I'm a fucking walking stereotype.

Let me guess, you're like New York, Jewish, left-wing, liberal, intellectual, Central Park West, Brandeis University, the socialist summer camps and the, the father with the Ben Shahn drawings, right, and the really, y'know, strike-oriented kind of, red diaper, stop me before I make a complete imbecile of myself.
posted by shakespeherian at 1:18 PM on May 4, 2011 [7 favorites]

Great are we going to have a big Meta about your deletion habits now too?

Seriously, can you imagine the backlash?
posted by The World Famous at 1:18 PM on May 4, 2011

So depressing that the percentage of liberals in the US is listed as 14%. Sigh.
posted by Auden at 1:19 PM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

Let me guess, you're like New York, Jewish, left-wing, liberal, intellectual, Central Park West, Brandeis University, the socialist summer camps and the, the father with the Ben Shahn drawings, right, and the really, y'know, strike-oriented kind of, red diaper, stop me before I make a complete imbecile of myself.

Wow, THAT is me, except my father is gay and I went to Kenyon College.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:20 PM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

Another post modern here
posted by dabug at 1:21 PM on May 4, 2011

I got solid-one-love.
posted by Eideteker at 1:21 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Solid liberal here. Funny, since I've been called a Randian on this very forum. FWIW, I view myself as a liberaltarian.

Questions did suck, though.
posted by 2N2222 at 1:23 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

According to the quiz, I am a "Solid Liberal".

I expected better from the Pew Research Center. Really, I have taken more nuanced and in-depth Facebook quizzes.
posted by Xoebe at 1:23 PM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

Also Solid Liberal, but only because I was forced into choosing 'least of evil' options on a number of questions. I really, REALLY don't like the way the issues are framed in that questionnaire.

I'm not sure where I'd come out on a more accurate quiz, since I tend to be kinda libertarian, socially liberal and fiscally conservative. And I think blacks don't need affirmative action -- what they need is a justice system that's not designed to grind them into powder. I think they'd probably do a HELL of a lot better without the War on Drugs. Our legal system is utterly, absolutely, appallingly racist, and I think that's most of the reason for the continued split in economic outcomes. The police are an actively malignant force in many (most?) black communities.

So I picked 'society hasn't done enough', but that lumps me in with people who want to damage the tests until the 'right' skin colors can pass it, no matter how incompetent they might otherwise be. They want the problem to LOOK fixed, not actually BE fixed, and it really annoys me to be grouped with that crowd.

I'm a "Solid Liberal" only in the sense that I'm not a brain-damaged bible-thumper.
posted by Malor at 1:25 PM on May 4, 2011 [7 favorites]

I got solid-one-love.

I got World B. Free
posted by msali at 1:25 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

I got "terrible person" for my response. They weren't even testing for that!

Oh, thank god, I thought it was just me.
posted by briank at 1:27 PM on May 4, 2011

Card carrying liberal here, not really a surprise but what a shitty quiz. Some of those questions seem like they were written in 1965.
posted by octothorpe at 1:28 PM on May 4, 2011

Solid Liberal and not surprised either, though I wasn't thrilled with the "I quack" or "I don't quack" polarity aimed at determining on which side of the Duck/Not Duck axis I fall and how far out on the limb.

I frequently felt that neither response really captured what I felt. Perhaps I am a merganser duck as opposed to a mallard. And a sturgeon and an alpaca are very different things while being equally non-duck.
posted by Naberius at 1:28 PM on May 4, 2011 [3 favorites]

Post-modern.

The questions are overly binary.
posted by aerotive at 1:29 PM on May 4, 2011 [3 favorites]

You guys are not gonna believe this, but: Solid Liberal.
posted by contessa at 1:31 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

*GASP*

Solid liberal.

*yawn*
posted by likeso at 1:32 PM on May 4, 2011

So I picked 'society hasn't done enough', but that lumps me in with people who want to damage the tests until the 'right' skin colors can pass it, no matter how incompetent they might otherwise be.

Yeah, I hate being lumped in with straw men too.
posted by DaDaDaDave at 1:33 PM on May 4, 2011 [7 favorites]

Obviously, the survey's options are repellently shallow... but now that I think about it, they mirror the two-party political debate and conventional political axis, as presented by the mainstream media, really rather well.

The Pew Foundation: Reminding You of What's Acceptable, Since 1948.
posted by darth_tedious at 1:37 PM on May 4, 2011 [3 favorites]

They weren't really interested in testing for Libertarianism. No questions about drugs, guns, or foreign policy (as in should we have less overall, not just military vs. diplomacy, and instead focus on building our own nation and fixing our own problems). Really wretched, agenda-based questionnaire.

Once again, I'm talking about True Libertarianism, not "I got mine" anarcho-capitalist ladder-kicking.
posted by Eideteker at 1:38 PM on May 4, 2011

Apparently I'm liberal. And solidly so.

Since it was so binary, I would have preferred a different phrasing, like "Emphatically on the side of all that is good and just and standing firm against the villainous efforts to corrode our country though lies and misguided efforts to return us to history that never actually existed", but I'll take what I can get, I guess.
posted by quin at 1:38 PM on May 4, 2011 [5 favorites]

On non-preview, I agree with what darth_tedious said. Really just designed to reinforce the two-party false dichotomy and stifle real discussion/debate.
posted by Eideteker at 1:39 PM on May 4, 2011

Solid liberal, but only because the choices were generally too middle-of-the-road to reflect my actual opinions and positions...
posted by jim in austin at 1:40 PM on May 4, 2011

I'm a solid liberal and also an independent (I tend to vote Green recently). Note that only 75% of Solid Liberals consider themselves to be Democrats, and only 84% of Staunch Conservatives consider themselves to be Republicans.

