I find that chart especially hard to read. It isn't ergonomic to look at. But it seems to suggest that the political cleavage in 1960 was between "Conservatives" and "Cosmopolitans"? That's... odd. The Democratic Party at the time was just beginning to attract a few Cosmopolitan types, but it was still largely a Populist worker's party. Kennedy probably had Cosmopolitan leanings, but he was at the head of a Trumanesque political party.
I don't think I'd even consider Clinton '92-'96 to be "Cosmopolitan". More socially liberal than Reagan-Bush, sure, but between Sistah Souljah, Ricky Ray Rector and the Crime Bill, Clinton I was still basically operating within a right-wing social paradigm. I think it's only his economic conservatism that places him in the "Cosmopolitan" axis.
Conversely, Obama may be slightly too left-wing on economics to really qualify. When I think of "Cosmopolitan", I think of Michael Bloomberg - technocratic, neoliberal, and superficially liberal on social issues, but functionally conservative.
I also don't believe that "Cosmopolitan" ought to be confused with "left-libertarian". They may be motivated by some of the same vague impulses, but their policy prescriptions are quite different (pro-business deregulation vs. anti-business decentralization). It'd be very interesting if a genuinely popular mass left-libertarian movement ever emerged in the United States.
TL;DR: You'll never convince me that a fiscally conservative Cold Warrior like JFK, a socially conservative technocrat like Bill Clinton, a business-authoritarian billionaire like Michael Bloomberg and a market socialist like Karl Hess occupy adjacent space on a political graph.
I don't think I'd even consider Clinton '92-'96 to be "Cosmopolitan". More socially liberal than Reagan-Bush, sure, but between Sistah Souljah, Ricky Ray Rector and the Crime Bill, Clinton I was still basically operating within a right-wing social paradigm. I think it's only his economic conservatism that places him in the "Cosmopolitan" axis.
Conversely, Obama may be slightly too left-wing on economics to really qualify. When I think of "Cosmopolitan", I think of Michael Bloomberg - technocratic, neoliberal, and superficially liberal on social issues, but functionally conservative.
I also don't believe that "Cosmopolitan" ought to be confused with "left-libertarian". They may be motivated by some of the same vague impulses, but their policy prescriptions are quite different (pro-business deregulation vs. anti-business decentralization). It'd be very interesting if a genuinely popular mass left-libertarian movement ever emerged in the United States.
TL;DR: You'll never convince me that a fiscally conservative Cold Warrior like JFK, a socially conservative technocrat like Bill Clinton, a business-authoritarian billionaire like Michael Bloomberg and a market socialist like Karl Hess occupy adjacent space on a political graph.