Is the political “horseshoe theory” legit?
If everything is horseshoe theory ... is anything really?
I believe the saying goes: “Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.”
And close counts more than ever before, if you ask proponents of the political “horseshoe theory.” I’ve seen this lucky horseshoe hurled across the internet over the years and always thought the same thing: online duels over obscure philosophers and their political theories are decidedly … none of my business.
You can blame Charlie Goldensohn, aka Chez Chuck, for my decision to finally take the bait. When I asked him to weigh in on last week’s subject of endless fascination (Tucker Carlson’s merch), Chuck focused on the bigger play Carlson’s making across party lines:
“He’s already been fairly successful at infiltrating parts of the online left. Look at what he’s been doing: long-form conversations with founders of TYT, friendly back-and-forths with people who used to be firmly in the progressive media ecosystem. None of that is accidental.
It’s an intentional horseshoe strategy. They are forcing the horseshoe. If you look at the replies and comments around this stuff on my own content, you can literally watch the horseshoe effect happening in real time. People who would have called Tucker Carlson a fascist five years ago are suddenly treating him like an ally.”
The “fine, I’ll bite” was less of a “you forced my hand” and more of a “my curiosity finally got the best of me” (as it is known to do). And I’m not alone in that: the Google Trends five-year search shows a steady rise in search interest over the years, with a clear peak in September of 2025. I’ll tell you why that time is meaningful in just one sec.
That time period will serve as a not-so-distant parameter for our frame of reference. It extends through today, where popular gamers on Twitch are misusing the term, and into the future, where the horseshoe theory will continue to beckon to amateur political analysts like the Green Goblin mask. But first … what even is it?
WHAT IT IS
There’s only one information giant that can stand up tall enough to meet our definitional task at hand: The Great Equalizer, Wikipedia. The definition of horseshoe theory should be pretty straightforward, but this is the internet, so, everyone’s put their own ideological razzledazzle on it.
At its most stripped back:
🧲 The far-left and the far-right are closer to each other than either is to the political center 🧲
As is the case with a lot of philosophy, it’s pretty fucking open to interpretation. If you take into consideration the French author Jean-Pierre Faye’s focus on political ideologies implemented by totalitarian regimes in the 1930s and 40s, you get an organizing enough premise. But how to apply it at any other point in time? That’s where the trouble comes.
Some questions that came to mind for me: What are the parameters? Are the two ends fixed points or in motion? Are we looking at philosophy of politics or practice of government? Means or ends? MLA, APA, or Chicago style? One recommendation I will make right off the bat: In my view, this is a diagram through which you can evaluate extremism.
HOW IT’S BEING USED
The lack of understanding or agreement around what exactly it’s supposed to be applied to has made it ripe for social media exploitation. I set the boundary in September 2025 because Google Trends reinforced what I already felt was true: that the horseshoe landed on its peg right after Charlie Kirk’s murder.
The more details emerged about the accused shooter, Tyler Robinson, the more confused people got about who he “belonged” to politically.
The opportunity to present a framework that detaches ideology from its usual one-dimensional spectrum arose — for people on both sides:
Left-aligned, Olivia Julianna: “Have you ever heard of horseshoe theory”
Right-aligned, Robby Soave:
From there, it’s well on its way to reaching critical mass or as Ben Dreyfuss said “horseshoe theory really is the skeleton key to everything.”
RCP White House Correspondent Philip Melanchthon Wegmann wondered if we’d see live horseshoeing happen when Zohran went to the Oval Office the first time, because of their overlaps in NYC origin, anti-establishment and affordability campaigning. He decided yes. (This is a more popular opinion than you’d expect).
The Cato Institute recently published an article about the evidence of horseshoe theory in “Trump’s forays into economic leftism.”
I referenced horseshoe theory in a piece from October when a sizable group of users thought groypers and leftists were in cahoots against a common social media enemy.
Nick Fuentes urging his followers to vote Democrat in the midterms.
But the really significant surge only began as our Iran aggression ramped up. Shared antisemitism between the extremes of both parties has been the most frequent peg the horseshoe lands on, with regular conflation (sometimes deserved, sometimes not) between the left’s anti-Zionist flank and the right’s antisemites.
