right vs left

My biggest complaint about political coverage in the media doesn't have much to do with a right or a left slant.  Instead, it's about nomenclature.  I believe that American political journalism has done its audience a great disservice in throwing around phrases like, "far-right", "far-left", "moderate", "conservative", "liberal", etc.  This bothers me, not because labels are somehow wrong, but rather because it implies a continuum that I believe to be entirely contrived.

If you ask the average Joe (or Jane) on the street about politics in the United States they would probably describe a continuum going from very conservative on one side to very liberal on the other.  In the last presidential election a lot of people saw the last four major party political candidates in the following way.

[Most Liberal]
Sanders
Clinton
Trump
Cruz
[Most Conservative]

If someone considered themselves conservative they'd probably consider Trump the moderate and Clinton and Sanders extremists.  If they considered themselves liberal (or progressive) they' probably consider Cruz and Trump extremists and Clinton as a moderate (or a sell-out if they were pro-Sanders).  Regardless, their view would be focused on where the politician fell on the spectrum, and subsequently who is the closest on the spectrum to them personally.* Thing is, none of this is really the best way to understand political viewpoints, and my personal observation is that it leads to bad things.

American politics, and politics in general, is really just a collection of buckets of special interests.  The phrase "special interests" is often used disparagingly, and sometimes with good reason, but there is nothing inherently evil with a special interest.  Ask that same general person on the street what their views are on various political issues and they're probably going to care deeply about a small number of them and more or less toe the party line on the rest.  If the party line changes on these periphery issues their position will change as well.  They may not even realize it.

So, I would assume that a typical person possibly has two or three issues that they care deeply about, and those issues place them in a special interest bucket (or possibly a small number of buckets).  Over time a feedback loop is formed where more people from one side of the supposed continuum end up in a specific bucket, or some high profile voice for the bucket happens to advocate for one side of the continuum over the other, and this causes people in the bucket to identify with that side of the completely contrived continuum.  It could be either end of the continuum or somewhere in the middle.  Someone who would otherwise have opinions for different issues all over the continuum decides that, since I'm a [Conservative/Progressive/Moderate/Etc] I should take this view on this issue because that's the view of my people.

I see some negative consequences to this.  They include the following.

1. Many people of all political persuasions don't look at any issues objectively, and even issues that they don't otherwise care much about.  They investigate an issue from the perspective of where they are on the continuum.  I've seen it and I've done it.
2. Many people believe they have to agree with people near them on the continuum on all issues.  That's just silly.  For one, there shouldn't be any shame in taking the position that I won't hold a position on an issue until I've had the opportunity to gather enough facts about it.  I've certainly held political opinions before I had enough facts to understand whether they were wise opinions.
3. Many people are skeptical of news sources that are from a different place on the continuum but are overly credulous of news sources in the same location on the continuum.  While it runs counter to human nature, the time we should be the most skeptical is when we agree with everything we're hearing.  I know very much the urge to tune into people who I know will tell me what I want to hear.
4. When many people identify people who are near them on the spectrum they overlook flaws in their logic and flaws in their character because they're on the same team.  I've made excuses for scoundrels on many occasions because I agreed with them, and that's a behavior I see across the board.  This year is like most, where there are multiple people from both parties who will win their elections even in the middle of ridiculous legal and ethical scandals.
5. Most importantly, when many people claim territory on the political spectrum they frequently declare themselves enemies of people who are elsewhere on the spectrum.  Everyone who isn't near me on the political spectrum must be intellectually or morally deficient.  I've been there for sure.

For my part, my motivation for this post is that over time I have realized that I don't belong anywhere on a political continuum.  I believed I did for a long time, and maybe I did in some contrived way.  I don't now, though.

Pick a politician and I almost certainly agree with them on at least one issue and disagree with them on at least one issue.  Maybe the issues I agree with them on are inconsequential enough that I'm not in their bucket, but I can still find an area of agreement.  The buckets you could place me in are all over the place.  Furthermore, like most politicians, my positions on some major issues have shifted over time as well in various directions, and some will continue to shift.  Most people would call this being a Moderate, but I don't hold a lot of the positions that I would expect a true Moderate to hold, so that leaves me believing the concept of a political continuum is woefully inadequate.

It may sound like I am saying that people should be like me, but that would be reading my intentions in reverse.  I believe that, deep down, the majority of people actually are like me.  They may claim a specific political identity, but that's just for maybe two or three issues that place them in a bucket rather than on a continuum.

I believe that if you forced people to explain their political beliefs on a variety of issues without resorting to platitudes and talking points, and forced them to acknowledge the issues they don't really hold a firm position on, you'd find a majority of people who don't fit comfortably on the continuum.  You'd find that everyone is all over the map on the various issues that they actually hold informed opinions on, and you'd also find that people don't care about a lot of issues they claim to that identifies them on one side or the other.  I believe that most Americans are more alike politically than they are different, but most just don't realize it.  We're not all that different, you, I, and most everyone else in this country.

* I'll add that if the person you were asking was a Libertarian they might describe a quadrant instead of a continuum, but the concept is still the same--just with an extra dimension.