Interactive Quiz: How Progressive Are You? Take the test!

[Yon_Yonson]

The Center’s latest pair of reports on the new progressive era now sweeping the country—Senior Fellow Ruy Teixeira’s “New Progressive America” and Senior Fellow John Halpin’s “The State of American Political Ideology, 2009”—map in detail the changing face of American political thought over the past several decades.

Take the interactive poll below (based on the national survey featured in Halpin's report) to see how your own ideological leanings stack up against those of your fellow Americans. Take the test here:

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/03/progressive_quiz.html

I tested Hard Core Progreesive but that was no surprise

:hippie:

[FarLeftFist]

1. I got 'extremely progressive'. 330/400

[Yon_Yonson]

4. I got 329 which came a no surprise

I thought the question were very straightforward and easy to understand

[immoderate]

73. Progressives only average 237 on the progressive test.

DUers appear to be a bit off the scale.

--imm

[PufPuf23]

80. 300 / 400 Very Progressive.

Some of the questions were logic traps and I rated them 5.

I never gave a 0 nor a 10..

Some of the questions were just bad.

I know am a liberal democrat that believes in just society, living within Nature, anti-war, anti-neoliberalism/globalization. The ecology of natural science trumps flawed models that justify amoral immediate profit over sustainabilty and adaptation.

[DJ13]

2. "extremely progressive"

349/400

[TNLib]

3. 367

nt

[crim son]

5. Extremely progressive here.

I honestly expected to come out as a middle-of-the-road progressive.

[get the red out]

6. Extremely Progressive

I wasn't surprised by my result either, LOL. I posted the link on my FB page and told my score, I like to scare some of my "friends" a bit. Some don't get much exposure to anyone left of Rand Paul.

[TriMera]

7. 356. n/t

[JHB]

8. 305. Practically makes me the reactionary in this thread

Get off my lawn! :evilgrin:

[tilsammans]

9. Another "extremely progressive" here

343/400

[movonne]

10. 317/400

[Rabblevox]

11. 348/400 here "extremely progressive". Nice, except I consider myself...

to be a "moderate liberal" The boundaries have changed, kiddos. Even Nixon and Ford would be considered "liberal" today.

Just sad, that.

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. THREAD WINNAH

[Scuba]

41. Bingo.

[Turbineguy]

12. Extremely progressive

318. Average American 209 out of 400

[Eddie Haskell]

13. I came in right where I thought I would.

[supernova]

14. 378/400 Extremely Progressive

LOL. No wonder I sometimes feel I need to be in a different country if the average for this test is about 208.

[NMMNG]

15. 360/Extremely Progressive

[MuseRider]

16. 382 not surprised but

I always like taking these tests just to see what they say.

[hootinholler]

71. sig pic gratuitously stolen n/t

:rofl:

[MuseRider]

75. I got it from

racaulk. He was kind enough to let me use it. Glinda will always take care of us.

[hootinholler]

86. I think it is great!

For some reason I just :rofl:

[nadinbrzezinski]

17. 357 here, extremely progressive

not that I am shocked or surprised

[WinkyDink]

19. I can tell yas without a test. "Extremely."

[AC_Mem]

20. I scored 337 - Extremely Progressive

No surprise - fun test! Thanks for the post.

Annette

[Zephie]

21. 352/400, extremely progressive

[GodlessBiker]

22. Extremely Progressive.

[Tunkamerica]

23. 344

[bananas]

24. 370 "extremely progressive"

"the average score for americans is 209.5"

[Sherman A1]

25. 324

I was not terribly impressed with some of the wording of a few of the questions.

Nevertheless it was interesting.

[Sisaruus]

26. Extremely progressive 326

[MrScorpio]

27. 349

Pretty lefty for a retired vet

[aikoaiko]

28. 221 -- still considered a progressive apparently.

:evilgrin:

[Blue_In_AK]

29. 360/400 - Extremely progressive

No surprise there.

[LLStarks]

30. 279 nt

[2banon]

31. I have a problem with this poll, it's one cliche after another..

I thought I'd be game but by the 14th question, I'm finding myself very frustrated with the kinds of questions and the way the questions are framed. It's like, well really lame.

As an example, here is where I left off in taking the test, but it also exemplifies all others previous to this question..

Number 14 reads : "The primary responsibility of corporations is to produce profits and returns for their shareholders, not to improve society"..

My answer would be: Corporations do not have an obligation to improve society, but they are obligated to DO NO HARM to society and the environment and the Government has an obligation to make sure they don't HARM society and the environment.

This is a perfect example of the narratives heard on, or spun by the MEDIA and the politicians.

There's no way to reflect how I think about this question and every question prior to this was similarly framed in this sort of false dichotomy way..

Drives me freaking crazy!!! arggghhh..

[nessa]

46. I agree. (nt)

.