This research also supports my theory that this country is generally more liberal than either its media image or its voting record.
posted by muddgirl at 1:41 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

I scored "Orthogonal To The Artificial Dichotomy And Unlikely To Fall For Media Messages Hook Line and Sinker"
posted by chimaera at 1:42 PM on May 4, 2011 [3 favorites]

"Solid liberal" here, which caused a brief flash of self-hatred until I saw that it was as far left as you could get according to their scale.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 1:44 PM on May 4, 2011 [4 favorites]

I'm a liberal, but I'm filled with sugar creme like a Cadbury Egg.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 1:45 PM on May 4, 2011 [4 favorites]

Solid liberal, even though I purposely tanked a few questions about race and poverty.

This makes everything I have seen, or will see, out of Pew, very suspect. What a shallow, shitty survey. And someone was compensated for writing this and putting it up on the web?
posted by Danf at 1:47 PM on May 4, 2011 [3 favorites]

They should do one for Wisconsin.

Scott Walker is doing a great job. | I am an asshole.
posted by desjardins at 1:48 PM on May 4, 2011 [3 favorites]

I have to say that I don't like either answer to many of these questions, though.

Yeah, the questions didn't leave much room for subtle distinctions.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 1:48 PM on May 4, 2011

Wow, I flubbed that. Never mind.
posted by desjardins at 1:48 PM on May 4, 2011 [7 favorites]

I got "disaffected"

Primarily because I'm broke. Seriously.

If you hate corporations and love social welfare but are poor and religious, you're...not a liberal.

I hate you, poll.
posted by the young rope-rider at 1:50 PM on May 4, 2011 [3 favorites]

Staunch conservative. I'm sure you are all just shocked to hear that.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 1:50 PM on May 4, 2011

JESUS WAS DISAFFECTED

ME AND JESUS WALKING TOGETHER OUTSIDE OF THE TWO PARTY SYSTEM

WATCHIN' NASCAR


(I'm not religious but whatever, apparently these are my people)

(also I hate NPR, maybe they could sense that)
posted by the young rope-rider at 1:51 PM on May 4, 2011 [3 favorites]

This makes everything I have seen, or will see, out of Pew, very suspect. What a shallow, shitty survey. And someone was compensated for writing this and putting it up on the web?

First of all, it's not really a survey. It's a somewhat-annoying way to present the results of a survey. You can read the whole report here.

I repeat: This is not a survey, it's a quiz. Feel free to take it about as seriously as the "Which Disney Princess Are You?" Facebook app.
posted by muddgirl at 1:53 PM on May 4, 2011 [5 favorites]

I too got post-modern but I had always thought of myself as politics nouveau or possibly deco...
posted by GuyZero at 1:54 PM on May 4, 2011 [3 favorites]

On the results page, click "economic stress" under the "Compare the Typology Groups On:" section. Then click "national satisfaction".

It looks like it must be miserable to be anywhere north of pomo.

Oh and not surprisingly I'm a solid liberal.

ps this is my 1,000th comment.
posted by thsmchnekllsfascists at 1:55 PM on May 4, 2011

Would you
a) hold a baby
b) eat a baby
posted by boo_radley at 1:56 PM on May 4, 2011 [26 favorites]

Dammit, Solid liberal, and I so wanted to get post modern. Might have to take it again.
posted by Ad hominem at 1:58 PM on May 4, 2011

I'm easy. I'm a Marxist Redneck Academic Dystopian
posted by fourcheesemac at 2:01 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Two years ago I would have classed myself as libertarian. This quiz says I'm a solid liberal. I think I'm ok with that.

Silly quiz aside, the survey results are far more interesting. For example, from the solid liberals Pew says we are:

Best educated of the groups
Regularly listen to NPR
Much more likely to have a passport
Regular buyers of organic foods
More likely to be first or second generation Americans


Which, if I'm a Tea Partier (or perhaps more nefariously Glenn Beck) could be re-parsed as:

Solid liberals are basically a bunch of hippie-food-eating ivory-tower academics who love liberal media and would rather spend more time outside of America than in it. And they're parents are probably from another country that is not America ergo TERRORISM

. . .

At least that's what I seem to hear often.
posted by jnrussell at 2:04 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Basically Solid Liberals are the people featured in "Stuff White People Like"

Hence NPR and organic foods
posted by the young rope-rider at 2:09 PM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

The immigration question didn't distinguish between family immigration and work-related immigration, which is probably too fine of an issue for this broad of a discussion but probably is also a marker for serious differences in political philosophy.

(Walking "Stuff White People Like" stereotype here.)
posted by immlass at 2:14 PM on May 4, 2011

Solid Liberal has the highest percentage.

In a FPTP voting system, we OWN.
posted by panaceanot at 2:15 PM on May 4, 2011

Yeah. Solid Liberal. Mostly because Social Democrat wasn't an option. Can I move to Sweden now?

But yeah, that quiz was a little silly.
posted by grapesaresour at 2:19 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Post-Modern, and apparently one of the very few MeFites capable of understanding the instruction "Even if neither statement is exactly right, choose the response that comes closest to your views."
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 2:22 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

I feel almost like I'm being goaded into picking the liberal stances, even on issues where I'm more moderate, because they phrase the conservative responses in such unlikable ways. I usually hate those tests where I have to choose from the five positions (You know, strongly agree, mildly agree, undecided, etc), but it's not so great having to be all for or all against something. I was really expecting something more nuanced than "Are you right or left on this issue?"

I got solid liberal, which is pretty true. Interesting it said that only 75% of them are Democrats, as opposed to 84% of hard-pressed Democrats. Then again, I've noticed that people who tend to have strong or fringe political views often pride themselves on being "independent," even when it's obvious they'll only vote for one party. See how Glenn Beck and the Tea Party both pride themselves on being "non-partisan." Then again, with FPTP and strategic voting, we're mostly just voting against the party we disagree with, so maybe in an ideal system where multiple parties can flourish, so called "Independents" who never swing between the two parties would actually fluctuate between different candidates as their first choice.
posted by mccarty.tim at 2:22 PM on May 4, 2011

Are LGBT rights the new Choice?
posted by munchingzombie at 2:23 PM on May 4, 2011

Solid Liberal, as expected.
posted by wadefranklin at 2:24 PM on May 4, 2011

> First of all, it's not really a survey. It's a somewhat-annoying way to present the results of a survey.

