No one should disagree that Adolf Hitler was "far right" and Joseph Stalin was "far left." These are the textbook cases, the definitional examples we all learned in school. They represent the extreme endpoints of the political spectrum, proof that you can go too far in either direction.
But here's the thing: when you actually look at these two men objectively, charting them across consistent psychological and moral dimensions, they're not opposites at all. They're nearly identical in almost every way that matters.
Start with political psychology. Hitler and Stalin both saw existential threats everywhere, enemies hiding behind every corner, conspiracies requiring constant vigilance. Both demanded absolute deference to authority (their own, naturally). Both fused their entire identities with their ideological movements to the point where the self and the cause became indistinguishable. Both defaulted to conflict as their primary mode of engagement with the world.
Look at the chart. They're not on opposite ends of anything. They're sitting right on top of each other.
The moral picture is just as striking. Both Hitler and Stalin believed the collective was everything and the individual was nothing. Both saw distributive justice (taking from some to give to others) as more important than fair procedures. Both had essentially no limit on how much harm they were willing to inflict for their vision.
The differences people typically point to, that Hitler cared about race while Stalin cared about class, are really just variations on the same theme. Both divided humanity into worthy and unworthy groups. Both concluded that the unworthy needed to be eliminated. The categories differed; the conclusion was identical.
So where do they actually diverge? Exactly one place: their view of human nature.
Hitler believed human nature was fixed. You were born into your racial destiny and nothing could change it. Stalin believed human nature was malleable. The "New Soviet Man" could be forged through the right conditions and education. This is the World Model chart, and it's the only one where you see real daylight between them.
But notice something: this difference didn't lead to different outcomes. Whether you believe inferior groups were born that way or made that way, you still end up justifying their elimination. Hitler killed people because they could never change. Stalin killed people because they refused to change. Dead is dead.
What "Far" Should Actually Mean
If the terms "far left" and "far right" mean anything coherent, they should describe people who are "like someone on the left, or on the right... but more." Take the normal commitments of each side and extend them further.
If you extend out the right-wing view in America (smaller government, lower taxes, more individual freedom, less regulation) you basically get Calvin Coolidge. He was perhaps the most economically conservative president in American history. He wanted the government to do almost nothing and stay out of people's way. Push that philosophy to its logical extreme and you get someone who really, really wants a small government.
But Coolidge looks nothing like Hitler. Where Hitler saw threats everywhere, Coolidge was notably calm and unflappable. Where Hitler demanded absolute authority, Coolidge was modest to the point of being boring. Where Hitler fused his entire identity with an all-consuming movement, Coolidge famously went home, took naps, and said as little as possible.
On the other side, if you extend out the left-wing view (more redistribution, more collective action, more government programs to address inequality) you get someone like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She advocates for dramatic systemic change, Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, fundamentally restructuring how the economy works.
Looking at her profile compared to Stalin though... they're not exactly similar. Yes, they share high scores on believing systems need change and that collective problems require collective solutions. But on the crucial dimension of authority, they're opposites. Stalin demanded absolute submission to centralized power. AOC questions and challenges institutional authority. That's kind of her whole thing.
Now, I'll admit something: the extremes of left-wing politics do look closer to Stalin and Hitler than the extremes of right-wing politics look. It's hard to have an all-conquering totalitarian state when your core belief is that the state should be small. If you're a Calvin Coolidge type pushed to the extreme, you want less government power, not more, which is kind of the opposite of what totalitarians want.
But here's the key insight: that's hardly a condemnation of left-wing economics in itself. The parts of Stalin's agenda that people have issues with aren't "he wanted universal healthcare" or "he thought workers should own the means of production." The issue is the whole being okay with killing tens of millions of people thing. That's what makes someone a monster, not where they fall on the question of tax rates or collective bargaining.
Bernie Sanders wants a dramatically larger welfare state. He calls himself a democratic socialist. He wants to redistribute wealth on a scale that would make most Republicans faint. But he's not willing to send anyone to a gulag to make it happen. He operates through elections and legislation and loses gracefully when voters reject his ideas. Calling him "far left" in the same sense that Stalin was "far left" is a category error so profound it obscures more than it reveals.
