Centrist: a right winger that doesn’t want to face the realities of either situation.
A lot of centrists, are frankly, kind of weak minded. A lot are not necessarily more right leaning but they don’t exactly have strong conviction. A friend of mine is right leaning on immigration and economics but at the same time he voted for the social democrats in his country because of over a decade of right wing government and supports Palestine. Some are centrists for the sake of being centrist it seems.
The problem as to why many centrists sound right leaning is because the right captured prominent media platforms, and a huge part of its audience are lonely folks who are susceptible to misinformation, which my friend falls into. Many don’t become firmly on right but that doesn’t matter for the right wing billionaires funding the media platforms. It’s about sowing enough doubt to prevent forming a united front against the billionaire-Epstein class.
your a centrest because your scared of taking a stance on most important questions of the current moment
I’m a centrist because I don’t know anything about the most important questions of the current moment
We are sort of the same
Encouraging people to find and listen to independent news media is one of the more effective things you can do for the resistance.
By the way, you should add more independent news media to your news diet.
Also, generally, if something makes you scared or mad, go online and look for other sources discussing the same story. It’ll not only provide nuance, but it’ll reveal what’s fact, and what is opinion or assertion.
I don’t think you have a left in the US. You have far right and center right. In Germany it’s like you had only AfD and CDU and that’s it.
I mean it’s still obvious which choice is better but none of them is left.
Americans think universal healthcare is leftist.
it takes power from private companies and puts it into the hands of the government, which sounds pretty leftist to me.
What is state capitalism, Alex.
American 2 party system is so fucked that anything left of rabid, far right fascism is considered far left
From the 20th century, we have the ideological war against USSR to thank for that. It started all the way back with Wilson. After WWII, the threat of nuclear annihilation was a powerful tool for nationalism. (I’d learn only recently that a first strike was far more likely to come from US than USSR, and we had some dangerous war hawks in power.)
Before that, after reconstruction came redemption and corporate interests took over both parties.
Before that, roads, schools, bridges, libraries and such were socialism giving the working man benefits to which they didn’t contribute (we just contributed all the labor). Yes, they called it socialism even back in the 19th century.
Do observe that adherence to neoliberalism in the EU (which is essentially corporatism with extra steps) is driving the rise of far right movements even over there. And when the tech-bros and white Christian nationalists over here are done bleeding the US dry like its private equity, they’ll be headed over there with their vast wealth to do the same thing.
You can go back further than that.
The 1917 russian revolution kicked it off. The fear of a workers revolution happening in the US started a campaign of labelling everything socialist and communist as anti-american.
even before then . . . the US has one of the bloodiest labor histories in the world. So to hide that, even in the 19th century US capitalists started claiming that socialism and unions were unamerican, and the work of subversive radicals, especially Germans and Jews.
We don’t have a large, cohesive, left party. There are people who are certainly left in the USA, but we have no real representation out of a handful of congress people.
Isn’t Die Linke gaining ground on the polls though?
Somewhat, yes. Whatever votes they get, they mostly take over from SPD and Greens, though. All three of those parties moved to the right significantly, so even if there is a majority for the three of them together some day and if (the bigger one) SPD and Greens enter into a coalition with Die Linke, my impression is that it won’t be that different from the SPD/Greens coalition at the turn of the century or the SPD/Greens/Liberals coalition in the past election cycle: center-left at best, but far from substantial improvements to our economy, social security system or imperialist foreign policy. :(
I always considered myself a centrist. Of course, over the last 15 years the one side has become so damn batshit crazy it looks like I’m a party line voter simply based on my voting record.
I’m sure you mean the far left ultra radical anti-American tankie-sexuals, right?
I really don’t trust models that assert that tankies are on the left.
Left wing politics is about distributing political power as widely and evenly as possible. Tankies are authoritarians who like autocracy brutally enforced. That’s the opposite.
Vanishingly few people who use the term know what it means, who invented it, or why it’s currently in circulation.
It’s just a pejorative now. More often than not used to tell anti-war activists to shut up, because being anti-war is no different than surrendering to The Evil People.
Those thing aren’t even radical left
They are in American political discourse. They are so radical they are completely off the table.
Yeah, radical left is more like: Seize the means of production! Abolish capitalism! Abolish patriarchy! Abolish the state!
