Each question you answer in our politics quiz affects the social, economic, and government power scales. An answer can move you in the same direction, or different directions on each scale. To grade the candidates, we use their speeches, websites, voting records, and interviews to answer each question in our quiz. Here are some examples of how answers can affect the quiz results.
Q: On environmental impact, the government should
A: Not be involved at all
Q: On prison reform, the government should
A: Eliminate mandatory minimums
Social liberals seek to improve society through reform. Social conservatives seek to preserve society through tradition, or maintain the ''status quo’’. However, it’s often more complicated than that. Social partisanship is something that we construct as a society. For example, pro-life is a conservative belief because most “social conservatives” are pro-life. If tomorrow all “social liberals” said they were pro-life, than it would be a liberal belief.
We score the social scale in our quiz results based on what polling data tells us. We look at the opinions held by people that call themselves liberal or conservative, and give answers a score based on those findings.
Economic liberals support the government spending more money for the benefit of its citizens. Economic conservatives seek less government spending, advocating that its citizens should spend their money how they wish.
We score the economic scale based on the cost implications of each answer. The more money a response would cost the government or tax payers, the more liberal it scores. The less money it would cost, the more conservative it scores.
A key factor in politics is how powerful you think the government should be. Less government, or libertarian, means the government has less control over its citizens. More government, or authoritarian, means the government has more control.
We score the government power scale based on how much or how little each of your responses puts power into the hands of the government.
