Top 5 Tests That Show Just How Liberal You Are, You Liberal

McBane here. You know who’s secretly a liberal? That’s right: YOU. So this is a test for you, all you liberals. Are you a reasonable, intelligent, pragmatic secular humanist (like all good liberals should be) or are you just looney fucking tunes?

If you like each of these pairings equally, it means you have room for improvement. That’s because each of these matchups has a right answer and a wrong answer regarding which one you should like more. If you get all five right, pat yourself on the back. You’re a great person! Conversely, if you don’t nail all five, you are probably godless and soulless and bloodless and brainless and hairless or whatever else Ann Coulter might call you.

5) Tegan v. Sara

GOOD LIBERAL PREFERS: Tegan

BAD LIBERAL PREFERS: Sara

The band designed for liberals. They are lesbian and Canadian and they do folk rock. How much more lefty can you get?

But guess what? Tegan likes to rock. Tegan has a rocker voice. Tegan plays a rocking guitar. Tegan writes all the best songs. Sara likes to gaze at her navel and slowly craft terrible songs that we all have to put up with because she’s 50% of the band. If you like Sara you probably think French people are cool. You certainly don’t care about music. You certainly don’t care about sound. You certainly can’t admit to yourself that you’re annoyed by the quality of Sara’s voice and guitar.

No, liberal, but you’re certainly fucking pretentious.

4) Salon v. Slate

GOOD LIBERAL PREFERS: Slate

BAD LIBERAL PREFERS: Salon

A novice liberal will not be able to distinguish between these, the only two successful webzines in the world. And indeed, at this point in time they have become rather similar. However, a Level 9 Liberal will despise Slate irrationally for its well-funded beginnings and the rational, calm analysis it used to espouse, and love Salon for the expansive, bombastic liberal style it used to engage more often in, as well as the easier-to-navigate slick presentation.

Good human people will feel the opposite way for the same reasons.

(Side note: I prefer Salon over Slate. See? I’m fallible.)

3) San Francisco v. Seattle

GOOD LIBERAL PREFERS: Seattle

BAD LIBERAL PREFERS: San Francisco

Very similar cities; cultural capitals, centers of technology, shitty weather, stinky hippies. Everything about both cities is cool. But in Seattle it’s an understated, inclusive kind of cool; it’s kind of a wetter Austin. It’s not an in-your-face Supergay kind of cool (which is only cool to people who are too liberal), like San Francisco is.

2) Cal v. Stanford

GOOD LIBERAL PREFERS: Cal

BAD LIBERAL PREFERS: Stanford

Both famously liberal, but Stanford gives off kind of a weird vibe. It’s a little snooty, a little too full of itself, a place where all the overachievers want to go. How many uncool people from your high school wanted to go to Stanford? Probably several. How about Cal? Try NONE.

Cal also gets extra points for referring to itself as Cal, and not Berkeley, and for icing Stanford in the coolest sports play ever.

Plus all the chicks at Stanford are ugly.

1) Napolitano v. Sebelius

GOOD LIBERAL PREFERS: Sebelius

BAD LIBERAL PREFERS: Napolitano

Both fiendishly awesome women governors (Napolitano in Arizona, Sebelius in Kansas), both in the top two of likely women Democratic vice presidential nominees (sorry Hil – you got no chance).

However, Napolitano has issues as a veep candidate. She’s an energetic veto-crazy native New Yorker and quite possibly a lesbian. Sebelius, meanwhile, is a subdued post-partisan pol who has caused several prominent Kansas Republicans to switch parties and who has also managed great approval ratings in an insanely red state while still being very liberal on the big issues.

Obviously Sebelius would be a better fit for the kind of politics Obama is interested in, and has the added benefit of being more electable than Napolitano. However she engenders a lot of hatred from the Hillary camp for being…well…different than Hillary, I guess. (This seems hypocritical, but I digress.)

Anyways, how’d you do?

You lose?

Wouldn’t surprise me…you liberal.