That's an excellent point-- really, this is a bit of marketing shtick.

They may as well have collected an email into the bargain, or asked you to "Like" the page on FaceBook.
posted by darth_tedious at 2:34 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Are LGBT rights the new Choice?

They are the next hill to take, if that's what you're asking.
posted by The World Famous at 2:34 PM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

I imagine DOMA will become a big issue around the 2012 election. The defense is probably not going to do so well in court, and the socially conservative GOP base will want it reinstated or replaced with some other restriction on marriage if it gets declared unconstitutional before them, Mitch Daniels be damned. Unfortunately for the GOP, polls show that Americans are currently split on gay marriage, and, if trends continue, a significant majority will support it by 2012. The Tea Party and GOP can't help themselves when it comes to social issues, even when the economy is bad. Hence their attempts at defunding Planned Parenthood and trying to redefine rape so that it's harder to get an abortion in cases of rape or incest when the public is actually pretty interested in fixing the economy and balancing the budget, two things the GOP said they could do.

Gay marriage will end up causing trouble for Republicans in 2012 the same way it caused trouble for John Kerry in 2004. It may still be a divisive issue for older adults, but it'll encourage young voters to go to the booths.
posted by mccarty.tim at 2:42 PM on May 4, 2011

Remarkably narrow selection of political types.
posted by mrgrimm at 2:46 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Pollsters hate me when they call our house. Questions like these are the reason why.

But then, I hate them too, so I guess we're even.

What irritates me is that they use nonsense like this to suggest that they have a bead on the country. T'ain't so.

(Or - what Mr. Grimm just said.)
posted by IndigoJones at 2:48 PM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

I'm Canadian, but if I were American, I'd be a "Solid Liberal"

huh
posted by weezy at 2:48 PM on May 4, 2011

I'm curious. How does the personal-financial situation questions affect the final result.

I've tried any number of combinations with and without "I can pay my bills" and "I feel comfortable with my financial situation" and the result never changes, whether I'm super "conservative," liberal, or a mix/match.

Where does personal wealth factor in?

Basically Solid Liberals are the people featured in "Stuff White People Like"

Hence NPR and organic foods

Not if I'm broke. I still got Solid Liberal when I couldn't pay bills and didn't like my situation.
posted by mrgrimm at 2:49 PM on May 4, 2011

Post-Modern.

You know, like architecture.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 2:58 PM on May 4, 2011

I got World B. Free

I'll trade him straight up for God Shammgod.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 3:00 PM on May 4, 2011

"Where does personal wealth factor in?"

All I know is that I got "disaffected" somehow and it wasn't because I'm religious, because I most certainly am not. My assumption was that my broke-ness tipped me over into "disaffected"
posted by the young rope-rider at 3:08 PM on May 4, 2011

Bah. If you were annoyed by that, the "political compass" is a big step up. Results are much more interesting.
posted by Salvor Hardin at 3:15 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Took it once, got Solid Liberal like so many others above.

Then, I took it again. I answered all the religion and money questions truthfully (i.e., the same as the first time), answered the opposite of the answers I believed in on the rest, and got staunch conservative (oh, and I indicated "independent" so as not to bias it). No big shock, but interestingly confirms that all the issue based questions are enough to diametrically reverse the outcome.
posted by axiom at 3:24 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

"Staunch conservative. I'm sure you are all just shocked to hear that."

Not really. You're older (happy Mother's Day, btw! with your adorable grandbabies and everything), you're affluent/comfortable (not rich, but not struggling), and you're part of the racial majority (white). Things are okay for you; there's no reason for you to pursue change. In fact, because things are pretty good for you, change is worrisome. It's a destabilizing force. Things are ok for you; changing just means you risk things getting worse. But when you have nothing to lose, change is an escape. Stability just means you're trapped. But when you're largely out of the labor market, you don't have to worry about things like jobs. Capital gains (your retirement funds) become a more important economic indicator.

This is not an Ad Hominem or anything, it's just a simple demographic analysis. My mother's in the same boat; once she hit AARP age, she started voting Republican. She had been a life-long Democrat. As your situation in life changes, your priorities change, and you look at things differently. That's not to say you haven't been a lifelong Republican (honestly, I don't know), but that's not my point. It's that statistically speaking, it's not a surprise you're a staunch conservative. You have an investment in things staying the way they are.

It's also why elections tend to skew conservative. It's because young people DON'T EFFING VOTE the way seniors do.
posted by Eideteker at 3:29 PM on May 4, 2011 [8 favorites]

I'm a Solid Liberal.
posted by mike3k at 3:32 PM on May 4, 2011

If you were annoyed by that, the "political compass" is a big step up.

Nah, we beanplated that just as well back in 2002.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 3:39 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

The statements are really quite polarizing -- I'd be very surprised if they saw a lot of middle of the road results from that quiz.

That said, I think it would be highly informative to compare the self-identified label with the resulting label -- as in, I self identify as an indepentent leaning democrat, because I'd actually like to get up and fight for what I believe in, but the test results scored me as solid commie pinko.
posted by cavalier at 3:42 PM on May 4, 2011

For comparison, Pew's 2005 report along the same lines. [via]
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 3:43 PM on May 4, 2011

As I didn't score "Raving Socialist," I can only assume that there's some kind of underlying bias at work in this test.
posted by lekvar at 3:50 PM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

Eideteker, let's just say I am older and white and leave it at that.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 3:51 PM on May 4, 2011

Solid Liberal, slightly surprising to me in that I am more pro-business than it indicates for that group, although I'm not anti-government which might mean more. I'm not sure what the personal wealth / optimisim about finances does -- I'd have assumed that "positive" responses there would make my result more conservative, but apparently not.

