Sorry. I meant no offense with the naive statement. I was not trying to say you were being naive as in "dumb" but as in "innocent". As in you are seeing this in a pure hearted way and maybe I seeing this from a more jaded perspective.
I do agree, at the end of all this, increased profit/market share is the primary motivation.
Thank you for that. I appreciate the clarification.
And I agree with the primary motivation. In that way, I may be seeing it in as jaded of terms as you are saying you see it. Because I would agree that it would be foolish for them to bank on pleasing those that are most vocal about the need to diversify the line so as to sell to them. To make a political sale. Because it is always easier to Tweet the change you want to see in the world than it is to show up and vote with your dollars.
But I don't think that is what this effort to improve representation in the line is about. I think it a longer term strategy to have more hooks into the characters that can catch up with the changed demographics. Not to sell to liberals that just like to see the change they agree with. But rather to be there waiting when a next generation of 10-12 year olds want to see themselves in the fiction.
So in that way, I think Marvel is less doing capital-D Diversity in the political sense. I think they are, in financial terms, diversifying their portfolio. Their portfolio is pretty deep into white male characters, because they built most of these brands a long time ago. So they are taking on some risk by making these long term investments. I think that is not politics. It is hedging.
(Never let it be said I'm not jaded when it comes to the profit motive!)
Perhaps that's because the extreme left isn't really all that left and the extreme right is regularly loudly spewing things not fit for polite company? Conservative thought isn't what we see today. We see something else dressed up as conservative thought while true traditional conservatives get disparaged as RINOs. That's, in my opinion, why they end up being the butt of jokes.
That's what I gather. And what my Republican friends gather as well. (I live on Staten Island. It's pretty much all Republican here)
However, I wouldn't mind hearing your perspective on this, @bralinator .
Though if you've already stated your ideas regarding this point, you can link me to it instead! I
(For the record... I used to be a Young Republican. I did it as a Favor to my pal. That got me into events such as Parties for Rudy Giuliani. Good times.)
Part (but not all) of this is that conservatives are often waging their battles from the negative side of the argument in matters of society & culture. No to this, no to that, etc. It is far easier to gain acceptance when you are offering something and saying yes you can. People's natural instinct is to go against someone telling them they cannot do something. The sides flip when it comes to gun control, which may be one reason (of many) why liberals have had milder success than they have had in other areas.
From a comic book perspective, the creative arts (movies, tv, music, down to comic books) are generally populated with liberals. I am not surprised that books get political or push boundaries. I think the audience for comic books at least is more liberal than not - though I do think the publishers and groups pushing for more diversity in books often overestimate how liberal the reading audience actually is. The publishers, after the USA today articles and such can at times back away from some of their more liberal ideas as well - "cough...DC...cough..."
The audience being more liberal is by its own nature going to support these liberal creators and their beliefs.
Orson Scott Card got booted off Superman before he wrote a page because of his views. A Nick Spencer can tweet his views and insert them into his books and get a second Capt America book published. If it became public that Alex Ross painted a Hillary vampire biting the Statue of Liberty painting, does anyone really believe the big two would give him anymore work? Outside of artists being accused of over sexualizing women in their work, I am unsure if someone with a liberal bent could at this time get kicked off a book for their views because a majority of the audience and marketplace are liberal.
I think that some of it also distills down to optimism. Comics are about bright futures where paragons stand up for what is right with no expectation of reward. Whether it's "truth, justice and the American Way" (or peace for all mankind), "with great power comes great responsibility" or most of the other motivations (Yes, Punisher, I'm looking at you. You too Booster.)
Right now, in particular, there is a very vocal component of Conservativism that focuses on engendering a sense of fear, pessimism and divisiveness. In my local community of about 150,000, there have been two, maybe three murders in the last 3-5 years. One was domestic and another appears to have involved mental illness or synthetics. In between, there have been a few other incidents of violence, including a fight that broke out at a video game and bad pizza parlor. If you read the local conservative forums, there is a very strong sense that the barbarians are at the gate and we not safe to walk down the street. That's really, really sad.
With superhero comics in general, we don't see that, we see people pulling together and looking out for the common good simply because it's right and not because there's a PR moment or a monetary reward at the end of the story. Instead, we're inundated with ideas that the people over there want to kill us, and the company over there is going to pollute our drinking water and our government is going to infringe on our rights.
So, yeah, comics start out being optimistic and then occasionally get heavy-handed about the things that the creators are passionately in favor of or passionately opposed to. Ultimately, I'm OK with that. I question the validity of creativity without passion.
Last decade or so this has been a tremendous issue for me. whenever I've attempted to touch on the topic or even suggested anywhere there appears to be a left leaning political bias in comics (and media in general), and that I find it objectionable, I've usually just been called delusional, paranoid, obsessive, etc.
I don't mind politics in comics. I first discovered superhero comics in 1974, which is when they were still written for kids and teens, and which happened to be during the dog days of Watergate. In that time, everything was political -- sitcoms, rock and roll, every family meal. Even in elementary school, we were mocking Nixon. To avoid some political commentary in your comic meant looking completely out of touch, as though you existed in the same sanitized world as Richie Rich or Archie.
Even Kamandi waded into Watergate, when the characters stumbled into the ruins of Washington in search of the infamous tape recordings.
I suppose most comic creators, just like most artists in general, lean left, but so do I. Thus, most political statements don't really bother me, although I don't like preachy. I think it's perfectly sensible for writers to mine current events for good story ideas, whether it's the rise of extremist terrorist groups or homegrown fanatics or deranged political leaders. It's no different than Stan and Jack basing the idea of a crazed secret society like Hydra on real-life spy groups (or a caricature of what we thought might exist in secret).
I suppose most comic creators, just like most artists in general, lean left, but so do I. Thus, most political statements don't really bother me, although I don't like preachy. I think it's perfectly sensible for writers to mine current events for good story ideas, whether it's the rise of extremist terrorist groups or homegrown fanatics or deranged political leaders.
So would you be bothered if they depicted Hillary Clinton as a murderous, diabolical, lying, self-serving, crony capitalist? There's a smidgen of truth to it and its topical. Or do you simply agree with the leftist viewpoint that when you do notice the disparaging of conservative viewpoints it just doesn't bother you?
The problem I see with politics in comics, as someone who considers himself a conservative leaning libertarian, is that it is COMPLETELY one-sided. You'll probably have no problem with it if you agree with the leftist politics being espoused, but if you are conservative, or right-leaning, or libertarian, the number of characters you can identify with in comics today are limited to the Red Skull or some other villains, and not much else. That's not diversity.
