Enlightened Centrism - eviltoast
  • ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca
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    9 months ago

    The centrists has their basic needs met and isn’t part of a social group that is threatened so they see both as a waste of tax spending.

    • geoff@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      Implied by this: centrists see all this mainly as a financial matter.

      • hglman@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Centrists are unwilling to accept change or inconvenience. This differs from conservatives who think things should go back to some sort of old way.

        • Flumpkin@slrpnk.net
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          9 months ago

          It’s really impossible to know what you mean here, because conservative should mean to keep doing what works: They should be social democrats (what worked to build the US e.g. Nixon lol). So we shouldn’t use that word any more. True conservatism would be more left wing than democrats today.

          The GOP has become a reactionary or “paleo-conservative” which is really a misnomer too. What they really are now is a theocratic fascist party. But really they have no values at all except power and hate and inequality.

          There are no real centrists, there is no center here. They are really corporatists who are willing to play politics in order to please the big capitalists or plutocracy. They love trump because they can keep cutting of left wing politics and not have a platform. In foreign policy they are fascist as well (american exceptionalism, a belief in inequality based on identity).

          • hglman@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            The gop are not the reactionary part, the DNC is. They are also centrists between the gop and a ghost of policies to the left.

        • _NoName_@lemmy.ml
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          9 months ago

          We gotta stop callin them conservatives. These shits are trying to roll things back, not keep it as-is. They’re the opposite of progressive: they’re regressive.

        • uis@lemm.ee
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          9 months ago

          That would be reactioners, not conservatives. You guys also have problem of reactioners taking name of conservatives.

          • hglman@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            American Centrist are reactionaries, American conservatives are not reactionaries. That is my point.

    • Empricorn@feddit.nl
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      9 months ago

      You’re right, of course, but a key trait of sociopaths is viewing people through the lens of what they can do for them.

        • Empricorn@feddit.nl
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          9 months ago

          I’m saying anyone who views other people this way has sociopathic tendencies. They just mentioned centrists.

    • uis@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      I wanted to say how I have my basic needs met, isn’t part of social group that is threatened and don’t see left as waste of tax spending, but then I remembered about good Uncle Voencom that happily sends to die for Putin’s yacth, so I don’t count as not part of social group that is threatened.

    • MehBlah@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Balance is required to see things clearly. Just because both sides suck equally in their own ‘special’ way doesn’t change the fact they are their own worst enemy.

  • esc27@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Maybe I’m the centrist in this scenario, but isn’t that just normal left? I’d expect far left to be like “we are going to exterminate all the rich then give their stuff to everyone else”

    • Maven (famous)@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      In the US at least, the entire country is so far right that the position above is actually far left in our political sphere.

      • Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Haha yeah US is so backwards. And I’m surprised the world hasn’t built a massive wall around us because we literally use God as part of our laws, how many weapons we have stockpiled, how many citizens die from unnecessary violence, how little we care about the homeless.

        And any sort of empathy about any of those problems, even pointing it out, isnt even a discussion point in politics because itll go nowhere fast.

    • Pot@kbin.social
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      9 months ago

      The ‘far left’ described in that tweet is the ‘center right’ in Norway. USA politics feels weird and alien to Europeans.

      • alignedchaos@sh.itjust.works
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        9 months ago

        I mean it feels weird and alien to us too.

        All of it makes a lot more sense when viewed through the lens of who has money and who wants that money.

      • uis@lemm.ee
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        9 months ago

        Aha! I’m not alone! In Russia center-right too.

        Norway is not ex-republic, so I guess it is same in entire Europe then.

    • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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      9 months ago

      Depends on what you mean by “far.” If you mean believing in a radical restructuring of society along Communist lines, this can be done peacefully. Pacifism is an extremist position as well. Conflating “radicalism” with “violence” is just centrism at work.

      On the same hand, there are extremely violent centrists. Kissinger murdered millions of people as a liberal, for example, which is a center-right ideology. Centrism isn’t about non-violence.

      • hglman@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Centrism is fear of change in the now vs conservatives which is a reaction against change before.

    • SuddenDownpour@sh.itjust.works
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      9 months ago

      we are going to exterminate all the rich

      Only edgy teens on social media genuinely think this is a logical political goal you should advocate for in the first world on this day and age

      then give their stuff to everyone else

      If you change this to: “concentration of private property in few hands is a poisonous hydra that will forever feed inequality”, then yes, that’s a milquetoast far left take, which often comes from the desire of actually “getting everyone’s needs met” and the idea that capitalism naturally organizes the economy in a way that disincentives letting a portion of the working class being comfortably capable of getting all their needs met.

      And honestly, given the positions of most politicians on actually doing something to make housing affordable, I honestly think “getting everyone’s needs met” is becoming a far left position.

      • return2ozma@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        we are going to exterminate all the rich

        Only edgy teens on social media genuinely think this is a logical political goal you should advocate for in the first world on this day and age

        Nah, I’m not a teen. Chippity choppity! LFG!

    • yogurt@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      Centrists think “We all want the same thing, why are you so biased against the fox’s ideas about how to build the henhouse?” They don’t believe the far right wants to exterminate, so the far left is evil for being willing to fight them.

    • uis@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      “we are going to exterminate all the rich then give their stuff to everyone else”

      This is so last century. we are going to exterminate all the rich by giving their stuff to everyone else.

    • SendMePhotos@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      I also believe I am center… To me it’s more like

      Right: let’s go exterminate races. Left: ACAB, all cops are pieces of shit and deserve life sentences.

      I mean, they aren’t totally equal, but there are better examples.

          • Soggy@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            I’m more likely to be assaulted by a cop than helped by one. Or randomly killed while they do triple the speed limit with no siren.