Looks like I'd be close to New Coalition Democrats except that I'm secular and not anti-gay.
posted by wildcrdj at 3:58 PM on May 4, 2011

Breaking: hypocrites gonna hypocrite.
posted by joe lisboa at 3:58 PM on May 4, 2011

Pollsters hate me when they call our house.

I tell everyone who calls me with a survey that I am a busy man, and that I will charge $50/hour to answer any questions they might have. It confuses most of them, so then I generally say "Sorry, too slow" and hang up. The ones who comprehend either hang up of offer a variant of "screw you." The others will sometimes say, "But ... it's just a survey."

I self identify as an indepentent leaning democrat

I self-identify as Communist (registered P&F), yet it felt awful weird to select "Independent" from the very middle between Democratic and Republican. It seems quite wrong to have Democratic Party way over on the left. Where do the Greens go?
posted by mrgrimm at 4:08 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

So...... I can't even get half way in. This test is completely fubar.

"Even if neither statement is exactly right...."

Exactly right????!!! What if both answers are so wildly wrong that it makes me wonder if the test authors are fucking with me? Choose which most fits your beliefs between two things that are fully stupid and wrong.

How about my political demographic being: cram your f'ing test up your butt?
posted by y6y6y6 at 4:16 PM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

Post-Modern, and apparently one of the very few MeFites capable of understanding the instruction "Even if neither statement is exactly right, choose the response that comes closest to your views."

Also post-modern (of course) and it's very hard to follow that instruction.

Sometimes both statements seemed like equally valid generalizations: "government is always wasteful" and "government does a better job than it gets credit for".

Sometimes they were both so far from anything resembling my views that it was difficult to judge which was closer, with the large distances involved: "racial discrimination is why black people can't get ahead" and "blacks who can't get ahead have only themselves to blame".

And then there were things like "business corporations make too much profit." Well, some of them do obviously. Some don't. If there's some exact level of overall corporate profitability that would be socially ideal, it'd have to be zero right? But that is pretty much impossible given anything resembling our economic system, so how do you choose an acceptable level? I expect it'd require a few years of research for me to answer this in any sensible way.

So yeah, a very difficult quiz.
posted by sfenders at 4:21 PM on May 4, 2011

I tried to complete this quiz, but there's no way us Canadians can answer it. Not a single one of the choices allowed me to apologize for anything!
posted by FishBike at 4:23 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

So I was Solid Liberal (basically lefty on every answer), and I played around with the answers to see how one could push it to Staunch Conservative. Apparently you have to call yourself a republican for this to even work.
- Keeping my answers the same, but switching to republican:
Still "Solid Liberal"
- Government is wasteful, corporations don't make too much money, I am religious, poor people have it easy, I'm not satisfied financially, racism is over, pro-war, not environmentalist, you can make it if you work hard, I can't make ends meet (2,4,5,6,7,8,10,12,13,14,15,16,18,19,20):
"Libertarian"
So that means to get to Staunch Conservative I'd need to take one of the following (IMO batshit) positions:
- Immigrants bad (1, 11)
- Anti-gay (3)
- Pro-overwhelming force to defeat terrorism (9)
- Regulation of business is bad (17)
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 4:39 PM on May 4, 2011

I'm a 'Solid Liberal," but I found the either/or style of the quiz kind of oversimplified on complicated issues.
posted by jonmc at 4:45 PM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

Benevolent dictator.
posted by clavdivs at 4:51 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Soiled Liberal.
posted by Ratio at 4:54 PM on May 4, 2011

Post-modern here.
posted by reenum at 5:09 PM on May 4, 2011

Solid liberal, but without a Socialist category, I'm really disenfranchised.
posted by Joey Michaels at 5:14 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

I self-identify as Communist (registered P&F), yet it felt awful weird to select "Independent" from the very middle between Democratic and Republican.

That's the point of identity polls. The distribution within the frame is far less important than the frame itself. An article was published, there was a public discussion. The allowable possibilities were again defined. The primacy of the status quo is confirmed.

You can't have communism if there are no communists.

And not just political identity studies. Gender, sexuality, class, race: all demographic breakdowns serve to reinforce the norms. Even the census works this way.
posted by clarknova at 5:16 PM on May 4, 2011 [3 favorites]

My mother's in the same boat; once she hit AARP age, she started voting Republican. She had been a life-long Democrat. As your situation in life changes, your priorities change, and you look at things differently.

I seem to be on the opposite trajectory. When I was in my twenties I was a pro-business centrist New Democrat who thought that the Democratic party needed to drop all that hippy shit and try to be a "grown-up" party. Now after two decades of Clinton and then Bush Jr, I've become a much more pro-union, anti-big business lefty who gets annoyed at how centrist the Democrats are and would vote all Green if they ever had a hope of electing anyone. By the time I get my AARP card, I'll probably be an anarchist.
posted by octothorpe at 5:20 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

I was scored a "solid liberal," and my immediate internal response was, "Seriously? But I just clicked on the answers that weren't COMPLETELY TERRIBLE."

It's always a little unnerving to be reminded that I'm way farther to the left than I generally think I am.
posted by Narrative Priorities at 5:21 PM on May 4, 2011 [7 favorites]

I wasn't able to answer a single question. Was this survey written as a joke?
posted by humanfont at 5:50 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Are LGBT rights the new Choice?

They are the next hill to take, if that's what you're asking.

I wish it was. I wish that hill of choice was taken and fortified. But reproductive rights are constantly under attack and our enemies win victories against choice.

I just found it curious that choice has been the social issue that everyone had to take a firm stance on, but it was missing from this questionnaire.
posted by munchingzombie at 5:50 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

In Australia my views are only slightly to the left, but according to this poll I am a solid liberal. I guess I should have expected that.
posted by gronkpan at 5:52 PM on May 4, 2011

You go, Pew Center. Way to herd everybody into an imaginary dichotomy.
posted by steambadger at 5:54 PM on May 4, 2011

Seconding disaffected.
posted by Demogorgon at 5:55 PM on May 4, 2011

Way to herd everybody into an imaginary dichotomy.