When asked about how he depicts politics in his work, Bill Willingham said
"I don’t think Fables is that political, except for many, many comics are that political. There are things in the comics mainstream that just astound me that they go by without comment. I think part of the reason is that a fish doesn’t really notice the water he’s swimming in. So you can have these left-of-center diatribes throughout and never get a murmur and just mention one thing that’s more to the right of center and suddenly be shocked by it because you just don’t notice the waters you swim in."
It's perfectly normal for Riverdale's Archie Andrews to struggle with competition, girls, teen troubles, as well as his gay friends being harassed or marginalized. That's something he might have to deal with in real life. Wouldn't it be encouraging to moderate Muslims if Ms. Marvel battled against honor killings, terrorist threats, misogyny, child marriage and genital mutilation - all atrocities associated with Islamic populations globally? If not, why not? When Frank Miller came out hard against radical Islam, he was called a "hateful bigot." When Nick Spencer does it via Falcon Cap, he's "brilliant." DC's Simon Baz (also Muslim) touched on Guantanamo Bay, so why isn't Ms. Marvel a perfect foil for that Muslim extremism?
I do know that as a reader I don’t like being lectured to by the writer. the biggest mistake I see with any kind of politics in any kind of literature is 'the lecture'. They lecture to the converted.
It's odd that so much emphasis is placed on diversity, such as female, gay, minority representation, but when a lack of conservative voices is mentioned, or right-leaning readers are bothered by something, liberal writers merely double down while liberal readers (or those ill-informed about politics) accuse those on the right of every kind of social atrocity (bigotry, racism, myopic, regressive, hypocrisy, etc). What's equally troubling is what I find to be the favorite conceit of liberal comic book readers/creators; which is "if you don't agree with us, then you're just stupid."
Politics in comics should be handled delicately, not in a ham-fisted way. And that's the problems I'm seeing today and have discussed in this forum many times and will continue to point it out when it's painfully obvious.
So would you be bothered if they depicted Hillary Clinton as a murderous, diabolical, lying, self-serving, crony capitalist? There's a smidgen of truth to it and its topical. Or do you simply agree with the leftist viewpoint that when you do notice the disparaging of conservative viewpoints it just doesn't bother you?
The problem I see with politics in comics, as someone who considers himself a conservative leaning libertarian, is that it is COMPLETELY one-sided. You'll probably have no problem with it if you agree with the leftist politics being espoused, but if you are conservative, or right-leaning, or libertarian, the number of characters you can identify with in comics today are limited to the Red Skull or some other villains, and not much else. That's not diversity.
I'm consider myself to be conservative on quite a few issues and I've remained pretty consistent on most of my views. In the last +/-20 years, I've seen the right tilt well past horizontal when it comes to right leaning. Extending that metaphor, I continue to maintain that the US left, taken as a whole, is actually within a few degrees of vertical. I'm not suggesting that any of the conservatives here are as far out there as some, but if one is driving in the ditch on the outside of the shoulder, everything is to the left.
In the last +/-20 years, I've seen the right tilt well past horizontal when it comes to right leaning. Extending that metaphor, I continue to maintain that the US left, taken as a whole, is actually within a few degrees of vertical. I'm not suggesting that any of the conservatives here are as far out there as some, but if one is driving in the ditch on the outside of the shoulder, everything is to the left.
You sound like a 'true' partisan: 'My Side' is calm and reasonable, and 'Your Side' is full of dangerous extremists. Not necessarily attributing that quote to you, but your insistence that it's the right who has gotten extreme and the left is just remaining moderate seems a bit disingenuous. Granted, Democrats do not all think alike, any more than Republicans do; generalizations are vexing. But where is the small-government liberal today? He or she is not to be found in the economic realm, where the mainstream Democratic consensus supports an even higher minimum wage, even more regulation of business, more centralized and systemic government control of certain sectors (e.g., education and health care) and massive government intervention in the rest. Likewise, there is no dispute on the left regarding the welfare state or socialized medicine anymore.
The tea party has indeed created a rift on the right between a somewhat conservative establishment and a viscerally conservative insurgency. And the struggle between those two factions has provided the grist for news stories over the past few years, it isn't the whole picture. As Commentary magazine's Seth Mandel once said,
"complaints over the last few years about the GOP being pulled to the right by conservatives were not about liberals' desire to meet in the middle and compromise, no matter how much they might decry the supposed extremist drift of the right. What they wanted was their very own Tea Party."
And that rings true from what we've seen. And not just because they tried to start a silly "coffee party." From the fawning adulation of the Occupy protests, which amounted to one long primal scream against capitalism to the recent full embrace of Black Lives Matter rioters, Wisconsin's 17-day protests, anti-Trump anarchists, La Raza (the 'race') illegal "dreamers,"anti-gun Congressional sit-ins, and even socialist Bernie Sanders almost being the nominee while embracing the psuedo-socialism of Elizabeth Warren. Whatever the latest raison d'être of liberal starry-eyed youth & dreamers there will be a leftist cadre of Democratic politicians racing to express their proud solidarity with them. These causes are all farther left than nearly anything we saw in the mainstream left prior to 2000.
There are extreme factions on BOTH sides, as you can see. And as the Right shows how conservative they can get, the left is either going further left, or only now revealing the deepest depths of their liberalism. Call it getting more liberal or just naked opportunism, YMMV. Today's Democratic Party is somewhere between a liberal establishment that wants bigger, more centralized government, and an even more liberal wing that wants the same thing squared. At the bottom of that horizontal graph, both think the formula for perfection is simple: Put the government in charge of everything, and put the right people in charge of the government. Then just sit back and wait for everything to become perfect.
I suppose most comic creators, just like most artists in general, lean left, but so do I. Thus, most political statements don't really bother me, although I don't like preachy. I think it's perfectly sensible for writers to mine current events for good story ideas, whether it's the rise of extremist terrorist groups or homegrown fanatics or deranged political leaders.
So would you be bothered if they depicted Hillary Clinton as a murderous, diabolical, lying, self-serving, crony capitalist? There's a smidgen of truth to it and its topical. Or do you simply agree with the leftist viewpoint that when you do notice the disparaging of conservative viewpoints it just doesn't bother you?.
