October 8, 2024

ENTJ and politics

Unlike some other types who really tend to go into a certain direction politically, ENTJs are not easy to put into a single box.

What seems to describe most ENTJs though, at least from reading dozens of personal reports by ENTJs online, is that they tend to not care about what other people do with their lives and their bodies, who they have sex with, how they dress or even what kind of drugs they use. Most ENTJs naturally adhere to the old saying: “live and let live”. This would imply that they are at least socially liberal. However, even this method is not that reliable, since online forums and Reddit tend to have a sample of the population that is younger and more liberal.

entj politics

ENTJs like to work hard; they like to get rewarded for it and they don’t like anyone taking away their hard earned cash. This is why most of them report being fiscally conservative. Now, being fiscally conservative and socially liberal at the same time is a weird mix. In the United States, to my knowledge, only the libertarians put these two views together into a political program. And it seems like there’s no shortage of libertarian ENTJs, at least online.

A more analytical approach to determining the likely political views of ENTJs

For this we will use data from the MBTI manual that says a lot about ENTJs:

  • In a national sample, ENTJs ranked highest in valuing “home/family”. Family values are, at least in theory, claimed to be cherished by the right wing.
  • They were also in the top 4 types choosing learning and creativity as “very important”. ENTJs were also among three highest types on three measures of creativity. So they’re probably not into authoritarian governments that stifle creativity and freedom of expression.
  • In the work environment characteristics section ENTJs chose “international opportunities” and “people from different backgrounds” as desirable job environment characteristics, so it’s fair to say that they are unlikely to vote for xenophobic political options.
  • The book also says that ENTJs are among the highest in college retention and have some of the highest grades among persisters in college. Higher educational attainment is associated with voting more for left leaning politics (not extreme ones, but more center-left politics). This trend was noticed relatively recently in American politics but also in Britain’s vote for Brexit. The Democrats in America and the pro-EU side in Britain had more educated voters.
  • ENTJs are overrepresented among both male and female small business owners compared to the national sample with occupational trends identified: management and leadership. People who are in business, especially business owners, probably don’t like politicians who aim to increase taxes.
  • In the SYMLOG “Most Effective Profile” they overemphasized “self protection” and “self-interest first”. This sounds like someone who would vote libertarian or like Ayn Rand.
  • In a national sample, ENTJs ranked second highest in “no” and fourth highest in “not sure” regarding the belief in a higher spiritual power, so they’re probably not likely to vote for political options that associate with religion a lot.

If we take all this into account we can conclude that ENTJs tend to identify with either of these:

  • libertarianism
  • classical liberalism
  • social liberalism
  • center-left or center-right politics