Where You Actually Find the "Far"
So if Hitler and Stalin aren't opposites, and Coolidge isn't like Hitler, and AOC isn't like Stalin, what actually distinguishes the genuine extremists from everybody else?
The answer is in what we call Epistemic Health, the combination of how dogmatically certain someone is that they alone possess the truth, and how aggrieved they feel that the world refuses to recognize it.
This is where Hitler and Stalin cluster together in the "Extremist" quadrant. Absolutely closed to any evidence that might challenge their worldview. Absolutely convinced that malevolent forces are persecuting them and their cause. This combination, dogmatism plus victimhood, is the psychological signature of genuine political danger.
And this is where mainstream politicians, even ones who disagree bitterly on policy, are generally very far away from the Hitlers and Stalins of the world. Take Joe Biden and Ronald Reagan. They're on opposite sides of most policy debates. But both land in or near the "Healthy" quadrant on epistemic health. Both were open to evidence. Neither was consumed by persecution fantasies. Both operated within democratic systems and accepted the legitimacy of their opponents.
They weren't opposites in any fundamental psychological sense. They were both normal politicians with different policy preferences, participants in democratic argument rather than warriors in existential struggle.
Some mainstream figures land in the "Ideologue" quadrant, very certain of their views but not particularly aggrieved about it. Others land in "Self-Righteous" territory, feeling strongly that injustices exist and expressing moral certainty about them. But very few contemporary political figures actually land in the "Extremist" zone where the Hitlers and Stalins live.
Stop Calling People "Far"
This brings us to what's actually wrong with our political language. When someone calls Ben Shapiro "far right," they're using a term that's supposed to evoke Hitler. But look at where Shapiro actually lands compared to Hitler. He's in the "Healthy" quadrant, close to Ideologue territory but still on the healthy side. He lacks the persecution complex, the dehumanization of opponents, and the willingness to endorse political violence that characterize genuine extremists. You can disagree with everything Shapiro says and still recognize that calling him "far right" is like calling a summer thunderstorm a Category 5 hurricane.
The same applies when people call AOC "far left." She lands in "Self-Righteous" territory, she genuinely believes injustices exist and expresses moral urgency about fixing them. But she's not in the Extremist quadrant. She's not calling for liquidating anyone. She operates through elections and legislation and Twitter, not secret police and show trials. Calling her "far left" in the sense that Stalin was far left is simply, factually wrong.
It is, therefore, silly to tar figures like Ben Shapiro as "far right" or AOC and Bernie Sanders as "far left" when, for all their issues and controversies, none of these people are extremists in any meaningful sense. They're not even close to the psychological profile of the historical monsters we're implicitly comparing them to.
When we throw around "far left" and "far right" casually, we make it impossible to identify actual extremism when it emerges. If Shapiro is "far right," what word do we use for actual fascists? If AOC is "far left," how do we describe actual Stalinists? We've already spent our most alarming vocabulary on ordinary political disagreement.
The real spectrum that matters isn't left to right. It's healthy to extremist. It's "I might be wrong" to "I alone possess the truth." It's "my opponents are misguided" to "my opponents are subhuman."
Hitler and Stalin weren't opposites. They were the same psychological type wearing different ideological costumes, so similar that they hated each other not because they were different, but because they were competing for the same totalitarian space. And most of the people we casually call "far" anything today are nothing like either of them.
(Want to see all the Hitler vs. Stalin charts in one place? View Hitler's full profile and Stalin's full profile, or use the Compare tab on either profile to overlay them directly.)
The Elephant in the Room
You've probably noticed I haven't mentioned Donald Trump.
That's deliberate. Trump is an interesting case, one that deserves its own detailed analysis rather than a few paragraphs tacked onto an article about something else. The question of whether "Donald Trump is literally Hitler" is justified or absurd requires looking carefully at the actual data, not just pattern-matching to whichever answer feels right.
That analysis is coming.
Curious where you fall? Take the test and see where you actually land. You might be surprised who you're similar to.