As I said earlier, "preachy" bothers me. And sensationalist (Hillary as murderer) really bothers me. It's why I don't watch Michael Moore documentaries, even though we probably vote for the same people. There are artful and organic ways to tell a story, and there are hamfisted ways. The example of Bill Willingham is a good one. I love Fables. I never felt like a conservative POV was whacking me over the head to the detriment of the story or the distortion of a plausible character. A liberal-leaning writer has the same obligation to tell a compelling story with believable characters and a plausible plot; if his piece reads like a political tract, it's probably bad fiction.
Read Hellblazer #1. He left the States and headed back to the U.K. when, as he says, "a racist, short-figered, failed meat salesman began circling the White House.."
In the last +/-20 years, I've seen the right tilt well past horizontal when it comes to right leaning. Extending that metaphor, I continue to maintain that the US left, taken as a whole, is actually within a few degrees of vertical. I'm not suggesting that any of the conservatives here are as far out there as some, but if one is driving in the ditch on the outside of the shoulder, everything is to the left.
You sound like a 'true' partisan: 'My Side' is calm and reasonable, and 'Your Side' is full of dangerous extremists. Not necessarily attributing that quote to you, but your insistence that it's the right who has gotten extreme and the left is just remaining moderate seems a bit disingenuous. Granted, Democrats do not all think alike, any more than Republicans do; generalizations are vexing. But where is the small-government liberal today? He or she is not to be found in the economic realm, where the mainstream Democratic consensus supports an even higher minimum wage, even more regulation of business, more centralized and systemic government control of certain sectors (e.g., education and health care) and massive government intervention in the rest. Likewise, there is no dispute on the left regarding the welfare state or socialized medicine anymore.
The tea party has indeed created a rift on the right between a somewhat conservative establishment and a viscerally conservative insurgency. And the struggle between those two factions has provided the grist for news stories over the past few years, it isn't the whole picture. As Commentary magazine's Seth Mandel once said,
"complaints over the last few years about the GOP being pulled to the right by conservatives were not about liberals' desire to meet in the middle and compromise, no matter how much they might decry the supposed extremist drift of the right. What they wanted was their very own Tea Party."
And that rings true from what we've seen. And not just because they tried to start a silly "coffee party." From the fawning adulation of the Occupy protests, which amounted to one long primal scream against capitalism to the recent full embrace of Black Lives Matter rioters, Wisconsin's 17-day protests, anti-Trump anarchists, La Raza (the 'race') illegal "dreamers,"anti-gun Congressional sit-ins, and even socialist Bernie Sanders almost being the nominee while embracing the psuedo-socialism of Elizabeth Warren. Whatever the latest raison d'être of liberal starry-eyed youth & dreamers there will be a leftist cadre of Democratic politicians racing to express their proud solidarity with them. These causes are all farther left than nearly anything we saw in the mainstream left prior to 2000.
There are extreme factions on BOTH sides, as you can see. And as the Right shows how conservative they can get, the left is either going further left, or only now revealing the deepest depths of their liberalism. Call it getting more liberal or just naked opportunism, YMMV. Today's Democratic Party is somewhere between a liberal establishment that wants bigger, more centralized government, and an even more liberal wing that wants the same thing squared. At the bottom of that horizontal graph, both think the formula for perfection is simple: Put the government in charge of everything, and put the right people in charge of the government. Then just sit back and wait for everything to become perfect.
Definitely not a partisan, but feel free to label. As I've said before, I'm a man with no Party - with exception of primaries, it's pretty liberating. As someone that was comfortable with much, but not all, of the Republican platform for many years, I've seen it move to what I consider extremes that I can no longer support.
My supposition, is that you see the US as a complete spectrum, and I see the US as part of a global spectrum. Even with the outliers that you've quoted above, a few of which might be actual news sources, which is a big step up from the previous citatation, they're still well right of the global left, as @Brack tried to point out the other day. You've previously self-identified with the Rabid Puppies, so I'm clearly a leftist by your measure regardless of whether or not I consider myself to be conservative on any issues.
All that said, I do agree with you that there are extreme factions in both Parties. I don't really consider them to be sides, because that's been demonstrated to be too binary to result in anything other than gridlock. However, I disagree with you on the assignment to strictly the Democratic Party to wanting bigger, more centralized government. I see a lot of the same coming from elements of the right.
Unfortunately, I think that the small government, free market model is just as flawed as the communist or socialist model. Mankind, now including corporations, is, in my estimation, inherently evil, and has demonstrated time and again, that it will seek out short term profits over long term viability. We saw it in the collapse of the soviet union and we've been seeing it for years with corporations shifting operations to less expensive labor markets, demands for public subsidy, and more recently insane markups on already profitable products.
I don't necessarily think all extremes are worthy of mockery, but comedians and mainstream press in the US has certainly had their way with the Tea Party, Christian Right, and even Hillary has recently tried to demonize the "alt-right". That's generally the extent of extremism on the right. In America, the extremes of the Left come in many shapes as well.
First under the politics of Marxism such as Communist Party USA or the Socialist Labor Party. Or the Marxist–Leninists found in the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, Party for Socialism and Liberation, Progressive Labor Party, Revolutionary Communist Party, and the Workers World Party
There are Trotskyists, represented by such groups as Freedom Socialist Party, Socialist Action, Socialist Alternative, Socialist Workers Party, Solidarity, Spartacist League, and Workers International League
Socialism is represented in the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and the Socialist Party USA (SPUSA)
And as mentioned there are anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists, the Black Panther party, OWS, BLM, Weather Underground, extremist elements of the Students for a Democratic Society. As far back as the 70's there was the Symbionese Liberation Army, committing bank robberies, two murders, and other acts of violence - and most famous for kidnapping Patty Hearst.
The Green Party of the United States is also rather extreme, although I like a lot of what Presidential candidate Jill Stein espouses, she still wants to shut down all nuclear power plants. And then there are the communes and other intentional communities on the left.
Some of these groups certainly support good or righteous causes, though their methods are questionable. It's strange though, that I've never witnessed significant leftist outrage over female genital mutilation, child marriage, honor killings, sharia-inspired rape laws, stoning, or acid attacks. Nothing. Not saying that that outrage doesn't exist. Just saying I've never seen it. This "selective outrage" has convinced me that much of what the left-wingers describe as "feminism" is not so much support for women, as it is a protest against Western, heterosexual men. It's an "I hate" phenomenon, rather than an "I love" phenomenon.
