Left–right political spectrum
The terms left-wing and right-wing are widely used in the United States, but as on the global level there is no firm consensus about their meaning. The only aspect that is generally agreed upon is that they are the defining opposites of the United States political spectrum. Left and right in the U.S. are generally associated with liberal and conservative respectively, although the meanings of the two sets of terms do not entirely coincide. Depending on the political affiliation of the individual using them, these terms can be spoken with varying implications. A 2005 poll of 2,209 American adults showed that "respondents generally viewed the paired concepts liberals and left-wingers and conservatives and right-wingers as possessing, respectively, generally similar political beliefs", but also showed that around ten percent fewer respondents understood the terms left and right than understood the terms liberal and conservative.
Vast right-wing conspiracy
After the release of a deposition Bill Clinton had given to the Independent Counsel in which he perjured himself, some conservatives began to adopt the VRWC phrasing ironically. In 2004, conservative lawyer Mark W. Smith wrote the "New York Times" Best Seller "Official Handbook of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy", which came with a "membership card" that made its owner an "official member of the VRWC." Similarly, a number of newspaper, magazine, and website articles have used the phrase to report on left-wing politics. Eugene Volokh's blog The Volokh Conspiracy is said to have derived its name from as a reference to the "Vast right-wing conspiracy" statement.