I think the Pew Center would be surprised at this response - it's pretty clear from their supporting material that they sought to expand the traditional categories, rather than to prove them.
posted by muddgirl at 6:10 PM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

You go, Pew Center. Way to herd everybody into an imaginary dichotomy.

They're funded by the Pew Charitable Trust which has $5 billion in assets, the dividends of which fund their various NPOs. So the Pew network is heavily vested in the status quo. Hard to imagine PRC would publish anything truly threatening.
posted by clarknova at 6:11 PM on May 4, 2011

Way to herd everybody into an imaginary dichotomy.

In fairness, it's an imaginary nonotomy. Even among those who have posted their results here (and MeFites are not exactly a representative sample of the population at large), it's at least a tetrachotomy.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 6:36 PM on May 4, 2011

1 What color is a chessboard?

------Statement One-----------------OR----------------Statement Two---------
I think chessboards are white---------------------I think chessboards are black

Basically the only thing proved here is that Pew is incapable or unwilling to formulate a survey that might display that some people are capable of rational thought.
posted by Room 101 at 6:47 PM on May 4, 2011 [4 favorites]

So 90% of "solid liberals" think Obama is doing a good job? This is horse shit.
posted by klanawa at 6:54 PM on May 4, 2011 [4 favorites]

Says I'm a solid liberal. Hmm.
posted by Mister_A at 7:05 PM on May 4, 2011

I think the Pew Center would be surprised at this response - it's pretty clear from their supporting material that they sought to expand the traditional categories, rather than to prove them.

Hard to see how they could succeed at that, though, by forcing respondents to choose between facile formulations of the mainstream Democratic and Tea Party positions on a random selection of issues. Take this one:

"Poor people today have it easy because they can get government
benefits without doing anything in return"

OR

"Poor people have hard lives because government benefits don't go far
enough to help them live decently"

On the one hand, nobody who's ever been poor, or known a representative selection of poor people, could possibly choose the first one. But, on the other hand, the second choice seems to suggest that the solution is simply making AFDC payments larger. I, personally, think that poor people have hard lives because their schools suck, they live in rundown neighborhoods patrolled by increasingly hostile law enforcement, many of their leaders have been bought off by the corporate elite, they're surrounded by a culture where a person's worth is measured largely by the things he or she can buy, and nobody gives a shit.

Almost every question on this survey made me wonder if the PRC had been the victim of a stylesheet meltdown, and three other responses were stuck in a div two-hundred pixels off the left side of the browser window.
posted by steambadger at 7:13 PM on May 4, 2011 [3 favorites]

Libertarian. Along with 9% of the general public, and 0.00000000000003% of MeFi.

Let the tomato-throwing begin!
posted by Slithy_Tove at 7:26 PM on May 4, 2011

Solid Liberal. Yay. And 1st generation American.
posted by grubby at 7:35 PM on May 4, 2011

Post Modern, just like everyone else.
posted by blue_beetle at 7:38 PM on May 4, 2011

I am curious about the following group as I have often wondered about those who lean socially conservative and fiscally liberal (is it just me or does no one ever mention that possibility):

Disaffecteds

11% of the public
What They Believe

Highly critical of both government and business
Sympathetic to the poor and supportive of social welfare programs
Concerned about immigration
Majority believes the country can't solve many of its important problems
Religious and socially conservative

Who They Are

Most financially stressed of the groups: nearly half describe their household as "struggling"
71% have experienced unemployment in their household in the past 12 months
About two-thirds have only a high school education or less
Compared with the national average of 33%, more are parents (44%)
26% have a U.S. passport — well below the national average
23% follow NASCAR racing
posted by Danila at 7:40 PM on May 4, 2011

Solid.

Also, what is wrong with the Southeast? Is it that hard to trickle down there?
posted by jsavimbi at 7:46 PM on May 4, 2011

I am curious about the following group as I have often wondered about those who lean socially conservative and fiscally liberal (is it just me or does no one ever mention that possibility).

I can give you an idea of my one-person sample size:

What They Believe

Highly critical of both government and business - Yes
Sympathetic to the poor and supportive of social welfare programs -Yes
Concerned about immigration -No
Majority believes the country can't solve many of its important problems - Yes
Religious and socially conservative -No

Who They Are

Most financially stressed of the groups: nearly half describe their household as "struggling" - This one is difficult because I'm just getting out of undergrad with no job and some debt to pay off.
71% have experienced unemployment in their household in the past 12 months - Again, student; no job
About two-thirds have only a high school education or less - Not me
Compared with the national average of 33%, more are parents (44%) - Not me
26% have a U.S. passport — well below the national average - I have a passport
23% follow NASCAR racing - Not me

I don't really consider myself socially conservative and fiscally liberal. Quite the opposite in fact.
posted by Demogorgon at 8:21 PM on May 4, 2011

Hmn, I got Draco Reptilian. I'm not sure what that...

Hold on, someone's at the door.
posted by effwerd at 8:21 PM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

Disaffecteds

(Demogorgon's self-analysis):
Highly critical of both government and business - Yes
Sympathetic to the poor and supportive of social welfare programs -Yes
Concerned about immigration -No
Majority believes the country can't solve many of its important problems - Yes
Religious and socially conservative -No

Hmm. That sounds a lot like me, and I think the way I answered the questions reflects that; but I got "Solid Liberal". Maybe this all part of a sociology experiment designed to measure how people react when assigned randomly to a pigeonhole...
posted by steambadger at 8:27 PM on May 4, 2011

I am curious about the following group...

What Pew calls 'Disaffected' is just populist conservatism. Populism -- for the little guy, against the big guy -- has both liberal and conservative flavors. In terms of national figures, think Pat Buchanan and the crew at American Conservative. Mike Huckabee seems to be in the same general obit. And maybe Trump.

'Postmoderns' might resemble liberal populists, but I'm less sure about this.