Of course I have right-wing friends that get angry and they express that anger. But when I encounter unhinged, bitter and abusive language, and detailed revenge fantasies in sadistic language, I've usually stumbled upon a left-wing website. Given that the left prides itself on being the liberator of women, homosexuals, and on being "sex positive," one of the weirder and most obvious aspects of left-wing hate is how often, and how virulently, it is expressed in terms that are misogynist or homophobic. We've all seen leftists taunt/troll right-wingers as "tea baggers." The implication is that the target of their slur is either a woman or a gay man being orally penetrated by a man, and is, therefore, inferior, and despicable because it's been used as an insult. I guess they know they can't use the word "fag" anymore...
A high-profile example of this sort of leftist invective was delivered by MSNBC's Martin Bashir in late 2013. Bashir said, on the air from the teleprompter, not as part of a moment's loss of control, something so vile about conservative firebrand Sarah Palin that I won't repeat it here. Suffice to say it's far more offensive than ANYTHING said on the record by Donald Trump. And extreme as it was, Bashir's comments are fairly representative of a good percentage of what I read on left-wing websites about conservatives in general. So I think it's safe to say there is extremism on both sides of the aisle, and that there's nothing extreme on the right that is unsurpassed by something extreme on the left.
Now, if you don't consider the left / right, democrats / republicans as two parties and don't identify with either of them, then maybe you're more of a globalist and you look down on nationalists.
"It's strange though, that I've never witnessed significant leftist outrage over female genital mutilation, child marriage, honor killings, sharia-inspired rape laws, stoning, or acid attacks."
It would take you three seconds on google to find such outrage over all these things. Give me a break. You paint a caricature of the left and all of your observations somehow support that picture. Funny how that works.
I don't necessarily think all extremes are worthy of mockery, but comedians and mainstream press in the US has certainly had their way with the Tea Party, Christian Right, and even Hillary has recently tried to demonize the "alt-right". That's generally the extent of extremism on the right. In America, the extremes of the Left come in many shapes as well.
You're right... Not all extremes deserve mockery. But there are a few that definitely do, on both sides of the main political aisle, and life in general.
And dude, you posted a link to Breitbart in here! Now we have to burn and salt the cyberspace!
I don't necessarily think all extremes are worthy of mockery, but comedians and mainstream press in the US has certainly had their way with the Tea Party, Christian Right, and even Hillary has recently tried to demonize the "alt-right". That's generally the extent of extremism on the right. In America, the extremes of the Left come in many shapes as well.
First under the politics of Marxism such as Communist Party USA or the Socialist Labor Party. Or the Marxist–Leninists found in the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, Party for Socialism and Liberation, Progressive Labor Party, Revolutionary Communist Party, and the Workers World Party
There are Trotskyists, represented by such groups as Freedom Socialist Party, Socialist Action, Socialist Alternative, Socialist Workers Party, Solidarity, Spartacist League, and Workers International League
Socialism is represented in the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and the Socialist Party USA (SPUSA)
And as mentioned there are anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists, the Black Panther party, OWS, BLM, Weather Underground, extremist elements of the Students for a Democratic Society. As far back as the 70's there was the Symbionese Liberation Army, committing bank robberies, two murders, and other acts of violence - and most famous for kidnapping Patty Hearst.
The Green Party of the United States is also rather extreme, although I like a lot of what Presidential candidate Jill Stein espouses, she still wants to shut down all nuclear power plants. And then there are the communes and other intentional communities on the left.
Some of these groups certainly support good or righteous causes, though their methods are questionable....
OK, sure, those groups exist, and have existed in one form or another for quite some time. I think that the key difference, and the point that I failed to articulate, is that they haven't gained any substantial traction within the overarching US left. That's in contrast to the right, which has seen substantial inroads by the Tea Party, Christian Right and Alt Right. As an aside, I reject any citations from Brietbart as being worthy of discussion.
It's strange though, that I've never witnessed significant leftist outrage over female genital mutilation, child marriage, honor killings, sharia-inspired rape laws, stoning, or acid attacks. Nothing. Not saying that that outrage doesn't exist. Just saying I've never seen it.
In what way should it be expressed? I'm not sure what the standard is for where outrage is expected and what form it should take, but I assume that this is supposed to come in the form of a blanket condemnation of radical islam, or perhaps islam in general? I trust that you've seen plenty of outrage from the Christian Right and other elements of the extreme right with regard to attacks on abortion providers, race/orientation based hate crimes and other crimes resulting against those targeted by the platforms of those elements?
This "selective outrage" has convinced me that much of what the left-wingers describe as "feminism" is not so much support for women, as it is a protest against Western, heterosexual men. It's an "I hate" phenomenon, rather than an "I love" phenomenon.
That sounds a little bit like a War on Christmas victim mentality. I've got male and female staff working for me and have worked on mixed gender teams for most of my professional life. For the most part, it's pretty easy to put them on equal footing. Mostly, it involves not using gender specific metaphors ("what's the dirt on our skirt") and cliches (just between us girls...) or other things that single out on gender favorably on unfavorably. I've never felt like I wasn't given an opportunity to advance anyone else and I've only rarely, when involving a particularly crappy project location, client or type, have I even considered sending a male over a female, or vice versa and even then I sat down with the people that were potentially going to get the assignment and had a conversation with regard to the nature of the project to gauge comfort level.
Now, if you don't consider the left / right, democrats / republicans as two parties and don't identify with either of them, then maybe you're more of a globalist and you look down on nationalists.
Would that be more accurate?
No and yes.
First, I really don't feel the need to be a member of any particular club or take any particular label. That said, I think that anyone that isn't prepared to deal with the fact that we are inextricably connected to a global economy, ecology and society is beyond naive. Second, yeah, I don't have much respect for people wrapping themselves in the flag. "Murica! F-yeah" is pretty much the ugly American in action.
Do I think that the United States could be a bright shining beacon on a hill? Perhaps one day, but not until we move away from insularism, anti-intellectualism, and a whole host of other -isms and start trying to make things better rather than trying to make things what they were.
The fact that we can cite links to Huffington Post, Media Matters, or Salon without comment, but I post a single Breitbart link and people get upset and outright reject its content is succinctly indicative of the type of inherent bias I'm illuminating.
The column that I referenced gives a more nuanced description of "alt right" for anyone interested in learning more than just the fear-mongering that Hillary Clinton delivered last week when she was demonizing her political opponents. The content was factual although op-ed in nature.