[aikoaiko]

51. The poll wasn't written by anyone with survey/polling skills. Double barreled questions galore.

I think its just supposed to be fun.

[swilton]

55. Three questions were problematic to me in a similar fashion

Rather than quibble about the logic I used in answering the question you identified, the one on Iraq - the wording was something to the effect of whether or not the war 'proved' that you could not force democracy on other societies....

From my perspective the war has not 'proven' anything - one reason is that it is still ongoing - or is it? Secondly, war is not falsifiable - therefore nothing can be proven or disproven from the experience, etc., etc.

There was one other question that was problematic - otherwise I gave the 37 remaining questions the benefit of the doubt and answered them with my gut feeling.

[2banon]

60. like the thread above, not a serious poll, just do it for fun kind of thing,

problem is I find lame cliche polls not so much fun..

thanks I'll go play free cell instead.. :hi:

[krabigirl]

78. I agree.

[LooseWilly]

83. It's questions like that that "dropped" me to 348... I gave that one a 4...

Because it's theoretically true... and while I object to corporations on a number of levels because it is true, I nevertheless have to acknowledge & agree (to some extent) that it is true... what the question fails to ask is— is this a good thing?... or, Is this grounds for radically restructuring the "corporation" in order to allow it to continue to exist as an entity at all?

I suspect I'd've wound up with near 500 out of 400 had it been essay questions... ;)

[2banon]

85. First question was a clue but I thought it would improve as it progressed..

It only seemed to get worse.. I already know where I'd score, I'm pretty much hard core progressive. But I try to be intellectually honest about the issues I take a stand on. Not everything is either/or black and white. I should have stopped at the first one, I did quit it at #14.. dumb, dumber and dumbest..

There are clear, guiding principles built on a belief system which doesn't seem to fit into the Corporate Media or our Political culture's narrative, which is really astonishing when you think about it. I expect polls to reflect something a bit deeper than what the Corporate media's tries to pass as political info/debate etc. I used to frequently take Zogby polls which I saw as an improvement over others to some degree.. But the redundancy became too tedious and it too tried to pigeon hole certain narratives.. I no longer participate in them. After attempting this one, i see that they've only gotten worse in time or at least no marked improvement.

Will we see a radical departure of this nonsense in our life time? It can't be a moment too soon, imo.

[NYC_SKP]

32. 380/400. Extremely Progressive. Apparently more progressive than progressives (237.6)

Most of the questions were no-brainers.

:patriot:

[Fuzz]

33. Extremely progressive - 341. A couple of the questions near the end I found odd.

Had to answer with a 5 as they were not answerable, for me anyway, as an all yes or no, but more of a combination of things needed to fix the problem and the question didn't allow for that.

[johnaries]

34. 330 out of 400. I found the chart of "other groups" very interesting. nt

[Warren DeMontague]

35. 314. Another reactionary, I guess. The wording of some of the questions, I think, was part of it.

For instance, "is limited government always better than big government". Well, obviously, the 'progressive' answer is intended to be "no". And there's that "always" in there, which makes it sort of a no-brainer.

But, certainly, in some instances I think limited government IS better than big government. Take the drug war. The military. The fetus police.

So, :shrug:



I'm also curious as to what the 'progressives' here who support, for instance, banning pictures of naked women or films of consenting adults fucking did with the question pertaining to sex in the media.

[FredStembottom]

44. Ha! We must have been writing the same thing

..at about the same time (see me below with another example).

:hi:

[Warren DeMontague]

47. Yep. Some of these issues have more than one angle.

I support global free trade (with conditions*), too- which presumably is not a 'progressive' position.

*the conditions, however, are consistent labor, quality, & environmental standards, which we currently don't have.

[phylny]

36. 337/400 extremely progressive n/t

[LWolf]

37. 369/400. "Extremely Progressive." No surprise. nt

[Exilednight]

38. 341

I find the test to be a bit too black and white.

[CTyankee]

39. My score was 363/400, Extremely Progressive!

I don't know why I didn't get a full 400 score, but anyway, that's fine...I like it...

[Zorra]

40. 362 nt

[trackfan]

42. 347 nt

[FredStembottom]

43. 308.

As usual... the angle that certain questions come from made them hard to answer.

Like: (to the effect) Immigrants are a problem because they take our jobs and abuse government services.

Controlled entry is fine. But let business employ uncontrolled numbers of immigrants at depressed wages (and control same immigrants with threats of being revealed) and you got big problems.

[amb123]

45. 330 / Extremely Progressive

:patriot:

[MineralMan]

48. 324/400

That seems to put me in the extremely progressive category. I answered all questions honestly. Many would not think I'm extremely progressive. They'd be wrong.