Populists are the opposite of libertarians. As a libertarian, I see them as combining the worst of liberalism -- gnawing envy of success and the desire to tear it down ('eat the rich') -- with the worst of conservatism -- racism, nativism, isolationism, sexual bigotry, pushy religious views. To say nothing of NASCAR.

On preview: Demogorgon, nothing personal. And are you sure those were your answers? Sounds Solid Liberal to me, not Disaffected.
posted by Slithy_Tove at 8:35 PM on May 4, 2011

"I am curious about the following group as I have often wondered about those who lean socially conservative and fiscally liberal (is it just me or does no one ever mention that possibility):"

Thirty years ago they called them "Reagan Democrats."
posted by thecaddy at 8:41 PM on May 4, 2011

What Pew calls 'Disaffected' is just populist conservatism. Populism -- for the little guy, against the big guy -- has both liberal and conservative flavors.

Actually it's where anyone goes that doesn't fit their categorical structure. Notice that it's not a neutral term: "undefined", "unclassfied", "other". Nor is it actually a political term such as "dissident", "marxist", "race-nationalist", or any of a number of unpopular groups.

Either would attest to you being outside the frame, which would break the taboo of acknowledging that there is a frame.

"Disaffected" has the same connotation as "disgruntled". As in "disgruntled employee". As in someone who is unstable and unpredictable. Prone to impotent gestures or dangerous acts. Whose worldviews are "isolated incidents"; an unfortunate but inevitable smattering of angry outliers, free of context.

Further confirming this, note that disaffected is contrasted with "general public". A straightforward dichotmy. Either in with the nation and contributing, or out with sour grapes. This is the same set as employee/unemployed. It casts the body politic as a corporation: citizens are either at their desks, or packing a box while security watches.
posted by clarknova at 9:04 PM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

These were written for a world in which there are only 2 parties and only 2 answers to any given question. I was hoping for options like this (which I just made up):

US foreign aid and development policy should favor:

1. programs that save the environment, even at the cost of development
2. programs strike a balance between environmental and development issues
3. programs that consistently choose economic development over environmental concerns
4. programs that consistently respect sovereign nations' own right to choose their destiny
5. Or, the US should focus on matters within our borders, and not fund foreign aid nad development programs

Now that would be a survey!
posted by !Jim at 9:06 PM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

Thirty years ago they called them "Reagan Democrats."

I disagree. Reagan Democrats were not fiscally liberal. Thirty-five years ago they called these folks Carter Democrats. Carter won -- once -- because he managed strip middle and upper class liberal Democrats from Morris Udall and lower-middle class and poor conservative Democrats from George Wallace. These latter are the socially conservative/fiscally liberal Democrats you're thinking of. They were probably part of the Clinton coalition. They may have voted for George W. Bush, who shared a lot of their characteristics: free-spending and socially conservative. Many probably now identify as Republican, and will be supporters of Mike Huckabee.
posted by Slithy_Tove at 9:08 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Select which statement is most applicable to your political beliefs:

(A) Releasing photographs of Osama bin Laden's corpse would be in poor taste
(B) America, Fuck Yeah!
posted by bengalsfan1 at 9:17 PM on May 4, 2011

Select which statement is most applicable to your political beliefs:

(A) Meth cooks should be in prison for thirty years.
(B) Meth cooks should be in prison for forty years.
posted by clarknova at 9:24 PM on May 4, 2011

(C) Meth cooks should be in the Burn ICU for four months.
(D) Taxpayers should be in a state of simmering frustration when told they have to shell out for more Burn ICU beds because the current ones are all filled up with meth cooks.
posted by Slithy_Tove at 9:32 PM on May 4, 2011

It's PoMo!

.................

Post modern!

.................

All right, weird for the sake of being weird.

I was told I was a gliberal
posted by Existential Dread at 9:43 PM on May 4, 2011

Now that would be a survey!

That would be a survey in which everyone answered '2.', except for a few hardheads who answered '4.'. That's because answer 2 is a Mary Sue.

Surveys are full of Mary Sues that steer the respondents towards what the surveying organization wants to find.

Why am I even in this thread? I'm only going to get myself into trouble. If there's an admin on, please MeMail me a threat to temp-ban if I post again. Thanks.
posted by Slithy_Tove at 9:45 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

In terms of national figures, think Pat Buchanan and the crew at American Conservative. Mike Huckabee seems to be in the same general obit. And maybe Trump.

But none of those are even remotely in favor of social welfare, which seemed a pretty significant component of the "disaffecteds". Actually, this seems to describe the views of many African-Americans who tend to be religious and socially conservative to a certain extent, but supportive of government programs and social welfare.
posted by Danila at 9:56 PM on May 4, 2011

In all fairness, online surveys are shit. They don't actually give you an idea of the political values of American voters. They give you an idea of the political values of people who elect to fill out the survey.

It is slightly more accurate than walking into a bar and asking "show of hands, who here thinks Obama is totally awesome?". To show how craptastic this method is please look up any Zogby Online polls and see just how far off their results are from others.

So I wouldn't rush to poopoo Pew because of the way this survey is designed. It is starting off with an unscientific method so there is no point in designing it to accurately reflect reality. This is just a Which Saved By The Bell Character Are You quiz on a site other than facebook.
posted by munchingzombie at 10:32 PM on May 4, 2011

I hope everyone got the picture that the survey data that Pew used to do the clustering analysis was based on a broader, presumably likert-scored set of questions, and that this quiz is a less-sensitive quickie designed to help the report on the data get spread to aggregation/social outlets like this one. A "hook" if you will. Pretty sure the Pew people know how to conduct surveys and analyze the results.
posted by silby at 10:33 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Oh, I'm slightly wrong, the full survey was conducted on very similar balanced alternative items to the ones excerpted for the quiz. They did have neither/both/don't know options though.
posted by silby at 10:38 PM on May 4, 2011

But none of those are even remotely in favor of social welfare[...]