What’s labelled as radical left in the OP is just bare minimum, common sense policies that any marginally sane person should want.
the radical left boogieman in my current rural small town actually wants all gender neutral bathrooms in schools, with kitty litter boxes in a stall for otherkin. And they will force you to use your own neopronouns, or they will cancel you, and will make you lose your job.
that’s what these people around here really believe the average neolib democrat wants for society.
Probably because “radial left” has no real leg to stand on right now and the big talking points of what the GOP call “radical left” are just this. Exhibit A.
We can theorize about radical left. Meanwhile, radical right is happening in real time.
Thats just leftism. Radical leftist is: kill all landlords, billionaires, politicians, fascists, any one in government before the revolution, ect…
IF YOU ARE NOT AT LEAST ADVOCATING FOR WORKERS CONTROLLING THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION THEN YOU ARE NOT A LEFTIST, YOU ARE LEFT LEANING AT BEST BUT STILL A CENTRIST.
Yap yap.
STOP MAKING ME CHOOSE
says Threads account run by a DC corporate think tank.
Radical Right: Dismantle democratic elections (to stay in power)
Radical Left: Make elections freer and fairer (to have a say in governance)
Centrists: Let’s meet in the middle and dismantle half of elections once every 4 years, eh?
also, when voters don’t vote for the candidates we force on them, it’s their fault!
It still is.
Why do I have to choose between the radical left and the radical right?
What if I’m a male xenophobic racist who wants women to exist as sex toys to men and have no rights of their own and supports killing random civilians and children in other countries, especially when it grows in to genocide, but also wants a good life for the common male workers of the country, universal healthcare, and a sustainable climate?
I want that universal health care and education, I want more affordable homes and such, but I also want to see goon squads in the street beating brown people with batons as often as possible because it makes me laugh. Why can’t I have both?
i knew people in university who probably actually thought this way.
Sadly if you just look at the last paragraph and replace the brown people bit with whoever a person feels justified to hate it seems like most people think something along these lines.
People who still buy Harry Potter books or merchandise? Republicans? People from cultures where homosexuality is considered wrong who honestly speak about their own views?
I think many of the loving tolerant folk of the internet would be thrilled with a world of universal health care, education, affordable homes, and seeing some or all of those people beaten in the streets.
you can probably get 90% approval by having it be pedophiles getting beaten in the street, but society isn’t ready for that conversation
We need some police. Just some.
But not these ones, better ones.
Social workers? Yes. Police as we know them? Nope. Proper education and mental health services will solve 99% of the problems. Most crime is unresolved personal issues and taking care of people will take care of the problems.
people that steal cars are one of the best uses for the current police, and if the police actually faced proper punishment for not kamikazing into mass shooters that would be another great use
Just enough to kill the untermenchen and keep people from objecting to my atrocities where I can hear. That’s such a reasonable thing I don’t know why they’re complaining there are too many.
center is bullshit. You’re the center for your view
The radical part of the dems are the centrist
Yeah where is the Tubular Left and the Gnarly Right.
they forgot about gays and people of colors in video games! /s
Is that really Alison rosen now? Or was she joking herself? Stupid screenshot culture and no link…
btw, does anyone have something to see threads posts without gettin on threads website?
If you stop thinking about sides as whole and start thinking about singular choices, it becomes easy to understand where do centrists come from.
I like tradition. I don’t think it should be untouchable, but I think it should be preserved and continued overall. I dislike globalism, valuing feeling of community with people from my country. I hate the idea of bending backwards just to fully accomodate whims of other people, even if these pertain to their feeling of self.
On the other hand, I hate the idea of functionally sorting people based on their skin, using traditions to shame and attack others, or deeming others as worse just because what they feel themselves be is different than what we perceive.
I hate censorship from both sides, portrayal of the other side as dumb and themselves as better and tendency for “group-thing” for humanity as a whole.
So yeah, i deem myself centrist. But if you ask me to join the side fighting fascists, nazis or communists (in the USSR sense of the word), I’m with ya. In the end I need to choose what fits most of my views, and in USA case, that’s mostly left. In my own country it’s a bit more muddied.
I hate the idea of bending backwards just to fully accomodate whims of other people
Care to give an example when you have ever really needed to bend over backwards?
Sounds like you’re mostly conservative, with a desire for others to feel good about themselves.
The Danish conservative party is pretty close to your requests, except for the degree at which you seem to be pro immigration