I answered the questions honestly. However, it would have been easy for me to score much higher than I did. Or lower, if I wished. In fact, any politically astute person could make this quiz say anything he or she wished. It's far too transparent and the questions are far too easy to figure out. Tests like this are essentially useless, since they're so easily understood and manipulated.

A proper test of political position would be much more nuanced and have far more questions than 40. It would also check for consistency in the answers and would pose the same ideas in different forms. Bottom line is that this test is pretty much worthless.

[NYC_SKP]

50. Agree. The Likert Scale made unreliable results more likely than a simple yes/no model would have.

IMHO.

For example, I chose to answer only at one end of the scale or the other except on one question.

This gave me a high score of 380/400 when, in reality, I don't consider myself that far left (compared to other scores reported in this thread).

:shrug:

[MineralMan]

57. I studied each question, and answered in as nuanced a fashion

as I could. Some of the questions did not lend themselves to end of the scale answers. Others did. That's why the 324 score. It would have been easy to choose to vote closer to the end of the scale on many questions, since I could see clearly how they were measuring the question.

This was a poorly-designed test of this type. I'd call it amateurish, but I suspect that someone who should be able to create a good test designed it. It had most of the elements of a decent test, but was just too transparent if you're politically savvy at all and wanted to manipulate the score. So, I made a conscious effort to answer after thinking about each question for a while. That led to some answers that were in the middle of the scale, since several questions were contradictory in the two halves of the question.

I dislike such tests, unless they are much longer and cross-check answers on seemingly unrelated questions that have similar emphasis. Those, I can manipulate, too, if I choose, but it's much harder to work the test for a specific score.

As I said, I answered these questions honestly and in accordance with my real beliefs. The score was about what I expected.

[PollyPeptide555]

49. 298

Much lower than I thought.....

[Skittles]

52. 326 - extremely progressive

no surprise

[polmaven]

53. I scored

322/400....Extremely progressive....I'll be that comes as a surprise to a lot of folks here!!!!!! :dem:

[rustydog]

54. 344/400 I thought I was a bit more conservative!

[BOG PERSON]

56. according to the test, i think history goes in cycles?

sooo... not very progressive apparently.

[RC]

58. 340

[starroute]

59. I got stuck on about the fifth question and couldn't continue

It's something like "the job of corporations is to create profits for their shareholders rather than to benefit society."

And I had the feeling that the proper "progressive" answer was to disagree strongly.

But in fact that statement is 100% true -- and is exactly what's wrong with corporations and why they are a blight on society.

I might not have bailed so quickly at that point if I hadn't had the feeling that the previous questions were also loaded. It's not just that they were transparent, as someone suggested up-thread. It's that they seemed to be presenting a fixed ideological position in which capitalism is the unquestioned basis of the system and the role of government is to regulate it and maintain a social safety net.

And I think there's something fundamentally flawed in that approach.

But I guess I'm just an old anarcho-syndicalist at heart.

[alecnotALEC]

66. tpm wrote the questions me think..

Even the questions are created by neocon propaganda machines. Here's loaded bullshit that requires complex answers but you're not smart enough to realize a number is insufficient..

On a scale of 1-10 what's your favorite food?

Whatever

[LooseWilly]

84. "On a scale of 1-10 what's your favorite food?" — 4, obviously....

Is that as hard as you get? ;)

[quaker bill]

61. 361 extremely progressive

[alecnotALEC]

62. 320/400 extremely wtf??

Who makes the rules for what's what.. I'm like five degrees left of center, just because I realize the swap meet needs a mall cop & vendor permits doesn't make me Stalin. If the average is 208 or whatever it just validates America as the most ignorant nation ever..

[Wwagsthedog]

63. 320 nt

[tpsbmam]

64. 365/400 "extremely progressive" Yep, I knew that. Interesting read. nt

[Lyric]

65. 376/400 Extremely Progressive

[gblady]

67. 329,..... extremely!

[a la izquierda]

68. 369

Not entirely shocked, I have to say.

[Lucian]

69. 378 extremely progressive

No surprise there.

[rug]

70. 380

[immoderate]

72. 343. But I can try harder.

--imm

[proud2BlibKansan]

74. 380

[Dragonfli]

76. 365, but some I believe were trick questions - an example:

The one about the responsibility of corporations being to the stockholders and not society, that is true, it is exactly what the rules are for a corporation, does it suck? yes! in fact it should be changed or else corporations should not be allowed to exist, but the only truthful answer was that corporations have a responsibility to profits and stockholders it is just the correct answer if you know what a corporation is.

It is also why we need to stop allowing incorporation IMO.

[krabigirl]

77. 245 - just plain vanilla progressive, not hard-core :)

[TeamsterDem]

79. 373/400 for me. nt

[ohheckyeah]

81. 373 out of 400

That was no surprise.

[W_HAMILTON]

82. 326/400

"Extremely Progressive" :)

[alphafemale]

87. 349

Sounds about right.