I was recently reading an article by a libertarian who used the phrase "Post-Marx Marxism, which is mercantilist." It's a good thing I wasn't drinking coffee. Since this was the internet, I went to make a snide comment below the article which included "Everything Bad = Marxism."
As if to prove my point, someone replied to my comment with, "Marxism mixed with globalist banksterism/oligarchism/corporatism will get you to mercantilism."

Almost 12 years ago, I published an essay about Machiavelli’s statements concerning political parties. I thought at the time that his observations were the most insightful I’d come across. Since then, I’ve discovered that Cicero made similar observations about political factions in the Roman Republic. And I think I see similar political groupings in modern republics. What’s behind this social phenomenon? I believe recent discoveries in political psychology provide an answer.

I’ve seen a number of people criticize what they call “tribalism” by Liberals and Conservatives. They blame our current “toxic” politics on social media and “hyperpartisan” TV shows. I think it's because of a conflict much more fundamental.

There’s been a conflict in this country ever since the era which gave it birth: a conflict between those who have wanted to maintain traditions of privilege and domination, and those who have wanted a country which treats its citizens equally, and guarantees equal rights for all. The vision of equality has prevailed in the conflict thus far, but only by the sustained effort and sacrifice of its citizens.

There are no issues in the 2016 Presidential race.

Maybe there were issues when Bernie Sanders was running. Sanders made an issue of honesty, of whether or not any of the political rhetoric you hear coming from the mouths of the politicians had any relation to what the politicians were going to do. And then Sanders endorsed Clinton, and, lo and behold, it didn't, again. And the issue disappeared.

Political psychologists have found that there isn't just one authoritarian political orientation, as once thought. There are two. Witness the Presidential campaigns of Ted Cruz and Donald Trump.