Eventually, I suspect we'll get back to the thread's original topic since I've made my points quite clearly, whether you've accepted them or not. Hopefully I'll respond to all three of your opposing comments when I have some time later today or tomorrow.
The fact that we can cite links to Huffington Post, Media Matters, or Salon without comment, but I post a single Breitbart link and people get upset and outright reject its content is succinctly indicative of the type of inherent bias I'm illuminating.
The column that I referenced gives a more nuanced description of "alt right" for anyone interested in learning more than just the fear-mongering that Hillary Clinton delivered last week when she was demonizing her political opponents. The content was factual although op-ed in nature.
Eventually, I suspect we'll get back to the thread's original topic since I've made my points quite clearly, whether you've accepted them or not. Hopefully I'll respond to all three of your opposing comments when I have some time later today or tomorrow.
I don't read most of your links, I just hover over to see the source. Not sure the last time I read anything from Salon or Huffpo either but there's a really significant disconnect if anything on Brietbart can be called nuanced. I'm just not in to either validating hack job opinion as legitimate news or monetizing the same for people that I wouldn't hire to clean out a grease trap. As for anything Clinton said last week. I probably wasn't listening to that either.
If I may interject on that point... I don't think anyone would have batted an eye if you had posted a link from Fox. fox, cnn, salon, all different sides of the same , biased coin.
But I think Breitbart is a totally different matter.
From the article:
"The alt-right’s intellectuals would also argue that culture is inseparable from race. The alt-right believe that some degree of separation between peoples is necessary for a culture to be preserved."
"The alt-right do not hold a utopian view of the human condition: just as they are inclined to prioritise the interests of their tribe, they recognise that other groups – Mexicans, African-Americans or Muslims – are likely to do the same.
". But natural conservatives have other concerns: chiefly, the preservation of their own tribe and its culture."
Maybe it's just me, but I'm not Much for seperation. Or white nationalism. Or Spanish or black nationalism.
I don't know. I'm sure @hauberk can explain it better than I ever could. I'm just not that smart.
I don't know. I'm sure @hauberk can explain it better than I ever could. I'm just not that smart.
I said 'nuanced,' not to imply that you would agree with it, which I knew from experience you would not. I actually prefer nationalism over globalism, if you want to add races to that then that's your issue. Brexit was nationalism, Brazil, Scotland, and Canada have all shown recent referendums and victories for 'nationalism' - to imply that it's merely racist is simple demagoguery.
I don't know. I'm sure @hauberk can explain it better than I ever could. I'm just not that smart.
I said 'nuanced,' not to imply that you would agree with it, which I knew from experience you would not. I actually prefer nationalism over globalism, if you want to add races to that then that's your issue. Brexit was nationalism, Brazil, Scotland, and Canada have all shown recent referendums and victories for 'nationalism' - to make it inherently racist is demagoguery.
I'm not the nuanced quote!
Like I said, I'm not much for separation. My tribe is that of the good ol US of A, not whatever race I am.
(I know you didn't say 'tribe', but the article did)
Read Hellblazer #1. He left the States and headed back to the U.K. when, as he says, "a racist, short-figered, failed meat salesman began circling the White House.."
Sigh.
Which is exactly what the character of John Constantine would say if you've been reading the character since 1984, seeing as how he was created by a comics creator who hated Thatcher with every fiber of his being and imbued the character with that.
There's political writing and there's character cohesiveness.
John not hating a rich capitalist would like Foolkiller making pals with that doofus swimmer who trashed a bathroom.
It all continues to demonstrate that Marvel writers definitely pick on the extreme right more than they do the extreme left, probably because the extreme right is currently more politically focused than the extreme left. Conservative thought is often the butt of jokes because of the political leanings of the writers themselves and due to the general lack of subtlety in superhero comics
The main reason they don't pick on the extreme left is that the extreme left is p. much non-existent in the US. It's a two party system where both parties are to the right, the question is just how far to the right..
Holy hell, man... what?? The left is alive and well, here. Obama and Clinton are far to the left, Sanders is a declared socialist... even the Republicans in the Senate are mostly centrists. Most of the entertainment industry is left-leaning, as well as most "journalists", newspapers, and universities. I am a conservative, and feel very much outnumbered on a daily basis.
That being said, talking about politics on these forums feel kinda weird and icky. I fear it will burn the forums down, if left unchecked. There is NOTHING more divisive in the US than politics.
It all continues to demonstrate that Marvel writers definitely pick on the extreme right more than they do the extreme left, probably because the extreme right is currently more politically focused than the extreme left. Conservative thought is often the butt of jokes because of the political leanings of the writers themselves and due to the general lack of subtlety in superhero comics
The main reason they don't pick on the extreme left is that the extreme left is p. much non-existent in the US. It's a two party system where both parties are to the right, the question is just how far to the right..
Holy hell, man... what?? The left is alive and well, here. Obama and Clinton are far to the left, Sanders is a declared socialist... even the Republicans in the Senate are mostly centrists. Most of the entertainment industry is left-leaning, as well as most "journalists", newspapers, and universities. I am a conservative, and feel very much outnumbered on a daily basis.
That being said, talking about politics on these forums feel kinda weird and icky. I fear it will burn the forums down, if left unchecked. There is NOTHING more divisive in the US than politics.
The American two party system is one party (D) gleefully running into the burning building of socialism. The other (R) just taking a leisurely stroll into that building.
It all continues to demonstrate that Marvel writers definitely pick on the extreme right more than they do the extreme left, probably because the extreme right is currently more politically focused than the extreme left. Conservative thought is often the butt of jokes because of the political leanings of the writers themselves and due to the general lack of subtlety in superhero comics
The main reason they don't pick on the extreme left is that the extreme left is p. much non-existent in the US. It's a two party system where both parties are to the right, the question is just how far to the right..
Holy hell, man... what?? The left is alive and well, here. Obama and Clinton are far to the left, Sanders is a declared socialist... even the Republicans in the Senate are mostly centrists. Most of the entertainment industry is left-leaning, as well as most "journalists", newspapers, and universities. I am a conservative, and feel very much outnumbered on a daily basis.
That being said, talking about politics on these forums feel kinda weird and icky. I fear it will burn the forums down, if left unchecked. There is NOTHING more divisive in the US than politics.
I'm sorry, but Obama and Clinton are both center - right (Clinton especially with the "3rd Way" her Husband did in reaction to people thinking the Democratic Party had drifted too far left). Sanders was a true Left politician (but still kinda centrist if you think globally).
