The Political Compass: Identifying Your Partisan Enemies And Other Misconceptions It Tells You

Even in the midst of a dreadful year, the machines of American politics still turn and 2020 still remains an election year. As the election draws near, it's time to look towards the many political memes that are about to have their time to shine.

Of course, there will be heaps of hostile memes from both sides of the aisle, but also plenty to enjoy for everyone in-between -- such as President Donald Trump's recent interview with Axios reporter Jonathan Swan, which has already become a bountiful source for memes.

Meanwhile, a video of Joe Biden showing off his C2 Corvette Stingray has sparked interest in the meme world, mainly due to how much it radiates intense Boomer energy. However, by stepping back to examine online political discourse from a less Amerocentric perspective, there is but one image that dominates all others: the four-quadrant Political Compass.

The Political Compass is a now-iconic image that separates political ideologies into a four-quadrant grid. Made by Pace News LTD on politicalcompass.org in 2001, the site lets users take a test that asks them various questions related to their perspective on politically charged statements. Ranging from a "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree" with no neutral option, the test tallies a user's responses to place them onto the grid. The four axes of the test are Authoritarian-Libertarian on the Y-axis and Left-Right on the X-axis.

While a noble attempt, the test has three major flaws. As noted, there is no neutral option, meaning the test forces an opinion onto users when they may have none. This pushes the test-taker in a direction they may not feel truly represents them. Additionally, personal politics can often be reactionary to world events, rather than a numerically static position on a grid. The last major flaw is that Left and Right is an oversimplified description of progressivism and conservatism without going into those two real political theories. In the end, the test resembles a Myers-Brigg Type Indicator test instead of a tool for understanding the political ideologies it thrusts users into.

The main memes that utilize the Political Compass typically revolve around parodying its form or using stereotypical personality types, such as extreme caricatures. Since the compass itself is an image macro, users typically replace the colors and political ideologies with exaggerated characters or absurdist political humor. Yet, the caricature style, where each quadrant's most extreme takes and extrapolations are personalized, is where the Political Compass shines in memes.

The four caricatures are usually as follows: Auth-Left as USSR-styled communists, Auth-Right as Neo-Nazis, Lib-Left as SJWs or anarcho-primitivists and Lib-Right as corporatists or anarcho-capitalists. Most meme creators then use these caricatures to belittle or point out absurdity in one of the quadrants. Despite the fact that they've existed for a number of years, the style has recently taken off with creators like YouTuber Jreg making videos revolved around the caricatures portrayed in these memes.

Although the Political Compass has been around since 2001, Jreg was able to capture the current style of over-the-top caricatures that spread like wildfire in recent years. From his first political satire video to the present day, Jreg has managed to capture the essence of these memes in a way that appeals to a wide audience of political followers. A notable point he makes in his videos is how all corners of the compass hate centrists, those closer to "0,0" on the graph, and the mainstream media. An important thing to note is that the centrists are often depicted as an equally extreme example of personal political leaning, either through apathy or as a way to express superiority over the other four quadrants.

Through his shorts, parodies, satires and songs, Jreg has led the way for these caricature memes as of late. Alongside his channel's shift towards these, the subreddit /r/politicalcompassmemes has also become increasingly popular. Around the date Jreg released his first video, the subreddit had about 6,400 subscribers, but now has over 320,000 members -- nearly breaching the top 1,000 most-subscribed subreddits.

While entertaining and often hilarious, it goes without saying that political memeing fails to capture actual political theory. The Political Compass, as previously stated, is more akin to a Myers-Brigg test rather than an analytical, serious take on political theory. As a result, the caricature style also enforces the concept of boiling down complex ideologies into simplified tropes and easily digestible content.

Ultimately, as social media tends to force extremes up and moderates down, the Political Compass will remain nothing more than a humorous tool for ironic political takes until a new image in the same vein emerges.

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