            • RedFox@infosec.pub
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              9 months ago

              I hope someday your feelings of law enforcement can be repaired by them. This is a tragic relationship between people and those that are supposed to protect them.

              I hope law enforcement keeps correcting this, which they should have done themselves but instead it took enormous pressure and numerous occasions of crimes by law enforcement.

              Maybe one day, you won’t have to fell that way.

    • zarkanian@sh.itjust.works
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      9 months ago

      USA has a left. They almost never win at the ballot box, though. You have to find them in the streets.

    • unreasonabro@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      You don’t have a right either though, at least not a right on the democratic spectrum.

      All you’ve got are “unacceptable” and “fascism”.

    • NutWrench@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      This. Republicans and Democrats have been moving steadily to the right for the last 40 years. So now, Democrats are where Republicans were in the 1980s: boring corporatists who are best friends of banks, insurance and pharmaceutical companies. We haven’t had a real progressive president since Jimmy Carter and that was 50 years ago.

      Meanwhile, the right has moved all the way into an insane asylum. Their best friends are Russian oligarchs, fascists, religious nutjobs and civil war re-enactors, who communicate on Twitter and “Truth Social” and call themselves “Republicans.”

    • uis@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      They are more right than russian right-wing politicians. Even in USSR second opposition party was right-wing Liberal-Democratic Party of Soviet Union.

      • gigachad@feddit.de
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        9 months ago

        Nowadays the right-left-continuum is already broken inside a single political region, I am pretty sure getting the USSR into the boat doesn’t make it easier.

        And by the way, who was the “second opposition party” in the One-Party-System of the Soviet Union?

        • uis@lemm.ee
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          9 months ago

          And by the way, who was the “second opposition party” in the One-Party-System of the Soviet Union?

          I already mentioned LDPSU. Fist one was Democratic Union, right wing, but no longer exists. One-party-system was abolished in 1990

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldOP
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              9 months ago

              Putin: “Who are you going to vote for, me or the corpse?”

              Also Putin: “The answer is me. Or else.”

            • uis@lemm.ee
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              9 months ago

              There was Yabloko, but I wouldn’t call it living party. Same for CPRF, another dead party on federal level. LDPR only pretends to be opposition on TV, you already can guess they are not. New People is sock puppet like LDPR.

              On municipal level and in some regions things are slightly different:

              LDPR had some popularity until Furgal’s arrest and subsequent idiot acting governor. Members of Habarovsk Krai’s LDPR either moved to UR(incumbent’s party) or remained in opposition and moved to CPRF. Furgal was arrested because he was more popular than Putin in Habarovsk.

              CPRF: extensive regional network, comparable to what Navalny had. While in some regions they are puppets for UR, in most of regions they are opposition to UR, actively register observers(Putin hates observers, they ruin his falsifications), can register you as candidate from federal party and usually are supported by Smart Voting(Navalny and his supporters). Have string teams in many regions.

              Navalny’s HQ(Shtab)/Russia of the Future: had extensive regional network that existed until his poisoning. Now it doesn’t.

              Yabloko: sometimes registers observers, usually doesn’t, but sometimes does register good candidates, has strong team in Moscow and SpB, had strong team in Pskov. Sometimes supported by SV.

              LDPR: shit in Moscow, had a lot of seats in east regions. It seems like they disappeared.

              New People: Sock Puppet Party, but can randomly register humanoid candidate and sometimes this candidate wins.

              On municipal elections even sock puppets has sometimes good candidates, but most municipal elections are FPTP.

  • lugal@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    The answer is always in the middle. Let’s do a little basic needs but only for the rich and a little genocide but only in the middle east

  • hOrni@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    It says something, that securing people’s basic needs is considered “far” left.

  • Ð Greıt Þu̇mpkin@lemm.ee
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    9 months ago

    People who already have their needs accounted for always seem so convinced that things will turn out hunky dory if things escalate to violence, and yet so rarely pass thought on the folks who are already struggling enough without The Troubles Part II Red Cap Boogaloo coming to a car bombing near them.

  • schnokobaer@lemmy.ml
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    9 months ago

    “Well I don’t think we can meet everybody’s needs so I’m unfortunately gonna have to side with the other movement, sorry!”

    • madcaesar@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Unfortunately too many groups suffer from if I can’t get 100% of X, fuck it all. And it goes across all spectrums.

      • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        “Candidate A has a plan that’ll help 85% of people have affordable healthcare, and Candidate B will make it unaffordable for everyone else – I guess I’m choosing neither since there isn’t an option for 100%!” - Tankies

  • vampire@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    my team: perfect angels

    your team: evil monsters

    it literally does not matter what two groups you are comparing, if you sound like this then a lot of people are not going to engage

  • taanegl@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Well, it’s hard to tell liberals and conservatives apart, mostly because liberalism isn’t left wing, but actually slightly right from centre, and both liberalism and conservativism share some similarities.

    This is what McCarthyism did. It’s the great goal post mover.

  • TheFonz@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Leftists: never show up to vote

    Also leftists: nothing ever gets done. Both parties must be the same

    Edit:

    More info from Pew 2022 election polls:

    Age and the 2022 election Age continues to be strongly associated with voting preferences in U.S. elections. Nearly seven-in-ten voters under 30 (68%) supported Democratic candidates in 2022 – much higher than the shares of voters ages 30 to 49 (52%), 50 to 64 (44%) and 65 and older (42%) who did so. Compared with 2018, GOP candidates performed better among voters who turned out across age groups.

    Also:

    Older voters turned out more reliably in both elections – and continued to be largely loyal to Republican candidates.

  • reagansrottencorpse@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    It’s funny to see people that have swallowed anti communist peograganda hook line and sinker flounder in here trying to discredit the far left.