I am about the most lefty guy on the board, and Obama was FAR too right wing for me with him adopting ideas from the Heritage Foundation, still using aggressive military campaigns, etc...
We have very different ideas of what left and right are, especially if you are an America Only person...the British right wing party is further left than even Bernie Sanders.
It all continues to demonstrate that Marvel writers definitely pick on the extreme right more than they do the extreme left, probably because the extreme right is currently more politically focused than the extreme left. Conservative thought is often the butt of jokes because of the political leanings of the writers themselves and due to the general lack of subtlety in superhero comics
The main reason they don't pick on the extreme left is that the extreme left is p. much non-existent in the US. It's a two party system where both parties are to the right, the question is just how far to the right..
Holy hell, man... what?? The left is alive and well, here. Obama and Clinton are far to the left, Sanders is a declared socialist... even the Republicans in the Senate are mostly centrists. Most of the entertainment industry is left-leaning, as well as most "journalists", newspapers, and universities. I am a conservative, and feel very much outnumbered on a daily basis.
That being said, talking about politics on these forums feel kinda weird and icky. I fear it will burn the forums down, if left unchecked. There is NOTHING more divisive in the US than politics.
I'm sorry, but Obama and Clinton are both center - right (Clinton especially with the "3rd Way" her Husband did in reaction to people thinking the Democratic Party had drifted too far left). Sanders was a true Left politician (but still kinda centrist if you think globally).
I am about the most lefty guy on the board, and Obama was FAR too right wing for me with him adopting ideas from the Heritage Foundation, still using aggressive military campaigns, etc...
We have very different ideas of what left and right are, especially if you are an America Only person...the British right wing party is further left than even Bernie Sanders.
This just means you're hard-core. Just because you are to the left of Obama and Hillary doesn't mean they aren't left, Corey. And Hillary is factually far more liberal than Bill was. That's just a historical fact. Bill was a moderate.
According to even the Huffington Post: Hillary Clinton is a progressive democrat, despite what you may have heard. Hillary's positions on immigration, gun violence, and abortion rights are all strongly progressive, left-wing positions. Unless you think purely left means wide-open borders, zero guns allowed, and tax-payer funded abortions for any age, any reason, and at any time.
Clinton is considered one of the most liberal Congress members during her time in the Senate and her record was more liberal than 70% of the Democrats in her final term in the Senate. She was more liberal than 85% of all other members. Barack Obama was nearby with a record more liberal than 82% of all members — but not more liberal than Clinton who is even more liberal than Obama on healthcare, minimum wage, marriage equality and several other raisons d'être on the left (including expanding government, raising taxes, and enriching themselves).
The DailyKos even created this helpful diagram in case you disagree:
Hillary rates as a “hard core liberal” per the OnTheIssues.org scale. As liberal as Elizabeth Warren and barely more moderate than Bernie Sanders. And while Obama is also a “hard core liberal,” Clinton again was rated as more liberal than Obama.
So maybe your definition of "left wing" or "liberal" is even more extreme than the commonly accepted definition or vernacular, but just because they are "too right wing" for you doesn't mean Obama and Clinton are centrist moderates, it just means you're so liberal you'd never be able to get elected in national politics. From my perspective on the right, guys like Romney, McCain, Graham, McConnell, Ryan, W. Bush et al, have move to the left on big spending and big government and many social issues, so it probably works both ways.
Much like I would prefer a republican party that followed the ideology of Ron Paul on liberty, monetary, states-rights, fiscal, and social issues, he's FAR too right or even libertarian to ever be considered anything but a kook on the right, but if your brackets are Bernie Sanders and Ron Paul, then yes, Hillary and Barack are to the right of Bernie, but far left of Dr. Paul.
Comments
And I agree with the primary motivation. In that way, I may be seeing it in as jaded of terms as you are saying you see it. Because I would agree that it would be foolish for them to bank on pleasing those that are most vocal about the need to diversify the line so as to sell to them. To make a political sale. Because it is always easier to Tweet the change you want to see in the world than it is to show up and vote with your dollars.
But I don't think that is what this effort to improve representation in the line is about. I think it a longer term strategy to have more hooks into the characters that can catch up with the changed demographics. Not to sell to liberals that just like to see the change they agree with. But rather to be there waiting when a next generation of 10-12 year olds want to see themselves in the fiction.
So in that way, I think Marvel is less doing capital-D Diversity in the political sense. I think they are, in financial terms, diversifying their portfolio. Their portfolio is pretty deep into white male characters, because they built most of these brands a long time ago. So they are taking on some risk by making these long term investments. I think that is not politics. It is hedging.
(Never let it be said I'm not jaded when it comes to the profit motive!)
Right now, in particular, there is a very vocal component of Conservativism that focuses on engendering a sense of fear, pessimism and divisiveness. In my local community of about 150,000, there have been two, maybe three murders in the last 3-5 years. One was domestic and another appears to have involved mental illness or synthetics. In between, there have been a few other incidents of violence, including a fight that broke out at a video game and bad pizza parlor. If you read the local conservative forums, there is a very strong sense that the barbarians are at the gate and we not safe to walk down the street. That's really, really sad.
With superhero comics in general, we don't see that, we see people pulling together and looking out for the common good simply because it's right and not because there's a PR moment or a monetary reward at the end of the story. Instead, we're inundated with ideas that the people over there want to kill us, and the company over there is going to pollute our drinking water and our government is going to infringe on our rights.
So, yeah, comics start out being optimistic and then occasionally get heavy-handed about the things that the creators are passionately in favor of or passionately opposed to. Ultimately, I'm OK with that. I question the validity of creativity without passion.
Even Kamandi waded into Watergate, when the characters stumbled into the ruins of Washington in search of the infamous tape recordings.
I suppose most comic creators, just like most artists in general, lean left, but so do I. Thus, most political statements don't really bother me, although I don't like preachy. I think it's perfectly sensible for writers to mine current events for good story ideas, whether it's the rise of extremist terrorist groups or homegrown fanatics or deranged political leaders. It's no different than Stan and Jack basing the idea of a crazed secret society like Hydra on real-life spy groups (or a caricature of what we thought might exist in secret).
The problem I see with politics in comics, as someone who considers himself a conservative leaning libertarian, is that it is COMPLETELY one-sided. You'll probably have no problem with it if you agree with the leftist politics being espoused, but if you are conservative, or right-leaning, or libertarian, the number of characters you can identify with in comics today are limited to the Red Skull or some other villains, and not much else. That's not diversity.
