For a long time, I’ve searched for a symbol that can describe American politics in simple terms. And yesterday at the gas station, I found it. It all breaks down to types of gasoline.

Liberals are Unleaded Gasoline. 

With the environment in mind, liberals long ago pushed to have the lead removed from the gasoline we use in cars.  Lead is a serious environment toxin that can cause illness through polluted air and water. It even gets into our food. And against resistance from the oil and gas industry, and friends in conservative places, liberals fought and won to have gas cleaned up. The liberal movement also pushed for higher MPG standards. The auto industry said for years it could not be done. But now it has. Cars,

And against resistance from the oil and gas industry, and friends in conservative places, liberals fought and won to have gas cleaned up. The liberal movement also pushed for higher MPG standards. The auto industry said for years it could not be done. But now it has. Cars, trucks and minivans are now more fuel-efficient. Liberals also pushed for higher safety standards. Sure, all these changes took effort, but they’re worth it.

So it can be fairly said that liberals, Progressives and Green Party supporters are like the unleaded gasolines grades and the vehicles we use today. A little cleaner, more efficient and worth the extra trouble to make sure people don’t get sick or die.

Conservatives are Leaded gasoline. 

Conservatives don’t like to be bothered about things like lead in gasoline or pansy-ass safety standards. Those things cost money to implement. And let’s just say conservatives hate regulations wherever they occur. The Big Oil folks would have been happy to continue pumping out gasoline with the lead still in it. That’s one less step toward making profits.

And let’s be honest: conservatives would have been perfectly happy to stick with the gas guzzling vehicles of America’s past. The romance of the road was sufficient for the American conscience for many years. Why change?

Well, the answer is twofold. Leaded gasoline was poisoning and killing people, plants and animals. So there’s that. Then the gas shortages came along in the 1970s, and more fuel-efficient foreign cars entered the American market. Automakers took a long, long time to change. Meanwhile, they got their asses kicked by Toyota, Honda and others.

Then came the big economic collapse of 2008, and American automakers were stuck on side of the road again. The government had to step in, jump-start the industry (to the chagrin of conservatives everywhere) and shake the lead out of the American auto industry’s ass. And it has largely worked.

Of course, conservatives are frustrated by the idea that they were forced to accept all this change. They be happy to Take Back America to its “glory” days of gas-guzzling, pollution spewing muscle cars. Because they fit right in with the hom0-hating, women-baiting, unpolitically correct attitudes when people were free to be radically consumptive assholes and pollute the environment without anyone questioning them about it.

Sorry, folks. It’s the truth.

Libertarians are Diesel.

You gotta love the Libertarian Party in America. For the most part, it chugs along hardly making a sound except for that weird ticking noise it makes whenever it senses the word “government” in the air. Then the engine roars into action, spewing weird purple smoke and acting not-quite-like the other vehicles on the road.

To Libertarians, this is a point of pride, as it would be driving a shiny silver Delorean fixed up like that Time Machine in Back to the Future. Never mind the fact that the funding for the company that manufactured Delorean cars came from backroom cocaine deals. The Dirty Money got the job done, right? What’s a few snorts of coke if the world becomes a better place?

One might argue that the counterculture Tesla road machine is instead the perfect Libertarian vehicle. But that would be stretching it.

And there you have it. An accurate and perfect categorization of American politics according to gasoline types and the cars that drive them.

My search is over. It turns out that American politics really is a gas.