American politics is supposed to be divided into two easily recognizable camps.
Republicans want smaller government, lower taxes, fewer regulations and a strong military. Democrats want a larger social safety net, stronger regulation, labor protections and government action on health care and the environment.
At least, that’s the simplified version many of us learned.
Today’s political landscape is considerably messier.
MAGA Republicans sometimes sound like old-school economic populists. Progressive Democrats and conservative Republicans can find themselves attacking the same giant corporations. Democrats have imposed tariffs that would once have sounded distinctly Republican. Republicans have proposed wage increases and restrictions on corporate power that can sound surprisingly progressive.
And some supposedly partisan ideas have attracted overwhelming support from both parties.
So how well can you identify where a political proposal actually came from?
For each question, choose the answer that seems most likely. Don’t scroll down—the answers are waiting at the end.
1. Who proposed requiring billion-dollar corporations to pay workers at least $15 an hour?
A. Bernie Sanders
B. Elizabeth Warren
C. Republican Sen. Josh Hawley
D. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
2. Which administration raised the tariff on Chinese electric vehicles to 100%?
A. The Trump administration
B. The Biden administration
C. Both administrations simultaneously
D. Neither—the United States has never imposed a 100% tariff on Chinese EVs
3. Who has advocated breaking up major technology companies such as Amazon?
A. Progressive Sen. Elizabeth Warren
B. Republican Sen. Josh Hawley
C. Both
D. Neither
4. Which president signed legislation reducing some federal sentences for low-level, nonviolent offenders while expanding programs designed to help prisoners successfully return to society?
A. Barack Obama
B. Joe Biden
C. Donald Trump
D. George W. Bush
5. Who supported legislation barring America’s major foreign adversaries from purchasing U.S. farmland?
A. Republicans almost exclusively
B. Democrats almost exclusively
C. A bipartisan coalition that included conservative Republicans and Democrats
D. Democratic Socialists
6. Congress considered legislation designed to make it easier and faster to deploy new nuclear power technology. Who supported it?
A. Mostly Republicans
B. Mostly Democrats
C. An overwhelming bipartisan majority
D. Almost nobody because nuclear power remains politically toxic
7. Who has proposed banning members of Congress from trading individual stocks?
A. MAGA-aligned Republicans
B. Democrats
C. Both
D. Neither—Congress has resisted introducing an outright ban
8. Who was behind the federal law requiring TikTok’s Chinese parent company to divest from the platform or face restrictions in the United States?
A. MAGA Republicans
B. Democrats
C. A bipartisan coalition
D. The Biden administration acting without Congress
9. Which political faction has formally backed requiring ranked-choice voting in congressional elections nationwide?
A. Traditional Republicans
B. MAGA Republicans
C. Congressional Progressives
D. Centrist Democrats
10. Who pushed the federal government to buy more American-made products by increasing domestic-content requirements?
A. Donald Trump
B. Joe Biden
C. Both
D. Neither—”Buy American” rules predate both presidents and neither substantially changed them
11. Who proposed banning mergers and acquisitions by corporations worth more than $100 billion?
A. Bernie Sanders
B. Elizabeth Warren
C. Josh Hawley
D. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
12. A bill aimed at preventing foreign adversaries such as China, Russia, Iran and North Korea from purchasing American farmland reached the Senate. How lopsided was the vote?
A. It failed along party lines
B. It narrowly passed 51–49
C. It passed 60–40
D. It passed 91–7
Answers
1. C — Republican Sen. Josh Hawley
This one sounds almost tailor-made for Bernie Sanders.
It wasn’t.
In 2021, Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri proposed requiring corporations with at least $1 billion in annual revenue to pay employees a minimum of $15 an hour. Hawley argued that giant corporations could afford higher wages while smaller businesses should not necessarily face the same mandate.
That distinction matters. Hawley was not endorsing the universal federal $15 minimum wage favored by many Democrats. But a Republican senator proposing a government-mandated $15 wage at America’s largest corporations demonstrates how much economic populism has scrambled traditional party lines.
2. B — The Biden administration
Tariffs have become so closely associated with Donald Trump that this one is easy to miss.
In 2024, President Joe Biden directed his administration to sharply increase tariffs on a number of strategically important Chinese products. The tariff on Chinese electric vehicles was raised to 100%, while tariffs also increased on batteries, semiconductors, solar products and other goods.
The Biden administration also retained much of the tariff structure imposed during Trump’s first term.
The difference was partly one of scale and strategy: Biden emphasized targeted tariffs aimed at strategic industries, while Trump’s trade philosophy has generally embraced tariffs much more broadly.
Still, a Democratic president imposing a 100% tariff would have been an odd fit with the free-trade politics of either party a generation ago.
3. C — Both
Elizabeth Warren made breaking up Big Tech a centerpiece of her 2020 presidential campaign. Her proposal called for restructuring companies including Amazon and Google and unwinding acquisitions by Facebook, Amazon and Google.
Then there is Josh Hawley.
The Missouri Republican introduced legislation literally called the Bust Up Big Tech Act and another proposal called the Trust-Busting for the Twenty-First Century Act. Among other things, Hawley proposed restricting huge corporations from buying competitors and separating certain technology platforms from businesses operating on those platforms.
Warren and Hawley arrive there through very different political arguments, but “break up enormous corporations” is no longer an exclusively progressive idea.
4. C — Donald Trump
The First Step Act is one of the more striking examples of modern bipartisan politics.
President Donald Trump backed and signed the criminal justice legislation in 2018. It modified certain federal sentencing provisions and expanded earned-time credits and programs meant to reduce recidivism and help people reenter society.
