George Friedman writes at Geopolitical Futures. Today his topic is the origins and continued usefulness or otherwise of the right vs. left distinction in domestic politics. He believes that distinction is no longer useful, and proposes a new one.
In today's politics, Friedman believes the appropriate distinction is between nationalists and internationalists. In the former group he lumps Trump and Sanders, in the latter Clinton. In Britain one supposes Brexit supporters are nationalists and EU supporters internationalists.
Let's understand something; Friedman's field is foreign policy. Those who study it can usefully be arrayed along a nationalism-internationalism dimension.
However, a typology that lumps Trump and Sanders into the same category does have problems. While they agree about nationalism, they likely disagree about much more.
I begin to conclude a single continuum is not adequate to array all political positions upon. Perhaps a two dimensional space or even a three dimensional space might be more accurate, if also more confusing and difficult for the casually interested to grasp.
Friedman's nationalist/internationalist dichotomy works for the Trump/Clinton contest. How would you use it to distinguish between, say, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz? Or between Trump and Rand Paul?