When asked about how he depicts politics in his work, Bill Willingham said It's perfectly normal for Riverdale's Archie Andrews to struggle with competition, girls, teen troubles, as well as his gay friends being harassed or marginalized. That's something he might have to deal with in real life. Wouldn't it be encouraging to moderate Muslims if Ms. Marvel battled against honor killings, terrorist threats, misogyny, child marriage and genital mutilation - all atrocities associated with Islamic populations globally? If not, why not? When Frank Miller came out hard against radical Islam, he was called a "hateful bigot." When Nick Spencer does it via Falcon Cap, he's "brilliant." DC's Simon Baz (also Muslim) touched on Guantanamo Bay, so why isn't Ms. Marvel a perfect foil for that Muslim extremism?
When discussing politics on his Tumblr page, Brian Michael Bendis made this comment It's odd that so much emphasis is placed on diversity, such as female, gay, minority representation, but when a lack of conservative voices is mentioned, or right-leaning readers are bothered by something, liberal writers merely double down while liberal readers (or those ill-informed about politics) accuse those on the right of every kind of social atrocity (bigotry, racism, myopic, regressive, hypocrisy, etc). What's equally troubling is what I find to be the favorite conceit of liberal comic book readers/creators; which is "if you don't agree with us, then you're just stupid."
Politics in comics should be handled delicately, not in a ham-fisted way. And that's the problems I'm seeing today and have discussed in this forum many times and will continue to point it out when it's painfully obvious.
The tea party has indeed created a rift on the right between a somewhat conservative establishment and a viscerally conservative insurgency. And the struggle between those two factions has provided the grist for news stories over the past few years, it isn't the whole picture. As Commentary magazine's Seth Mandel once said, And that rings true from what we've seen. And not just because they tried to start a silly "coffee party." From the fawning adulation of the Occupy protests, which amounted to one long primal scream against capitalism to the recent full embrace of Black Lives Matter rioters, Wisconsin's 17-day protests, anti-Trump anarchists, La Raza (the 'race') illegal "dreamers," anti-gun Congressional sit-ins, and even socialist Bernie Sanders almost being the nominee while embracing the psuedo-socialism of Elizabeth Warren. Whatever the latest raison d'être of liberal starry-eyed youth & dreamers there will be a leftist cadre of Democratic politicians racing to express their proud solidarity with them. These causes are all farther left than nearly anything we saw in the mainstream left prior to 2000.
There are extreme factions on BOTH sides, as you can see. And as the Right shows how conservative they can get, the left is either going further left, or only now revealing the deepest depths of their liberalism. Call it getting more liberal or just naked opportunism, YMMV. Today's Democratic Party is somewhere between a liberal establishment that wants bigger, more centralized government, and an even more liberal wing that wants the same thing squared. At the bottom of that horizontal graph, both think the formula for perfection is simple: Put the government in charge of everything, and put the right people in charge of the government. Then just sit back and wait for everything to become perfect.
Sigh.
There are extreme factions on BOTH sides, as you can see. And as the Right shows how conservative they can get, the left is either going further left, or only now revealing the deepest depths of their liberalism. Call it getting more liberal or just naked opportunism, YMMV. Today's Democratic Party is somewhere between a liberal establishment that wants bigger, more centralized government, and an even more liberal wing that wants the same thing squared. At the bottom of that horizontal graph, both think the formula for perfection is simple: Put the government in charge of everything, and put the right people in charge of the government. Then just sit back and wait for everything to become perfect.
Definitely not a partisan, but feel free to label. As I've said before, I'm a man with no Party - with exception of primaries, it's pretty liberating. As someone that was comfortable with much, but not all, of the Republican platform for many years, I've seen it move to what I consider extremes that I can no longer support.
My supposition, is that you see the US as a complete spectrum, and I see the US as part of a global spectrum. Even with the outliers that you've quoted above, a few of which might be actual news sources, which is a big step up from the previous citatation, they're still well right of the global left, as @Brack tried to point out the other day. You've previously self-identified with the Rabid Puppies, so I'm clearly a leftist by your measure regardless of whether or not I consider myself to be conservative on any issues.
All that said, I do agree with you that there are extreme factions in both Parties. I don't really consider them to be sides, because that's been demonstrated to be too binary to result in anything other than gridlock. However, I disagree with you on the assignment to strictly the Democratic Party to wanting bigger, more centralized government. I see a lot of the same coming from elements of the right.
Unfortunately, I think that the small government, free market model is just as flawed as the communist or socialist model. Mankind, now including corporations, is, in my estimation, inherently evil, and has demonstrated time and again, that it will seek out short term profits over long term viability. We saw it in the collapse of the soviet union and we've been seeing it for years with corporations shifting operations to less expensive labor markets, demands for public subsidy, and more recently insane markups on already profitable products.
I think any extreme is worthy of mockery anyway.
First under the politics of Marxism such as Communist Party USA or the Socialist Labor Party. Or the Marxist–Leninists found in the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, Party for Socialism and Liberation, Progressive Labor Party, Revolutionary Communist Party, and the Workers World Party
There are Trotskyists, represented by such groups as Freedom Socialist Party, Socialist Action, Socialist Alternative, Socialist Workers Party, Solidarity, Spartacist League, and Workers International League
Socialism is represented in the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and the Socialist Party USA (SPUSA)
And as mentioned there are anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists, the Black Panther party, OWS, BLM, Weather Underground, extremist elements of the Students for a Democratic Society. As far back as the 70's there was the Symbionese Liberation Army, committing bank robberies, two murders, and other acts of violence - and most famous for kidnapping Patty Hearst.
The Green Party of the United States is also rather extreme, although I like a lot of what Presidential candidate Jill Stein espouses, she still wants to shut down all nuclear power plants. And then there are the communes and other intentional communities on the left.
Some of these groups certainly support good or righteous causes, though their methods are questionable. It's strange though, that I've never witnessed significant leftist outrage over female genital mutilation, child marriage, honor killings, sharia-inspired rape laws, stoning, or acid attacks. Nothing. Not saying that that outrage doesn't exist. Just saying I've never seen it. This "selective outrage" has convinced me that much of what the left-wingers describe as "feminism" is not so much support for women, as it is a protest against Western, heterosexual men. It's an "I hate" phenomenon, rather than an "I love" phenomenon.