And it wasn’t a close partisan vote.
The Senate approved the legislation 87–12.
Criminal justice reform is frequently associated with the political left, but this particular reform was enacted by a Republican president with an extraordinarily broad coalition behind it.
5. C — A bipartisan coalition
Keeping foreign adversaries from purchasing American agricultural land sounds like the kind of national-security proposal likely to originate exclusively on the Republican right.
Republican Sen. Mike Rounds and Democratic Sen. Jon Tester actually teamed up on legislation targeting agricultural purchases connected to China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.
Support extended well beyond the bill’s sponsors.
Which brings us to Question 12.
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6. C — An overwhelming bipartisan majority
Nuclear power used to be one of the easier energy issues to place politically.
Not anymore.
In February 2024, the House approved the Atomic Energy Advancement Act, designed to facilitate the licensing and deployment of nuclear technologies.
The vote?
365–36.
Federal policy under the Biden administration also increasingly treated nuclear power as an important source of clean, reliable electricity alongside renewable energy.
Nuclear energy hasn’t become completely nonpartisan, but the old assumption that environmentalists and Democrats necessarily oppose it has become badly outdated.
7. C — Both
Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff first introduced the Ban Congressional Stock Trading Act in 2022 and reintroduced it in 2025. His proposal would require members of Congress and their spouses and dependent children to put certain assets into qualified blind trusts.
Republican Sen. Josh Hawley introduced his own legislation restricting securities transactions by members of Congress.
Then things became even more interesting: the later Senate version of Hawley’s bill included Republican and Democratic cosponsors, including Hawley, Bernie Moreno, Ossoff, Gary Peters and Jeff Merkley.
Congressional stock trading has become one of the rare populist issues capable of producing outrage on both the right and left.
8. C — A bipartisan coalition
The legislation targeting TikTok wasn’t simply a Trump initiative or a Biden initiative.
Congress passed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, targeting apps controlled by designated foreign adversaries and specifically addressing TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance.
Congress enacted a law requiring a qualified divestiture by TikTok’s owner or barring U.S. app stores and hosting providers from supporting the platform.
Republican and Democratic lawmakers were involved in pushing the legislation, including Republican Rep. Bob Latta and Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres.
President Biden eventually signed the legislation.
After returning to office in 2025, Trump repeatedly postponed enforcement while his administration pursued a resolution.
That makes TikTok an especially good example of an issue that doesn’t fit comfortably into a simple red-versus-blue box.
9. C — Congressional Progressives
This one actually does fall relatively neatly into an ideological category.
In December 2025, the Congressional Progressive Caucus formally endorsed the Ranked Choice Voting Act. The proposal would require ranked-choice voting for congressional primary and general elections beginning in 2030 and provide federal assistance to states implementing the system.
The bigger surprise may be how differently election reform cuts across state politics. Ranked-choice voting has existed in states with very different political cultures, while opposition to it has also emerged from factions on both sides.
10. C — Both
“Buy American” sounds like pure MAGA branding.
But both Trump and Biden strengthened federal policies favoring American-made goods.
Both administrations used executive action to favor U.S.-made goods, but the current 65% and 75% domestic-content thresholds stem from a Biden-era federal procurement rule. The domestic-component requirement for many manufactured products rises from 65% during 2024–2028 to 75% beginning in 2029.
The political language surrounding the policies may differ, but industrial policy and domestic manufacturing have become areas where the distance between the parties has narrowed considerably.
11. C — Josh Hawley
This proposal sounds as though it came directly from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.
Hawley’s Trust-Busting for the Twenty-First Century Act proposed banning mergers and acquisitions by companies with market capitalizations above $100 billion.
It also proposed significantly tougher antitrust penalties and stronger powers to pursue dominant companies.
Hawley’s rationale, however, is distinctly populist-conservative: he argues that enormous corporations have accumulated political, cultural and economic power at the expense of ordinary Americans.
The policy can therefore sound progressive even when the political theory behind it clearly isn’t.
12. D — It passed 91–7
The Senate amendment restricting China, Russia, North Korea and Iran from purchasing U.S. farmland and agricultural businesses passed 91–7 in 2023.
The PASS Act and the Senate amendment sought to prohibit entities tied to China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea from buying U.S. farmland and agricultural businesses, while expanding national-security review.
That means virtually the entire Senate agreed on something.
Perhaps that should have been the hardest answer to believe.
So what does your score mean?
10–12 correct: You probably follow politics closely enough to know that today’s ideological labels are increasingly unreliable shortcuts.
7–9 correct: You know the broad outlines, but modern populism probably fooled you a few times.
4–6 correct: You’re not alone. Several of these policies deliberately cross the political categories most Americans grew up with.
0–3 correct: Congratulations—you’ve discovered the entire point of the quiz.
The bigger lesson isn’t that Republicans have become Democrats or Democrats have become Republicans. They haven’t.
The movements still disagree sharply on taxes, abortion, immigration, climate policy, health care, LGBTQ+ rights, voting rules, the role of government and dozens of other fundamental questions.
But something important has changed.
The parties’ economic coalitions and rhetoric have become less tidy on issues such as trade, industrial policy, antitrust and corporate power—even as their governing records and broader agendas still differ substantially.
Economic nationalism, antitrust enforcement, industrial policy, skepticism toward huge corporations and distrust of concentrated institutional power now appear in different forms on both the populist right and progressive left.
Sometimes the motivations could hardly be more different.
Yet every once in a while, those very different roads lead politicians to surprisingly similar policies.
And that’s when guessing who proposed what gets a lot harder.
