#1 Hannity Insanity: Obama isn't a good fit for the U.S. because it's center-right and Obama is far left.

Why Hannity's Insane: The U.S. is in economic decline precisely because it's been center right. And Obama is well to the right of true center continuing "free trade", with far right advisors, and bank bailouts with virtually no strings attached. What's called "liberal" is in the true political center.

Hannity, on his July 1, 2009 radio program, was talking about how Obama is so "leftist" in a nation that isn't. It went something like this ... greatly paraphrased.

Obama ran as a moderate, but he's governing from the far left. Doesn't he know this is a center-right nation? He's being a far-left socialist, but that doesn't fit the nation.

Hannity is correct on one point. The politics of this country is center-right. Here's a chart from The Political Compass before the last election (it's also at the section on Capitalism, Socialism, & Dictatorship). I added the Communist & Fascist Dictatorship labels.

Take the test to see where you stand compared to those you support.

What's called "centrist" in the U.S. is about halfway between the true center and the right ... and authoritarian, as well. Here's The Political Compass on what's the center:

The timeless universal centre should not be confused with merely the present national average. The former is far more meaningful and informative.

The Political Compass explains the dimensions of their charts:

Firstly, a few words about popular political terms.

Once you accept that left and right are merely measures of economic position, the "extreme right" refers to extremely liberal economics that may be practised by social authoritarians or social libertarians.

Similarly, the "extreme left" identifies a strong degree of state economic control, which may also be accompanied by liberal or authoritarian social policies.  ...

Voter turnout is highest when ideological differences are most significant. This helps explain why the voter turnout is lower in the US than in all other western democracies , most of which have a multiplicity of parties and proportional representation.

The Republican Race to the Right

Barry Goldwater, who in 1964 ran for the presidency, observed that the Republican Party had become radically more socially conservative.

In 1996, Barry Goldwater sat in his Paradise Valley home with Bob Dole and joked about his strange new standing as a GOP outsider.

"We're the new liberals of the Republican Party," Goldwater told Dole, who was then facing criticisms from hard-line conservatives in the presidential campaign. "Can you imagine that?"

In 1981, Goldwater assailed the founder of the Moral Majority, the Rev. Jerry Falwell. Responding to Falwell's statement that all good Christians should be concerned about the Supreme Court nomination of Arizonan Sandra Day O'Connor, he said, "I think every good Christian ought to kick Falwell right in the ass."

In 1989, Goldwater said the Republican Party had been taken over by a "bunch of kooks," a reference to forces supporting TV evangelist Pat Robertson and Mecham.

This trend toward increased social conservatism also drove the Republican Party to the far right economically. From "Assessing the Vote and the Roots of American Political Divide" by R.G. Price - 11/6/04

The socially conservative movement was always driven by elements of the working-class. Once women and minorities joined the ranks of enfranchised working-class voters, working-class politics in America adopted a progressive social position.

As that happened, the Republican Party began embracing social conservatism to pick up votes. When that happened broad conservative white male working-class support then went to the Republican Party.

The working-class vote has driven American politics since the Great Depression. The reality is that Southern working-class America is socially conservative and votes on social issues over economic issues and always has with the exception of the 1930s during the Great Depression.

... Carter's support represented an anomaly in an otherwise steady trend away from Democratic support in the South because of social conservatism.

Redistribution of Income from Liberal to 'Conservative' States

What is interesting, is how this has impacted America economically. ...

Now, within the past 20 years, because the Republican Party has adopted the social agenda of the old Democratic Party, farmers and laborers shifted alliances to the Republican Party, especially in the South. Interestingly, this puts the Republican Party at odds with the traditional economic positions of its new base. Rural America has been the recipient of redistributed wealth in America throughout history, especially since the Civil War. The American Midwest and the South have traditionally been the largest opponents to free market practices throughout American history. A significant element of the Democratic platform throughout history has been getting federal aid to farmers and using federal funding to subsidize development in rural America.

This means that the working-class is now divided in America, with a major segment of the working-class actually voting against their own economic interests and supporting the investor class, i.e. wealthy capitalists. Interestingly, while Republican voters are now toeing the "free market" party line, and have now adopted a mentality that is opposed to so-called "redistribution of wealth" through taxation, Middle America remains the largest recipient of redistributed wealth, as has traditionally been the case in America. This continues to lead to even more political and economic confusion as "conservative" Republican voters are led to believe that their wealth is being taxed away to pay for "liberal programs", when in fact it is the other way around.

The fact is that the "liberal" states are the economic engines of our country, who subsidize the development of the rest of the country through federal reallocation of funding from "blue states" to "red states". Georgia, Indiana and Texas are the only strongly Republican states (by 2004 election standards) that send more money to the federal government than they get back in funding. Most of the other red states receive more money from the government than they contribute. If "redistribution of wealth" through the federal government were to actually stop  in America, the economies of "red states" would be severely hurt. This puts Republicans in an awkward position, with rhetoric that completely goes against the economic needs of their constituency.

That the "redistribution of wealth", about which "conservatives" complain, is from liberal to "conservative" states is extremely ironic.

Added 7/29/10: It really is totally obvious that the nation has moved to the far right.

Why Washington Is More Right-Wing Than the Rest of the Country by Cenk Uygur, Host of The Young Turks, June 28, 2010. Excerpt:

... what's maddening is that no one acknowledges two things: 1. How far to the right of the country Washington is. 2. How far the political spectrum has moved to the right.

Why is Washington more right-wing than the rest of the nation? Because that's where power and the establishment reside. Power is by nature conservative -- it wants to protect its current privileged position. That's not nefarious, it's natural. But not acknowledging that is silly. The establishment loves the status quo, because that's what got them their current position. Why would they want to change that?

And how can anyone consider themselves a political analyst and not see how far to the right we have moved as a country? Eisenhower warned us of the military industrial complex. If he had said that now, people would say he's weak on national security and doesn't support the troops. And he was a Republican. Truman ran on single payer healthcare -- Obama wouldn't even consider that. Nixon started the Environmental Protection Agency. Reagan sold arms to terrorists, negotiated with the evil empire, raised taxes eleven times, ran from Lebanon. Are you absolutely sure that Obama is to the left of Reagan?

Watch this debate with John Avlon, the author of Wingnuts, How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America, and see if you really think there is such a thing as the hard left in this country and whether they are anywhere near as extreme as the hard right: Video

One other thing that we touched on in this conversation was the idea of corporatism. Being against corporatists doesn't mean you're anti-business. There is this absurd myth that liberals are anti-business. What does that mean? Liberals don't want there to be any more businesses? Does anyone really believe that? Liberals, centrists and conservatives have no problem with business as long as they are not taking our taxpayer money! ...

Being against corporate control of our democracy shouldn't be a liberal position. It should be a universal position. It's not that multi-national corporations are evil, it's just that they're amoral. They are unconcerned with American taxpayers or citizens; they are concerned only with profits. That is what they have to be by law. It's absurd to argue otherwise.

Yet, the conventional wisdom in DC is that people who are worried about corporatist influence on American politics are far left crazies. They're not crazy, they're awake. And they're not even liberals, they're every American who is sick of their politicians being bought by the highest bidder. That's all of us, except the "centrists" in DC.

Added 9/12/10:
The America John Boehner grew up in? Check out the GOP platforms at the time Policies on economics have moved way to the "right" since then.

#2. An example of how Hannity lies on "Fox News".

Propaganda at its finest. Jon Stewart points out How intentionally misleading "news' from Fox News doesn't really get more obvious than this ...

#3. Hannity Insanity: Coming as soon as I have the stomach to listen to more.