Huckabee is notorious among fiscal conservatives for increasing taxes, government spending, and the number of government employees. Government spending increased by about 50% during his terms in office. That's mostly social spending. (States don't have defense budgets.) Huckabee could have met deficits by cutting services. Instead he raised taxes. This is a populist solution. Wiki. FactCheck.

I don't have the strength to go digging through Buchanan's record to find evidence of tax/spend proposals, but he is known to be an anti-free trader. Wiki. So is Trump, who has proposed a 25% tariff on Chinese goods. Government attempting to manipulate trade to benefit the nation is traditional populist (and liberal, in the American usage) policy.

Not every politician is going to fit neatly in a given category. Everyone is going to have their own unique bumps and eccentricities. It seems to me that Buchanan, Huckabee and Trump are appealing to individuals who fit into what Pew calls the Disaffected enclosed space in this Venn diagram.

You're definitely right about there being many African Americans who fit the Disaffected category. There are also poor whites with similar views. The African Americans can vote for Democrats who model their economic views (and hold their noses with respect to social policy? I don't know.) and Republican politicians like Huckabee exist who cater to the populist whites.
posted by Slithy_Tove at 10:45 PM on May 4, 2011

Solid Liberal. Well of course, although I prefer to think of myself as a Hard Liberal. Grrr.
posted by Decani at 10:46 PM on May 4, 2011

Solid Liberal. I wasn't expecting that.
posted by marvin at 10:54 PM on May 4, 2011

I took it again, taking care to choose the third choice, and this time got "L33t H4X0r."
posted by Joey Michaels at 11:21 PM on May 4, 2011

Solid liberal. Big surprise..
posted by one little who at 11:22 PM on May 4, 2011

Solidly liberal (Do I even need to say this? Metafilter? More like Liberalfilter. ha. ha. Yeah, I'm not that funny.)

It'd be a more interesting quiz if it had 1) more questions addressing a wider range of issues, including some non-domestic US ones, and 2) a way to answer questions in a more nuanced way, like all those surveys you get with answers like "Slightly disagree" and "Strongly agree" and "Neither agree nor disagree." Even having that third option in this one would help, I think, though I guess with the way the quiz is designed, the answers would have to be written in to fulfill what the quiz designer thinks a "neither agree nor disagree" person would answer, etc. So maybe design it differently so that a person can just respond "yes" or "no" or "neither" or "slightly yes, but not completely", instead of what is basically making people answer like straw-men.

I'm pretty sure there are a lot of "What's your political alignment?" quizzes out there, but I think it's nice that this one is based on actual survey data. I'd like to see this developed further.
posted by majonesing at 11:26 PM on May 4, 2011

There's no Socialist Homosexual for the Metric System, so I had to go with Solid Liberal. Comes nowhere near describing my politics, but such is the spectrum of US politics.

Also, "Post-Moderns" kind of ignores the cluster of meanings that have been assigned to that term since the 70s. If you go into pretty much any humanities or social sciences department in a university and ask for a definition of post-modern politics, it's not going to look anything like this.
posted by LMGM at 11:44 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

I find myself wanting to choose "neither" for almost every single question. So I wound up in some category that does not fit, because the questions are focused on some specific talking point that does not reflect the wider issue.
posted by romanb at 11:57 PM on May 4, 2011

I'm a Mid-century Modern American and a Solid Liberal. White people do like me very much.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 12:21 AM on May 5, 2011

Also got Disaffected because of the mentally ill, rather poor (not being American?) thing.

Many said they wouldn't chose either answer if they had the option. Funny enough, I often would have liked to tick both answers.

/wants to have cake and eat it too
posted by ZeroAmbition at 1:58 AM on May 5, 2011

(A) If the weather is bad, I stay in bed all day.
(B) If the weather is bad, I go outside half-naked and shout at the sky.

(A) I like cats.
(B) I like Jimi Hendrix.

(A) Allahu Akbar!
(B) Freedom is slavery.

(A) Rich people have it easy.
(B) Rich people make too much money.

(A) America is way too racist.
(B) Black people really do have dark skin.

(A) Too much power is concentrated in the hands of sociologists.
(B) Political typology quiz is the greatest achievement of our civilization.

(A) Peak Oil!
(B) Bacon!

(A) Pew Research Centre is totally awesome.
(B) Pew Research Centre is a fascist conspiracy.
posted by sfenders at 3:02 AM on May 5, 2011 [7 favorites]

Phew. I'm glad they figured that out for me, now I can fit safely into a category so that I can take the same positions on all issues as the rest of the people who fit perfectly into the same decision sets as me!

Libertarian BTW - there was no anarchist option apparently
posted by AndrewKemendo at 3:58 AM on May 5, 2011

Solid Liberal. Pretty much what I figured.
posted by lordrunningclam at 4:23 AM on May 5, 2011

Huh. Last time I took this quiz it told me I was a Rocker. Now it says I'm a Mod.
posted by The World Famous

Now you're a Mocker.
posted by ShutterBun at 4:28 AM on May 5, 2011 [3 favorites]

Took it again and changed some of the answers I was sort of wishy-washy about the first time and got Post-Modern. I guess I'm a solid post-modern liberal.
posted by lordrunningclam at 4:43 AM on May 5, 2011

I came in as "Fifth Columnist" then it told me to carry on and not draw attention to myself.
posted by longbaugh at 4:50 AM on May 5, 2011

The questions in this stupid quiz come across like:

Would you rather...?
A. Shoot your grandmother with a gun
B. Chop up your grandmother with an axe

Like the crazy-ass welfare question, where you can choose between saying "Screw the poor" or "Let's go deeper into debt to help the poor." How about... oh, I don't know, reducing military spending so we can use that money to make some structural changes in society, like improving education, to reduce poverty? Hmmm?

I'm solidly Whig-Papist on the political scale, by the way.(*)

*Not intended to be a factual statement; it actually said I'm a post-modern.
posted by LastOfHisKind at 5:53 AM on May 5, 2011

I got "terrible person" for my response. They weren't even testing for that!