The war in Iran has broadened the target scope to include people farther up the horseshoe from the communists and fascists, to include what Chez Chuck mentioned in the intro. Tucker Carlson’s alignment with Ana Kasparian or Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks has given lots of creators the opportunity to invoke the horseshoe theory in a more concrete way.
WHO HAS OPINIONS
Internet communists! What else are they here for! From their POV, the horseshoe theory is a “fascist” or “neoliberal conspiracy to discredit socialism.” I’m not sure how it can be both those things but, whatever. Most of their defensiveness comes from the fact that the theory equates communism to fascism which they say is unfair: “You can’t become so communist that you become fascist. That’s not how it works.”
There’s an attempt to highlight the intentions of communism to remove hierarchy and bring equality, while touting some of the benefits of “increased literacy rates” in places like Cuba or “free health care” in China.
Here is a video just for fun about why horseshoe theory is a psyop, as explained by a woman who is standing in front of a painting of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin.
Here’s a video that’s an engaging critique of the centrist zone of the horseshoe by way of whacking Ezra Klein.
WHICH ALTERNATIVE THEORIES COME UP
Getting into internet holes of this sort is crazy because everything is one big argument through which you discover there are infinite alternative working theories in this exact vein:
It’s horseshoe theory — no it’s the political compass — no it’s fishhook theory — no it’s the Overton window — no it’s irony poisoning — no it’s ouroboros theory — no it’s stethoscope theory — no it’s the slopulists, on and on and on and on.
GRACE NOTES
I have two takeaways.
When people are operating without clear parameters or even a consistent definition, it renders what could potentially be an interesting, insightful tool to decoding our times … absolutely useless. Here’s a taste of just some of the different definitions I’ve found:
“Despite being opposites, far left and right mirror each other in specific behaviors, beliefs, and rhetoric.”
It’s a “theory of aesthetics not content.”
“... the belief that somebody else is the deviation while the speaker is normal.”
It’s not about content, “it’s about personality type of the people who are drawn to political extremism.”
“Right-wingers eventually realize that nationalism means taking care of your people [...] and left-wingers realizing you have to take care of your people before you can help anyone else.”
“Just an acknowledgement that left-right has fading political relevance.”
Ezra Klein (!!!) said it’s about people “coming to the same rhetoric not conclusions.”
Ok so literally none of these people are talking about the same thing. And yet, this concept is about to be deployed harder and faster across the internet than the CBK aesthetic is by Gen Z women right now.
Is it horseshoe theory, or do people on the left and right sometimes agree on one thing? One of the examples I came across during my research cried foul over leftist activist group CODEPINK posing for a picture with Marjorie Taylor Greene before her resignation. They thanked her for her anti-war stances during her tenure.
So, is that definitive evidence of the far-left scooching closer to the far-right? To me, that is evidence that it’s still possible (dare I say important) to find shared values with people we otherwise might hate. Is that a revelation of violent extremism or an affirmation of benign humanity? I guess it depends on who you’re sitting across from and why.
LOOSE ENDS:
📝 Word I learned today: syncretic
characterized or brought about by syncretism; the combination of different forms of belief or practice — “The non-horseshit part is that fascism is syncretic. It absorbs elements of everything else trying to expand.” (via Hurffurf, Reddit)
📰 Something you should read today: Or, I guess, listen to. It’s wackadoodle time.
🥹 Something to make you smile today: There’s something unacceptable going on with Ben Shapiro’s eyebrows. Which is reminding people that he definitely got his lips done awhile ago. Gender affirming care!!!!
I've always felt like horseshoe theory smacks of South Park-style centrist "the person who cares the most is the person who's wrongest." I don't really think there's one Rosetta stone to codify and classify and understand everything, but I think the political compass is probably closest. You can have authoritarian left-wingers and authoritarian right-wingers who have their authoritarianism in common but not much else.
Horseshoe theory still seems to be nonsense to me. Historically some of it came from red-brown alliance which was more about the Soviet Union's treaties with Nazi Germany because they were both being sidelined.
Even then it was more a political convenience with no ideological agreement. At the same time they were doing some joint military exercises in the 1930s they were supporting different sides in Spain. And yes the Soviets formed a treaty that shocked communists outside with Molotov Ribbentrop pact.
The horseshoe theory really does seem to be a reactionary centrist trope for delegitimizing leftists and both sidering them with right wing authoritarians.