Of course I have right-wing friends that get angry and they express that anger. But when I encounter unhinged, bitter and abusive language, and detailed revenge fantasies in sadistic language, I've usually stumbled upon a left-wing website. Given that the left prides itself on being the liberator of women, homosexuals, and on being "sex positive," one of the weirder and most obvious aspects of left-wing hate is how often, and how virulently, it is expressed in terms that are misogynist or homophobic. We've all seen leftists taunt/troll right-wingers as "tea baggers." The implication is that the target of their slur is either a woman or a gay man being orally penetrated by a man, and is, therefore, inferior, and despicable because it's been used as an insult. I guess they know they can't use the word "fag" anymore...
A high-profile example of this sort of leftist invective was delivered by MSNBC's Martin Bashir in late 2013. Bashir said, on the air from the teleprompter, not as part of a moment's loss of control, something so vile about conservative firebrand Sarah Palin that I won't repeat it here. Suffice to say it's far more offensive than ANYTHING said on the record by Donald Trump. And extreme as it was, Bashir's comments are fairly representative of a good percentage of what I read on left-wing websites about conservatives in general. So I think it's safe to say there is extremism on both sides of the aisle, and that there's nothing extreme on the right that is unsurpassed by something extreme on the left.
Now, if you don't consider the left / right, democrats / republicans as two parties and don't identify with either of them, then maybe you're more of a globalist and you look down on nationalists.
Would that be more accurate?
It would take you three seconds on google to find such outrage over all these things. Give me a break. You paint a caricature of the left and all of your observations somehow support that picture. Funny how that works.
I belonged to a Chamber of Commerce group that had a distinct bias toward conservatism, to the point that Obama was mocked from the speaker's dias.
In my evangelical church, everyone but me seems conservative.
By contrast, in my grad classes, the tilt was heavily towards the liberal side. But the trustees of that same university are decidedly conservative.
Talk radio is extremely conservative. Prime time television is quite liberal. Movie stars are liberal and country singers are conservative.
So comics, like most other groupings, tends to lean a certain way. Weed out the ones that are intolerable and enjoy the rest.
And dude, you posted a link to Breitbart in here! Now we have to burn and salt the cyberspace!
:lol:
First, I really don't feel the need to be a member of any particular club or take any particular label. That said, I think that anyone that isn't prepared to deal with the fact that we are inextricably connected to a global economy, ecology and society is beyond naive. Second, yeah, I don't have much respect for people wrapping themselves in the flag. "Murica! F-yeah" is pretty much the ugly American in action.
Do I think that the United States could be a bright shining beacon on a hill? Perhaps one day, but not until we move away from insularism, anti-intellectualism, and a whole host of other -isms and start trying to make things better rather than trying to make things what they were.
The column that I referenced gives a more nuanced description of "alt right" for anyone interested in learning more than just the fear-mongering that Hillary Clinton delivered last week when she was demonizing her political opponents. The content was factual although op-ed in nature.
Eventually, I suspect we'll get back to the thread's original topic since I've made my points quite clearly, whether you've accepted them or not. Hopefully I'll respond to all three of your opposing comments when I have some time later today or tomorrow.
But I think Breitbart is a totally different matter.
From the article:
"The alt-right’s intellectuals would also argue that culture is inseparable from race. The alt-right believe that some degree of separation between peoples is necessary for a culture to be preserved."
"The alt-right do not hold a utopian view of the human condition: just as they are inclined to prioritise the interests of their tribe, they recognise that other groups – Mexicans, African-Americans or Muslims – are likely to do the same.
". But natural conservatives have other concerns: chiefly, the preservation of their own tribe and its culture."
Maybe it's just me, but I'm not Much for seperation. Or white nationalism. Or Spanish or black nationalism.
I don't know. I'm sure @hauberk can explain it better than I ever could. I'm just not that smart.
Like I said, I'm not much for separation. My tribe is that of the good ol US of A, not whatever race I am.
(I know you didn't say 'tribe', but the article did)
Also, who ya calling a Demogoblin??!!
(As long as you don't support no Bart Hamilton Goblins...)
There's political writing and there's character cohesiveness.
John not hating a rich capitalist would like Foolkiller making pals with that doofus swimmer who trashed a bathroom.
That being said, talking about politics on these forums feel kinda weird and icky. I fear it will burn the forums down, if left unchecked. There is NOTHING more divisive in the US than politics.
imo
I am about the most lefty guy on the board, and Obama was FAR too right wing for me with him adopting ideas from the Heritage Foundation, still using aggressive military campaigns, etc...
We have very different ideas of what left and right are, especially if you are an America Only person...the British right wing party is further left than even Bernie Sanders.
According to even the Huffington Post: Hillary Clinton is a progressive democrat, despite what you may have heard. Hillary's positions on immigration, gun violence, and abortion rights are all strongly progressive, left-wing positions. Unless you think purely left means wide-open borders, zero guns allowed, and tax-payer funded abortions for any age, any reason, and at any time.
Clinton is considered one of the most liberal Congress members during her time in the Senate and her record was more liberal than 70% of the Democrats in her final term in the Senate. She was more liberal than 85% of all other members. Barack Obama was nearby with a record more liberal than 82% of all members — but not more liberal than Clinton who is even more liberal than Obama on healthcare, minimum wage, marriage equality and several other raisons d'être on the left (including expanding government, raising taxes, and enriching themselves).
The DailyKos even created this helpful diagram in case you disagree:
Hillary rates as a “hard core liberal” per the OnTheIssues.org scale. As liberal as Elizabeth Warren and barely more moderate than Bernie Sanders. And while Obama is also a “hard core liberal,” Clinton again was rated as more liberal than Obama.
So maybe your definition of "left wing" or "liberal" is even more extreme than the commonly accepted definition or vernacular, but just because they are "too right wing" for you doesn't mean Obama and Clinton are centrist moderates, it just means you're so liberal you'd never be able to get elected in national politics. From my perspective on the right, guys like Romney, McCain, Graham, McConnell, Ryan, W. Bush et al, have move to the left on big spending and big government and many social issues, so it probably works both ways.
Much like I would prefer a republican party that followed the ideology of Ron Paul on liberty, monetary, states-rights, fiscal, and social issues, he's FAR too right or even libertarian to ever be considered anything but a kook on the right, but if your brackets are Bernie Sanders and Ron Paul, then yes, Hillary and Barack are to the right of Bernie, but far left of Dr. Paul.