Yes they were. There are several possible results that fit under 'terrible person'.
posted by liquidindian at 5:59 AM on May 5, 2011 [3 favorites]

Select which statement is most applicable to your political beliefs:

(A) Meth cooks should be in prison for thirty years.
(B) Meth cooks should be in prison for forty years.
_{posted by clarknova at 10:24 PM on May 4}

(C) Meth cooks should be in the Burn ICU for four months.
(D) Taxpayers should be in a state of simmering frustration when told they have to shell out for more Burn ICU beds because the current ones are all filled up with meth cooks.
_{posted by Slithy_Tove at 10:32 PM on May 4}

So you went with B, then?
posted by clarknova at 7:38 AM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

I got "Poolboy."
posted by jtron at 8:02 AM on May 5, 2011 [3 favorites]

"Solid Liberal"

The strange part was it said I was 57% female.
posted by warbaby at 8:52 AM on May 5, 2011

I'm glad they figured that out for me, now I can fit safely into a category so that I can take the same positions on all issues as the rest of the people who fit perfectly into the same decision sets as me!

Yeah! I also disagree with the part where they said the earth was flat! And that the sky was brown! And that a 50-mile-long dragon lives in Central Park!

[Sheesh, take 30 seconds to click on some of the "compare the typology groups on..." links. Note that no group is 100%/0% on any issue.]
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 9:42 AM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

Pew pew pew!
posted by OverlappingElvis at 9:50 AM on May 5, 2011

Isn't the pew center supposed to be a reasonable thing?

What's up with this test being a million% unreasonable?

Also, how was anyone able to pick one of the proffered answers on some of these?
posted by kavasa at 9:53 AM on May 5, 2011

What's up with this test being a million% unreasonable?

What's up with it not being a test at all?

Maybe they should add a question #11: Statement 1: I will read the explanatory documents after taking this quiz. Statement 2: I will not read the explanatory documents and instead jump to conclusions based on my pre-formed assumptions about the US political parties.
posted by muddgirl at 9:56 AM on May 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

This test is totally broken, it claims I'm a Solid Liberal.

Which is bollocks, because I'm clearly a Democratic Socialist. I don't support free-trade (though I am anti-Corn Law), and don't follow the liberal tradition at all.

/hamburger, kind of. Can we please stop using the word liberal when we mean Democratic Socialism?
posted by jb at 10:13 AM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

"Staunch conservative. I'm sure you are all just shocked to hear that."

Not really. You're older (happy Mother's Day, btw! with your adorable grandbabies and everything), you're affluent/comfortable (not rich, but not struggling), and you're part of the racial majority (white). Things are okay for you; there's no reason for you to pursue change.

There is more than just demographics at play. Your description fits my grandmother to a T, but she's a life-long NDP supporter and has been for the past 30 years of her retirement. Sure, sometimes age can temper one - since the age of 19, I've moved from anarcho-communist to social democrat with an appreciation (though healthy fear as well) of market exchange as a way to move goods and services through the economy. But that doesn't mean people don't remember where they are from and what it felt like to have little or nothing.
posted by jb at 10:27 AM on May 5, 2011

If you were annoyed by that, the "political compass" is a big step up.

Nah, we beanplated that just as well back in 2002.

And, as if to prove my point, there's now a "share your Political Compass scores" thread on MeTa, where there's just as much wailing and gnashing of teeth and rending of garments about how the questions there don't allow one to accurately represent their views.

When you take a survey, your first instinct is to:
(a) answer the questions
(b) complain about the questions
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 10:30 AM on May 5, 2011

“You got to have something that makes you stand out. Are you just another pretentious, artsy, liberal, indie-rock-loving, cat-owning, bespectacled, "intelligent", shy, dry-sense-of-humored, 20-40 year old white guy? Sorry. Full the fuck up. You got to have a glass eye or live in a giant kiln or build robots or have octopus legs or something. Otherwise nobody will know who you are. When its all "blah blah blah" this and "blah, blah, blah" that, you can be all like "Yeah I got one of my octopus legs stuck in an escalator today." and people will say "Who was that?" and somebody else will say "That is that guy with the octopus legs." and the first guy will say "Oh weird." What I'm saying is that you better have some fucking octopus legs or I don't even know why you posted this.” —ND¢
posted by yaymukund at 12:05 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

When you take a survey, your first instinct is to:
(a) answer the questions
(b) complain about the questions

(c) read the questions
posted by mrgrimm at 3:08 PM on May 5, 2011

Solid Liberal.

..I have no passport, can't afford organic stuff, have no real education and am more than 2nd generation American. I only listen to NPR because everything else on the radio is awful and can't afford to put in a way to play any other media.
posted by kzin602 at 4:20 PM on May 5, 2011

So you went with B, then?

I went with (E): meth should be readily available to by prescription, with the stipulation that the user can't sue the drug company or the prescribing physician for any of the many complications of drug abuse, and third parties can't sue either if the meth user does something to them while using meth. The stipulation helps keeps the price down to where the average user can afford it.

I know that MeFi loves trial lawyers and lawsuits, but the lawyers have started to go after methadone maintenance programs when a client, on methadone, does something bad like driving his car into someone else. If litigation like this continues, it will be end of methadone maintenance, and the end of any proposed similar drug maintenance, like meth.

Society would still have to bear the cost of meth users with blown out heart valves, pulmonary hypertension, stroke, and all the rest. It would *probably* be cheaper than ICUs full of meth cooks. Probably.

If guys still cook meth, there are laws against things like 'risking a catastrophe' which are reasonable to apply to people who mess with explosive devices -- like hobbyist meth manufacture -- in densely populated row houses or trailer parks.
posted by Slithy_Tove at 7:56 PM on May 5, 2011

I only listen to NPR because everything else on the radio is awful and can't afford to put in a way to play any other media.

Computer?
posted by mrgrimm at 11:15 AM on May 6, 2011