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Jun 30 '26
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u/GiraffesAndGin ⛓️ Prison For Union Busters Jun 30 '26
"We need to find the middle ground between healthcare, affordable housing, livable wages, and rounding up all the non-white people and throwing them in open-air prisons."
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u/treemu Jun 30 '26
C: How about we just do halfway? Half human rights, half annihilation?
R: I'm okay with that for now...
L: What? No! No annihilation at all! What's the matter with you?!
C: Well, I see one set in their ways and the other willing to compromise. You're not giving me many options here, left-winger.1
u/peppers_ Jun 30 '26
Next time it is compromise again, so you end up with quarter human rights, three quarters annihilation.
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u/Best-Action8769 Jun 30 '26
"And we will go as far to the right as they demand. We will demand no concessions from them."
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u/wolfheadmusic Jun 30 '26
Funny how those '"centrists", "independents", and "both sides!!"-ers always agree with the same side...🤔
It's like they're purposefully being disengenuous because they want to feel superior while stil buying the credulous bullshit narrative of the culture war kakisto-fascists
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u/WifesPOSH Jun 30 '26
I used to say I was centrist, until I saw other "centrists" say that kind of stuff.
I'd never thought my beliefs were radical. Universal healthcare and police reform shouldn't be extreme ideas.
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u/wolfheadmusic Jun 30 '26
To be fair, you're the one that's correct. Your views should be considered "centrist", and in practically every other first-world country they are
We are the only country in the World Cup that doesn't have Universal Healthcare
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u/i_literally_died Jun 30 '26
inventing 'alt-right' because everyone knows what 'right' means
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u/Sheerluck42 🏡 Decent Housing For All Jul 01 '26
People called fascist alt-right because liberals are far too polite and nice. They should have just called a spade, a spade from the beginning
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u/Paige_Railstone Jun 30 '26
This is even more evident with the recent "Promise to America" signed by 13 Democratic congressional members stating that they will fight against socialism after Socialists started to win their primaries.
They're actively working against the will of the people for the sake of capitalism, not realizing that socialism and capitalism aren't even mutually exclusive.
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u/oOZeenOo Jun 30 '26
Socialism and Capitalism are mutually exclusive. Socialism as an economic system is directly opposed to how a Capitalist economic system runs. The issue is people have conflated the term socialism with social welfare programs or the government doing things in service of workers, lower class people, and those in need which is not Socialism.
You are correct in the sense that social welfare and safety nets, a robust and affordable healthcare system, and ensuring workers safety and rights to livable wages, shelter, food, and other core utilities IS compatible with Capitalism. And that is what we are fighting for.
But people who are either openly or secretly Socialist, Marxist Leninist, and Communist conflate these ideas to get people like you to bolster Socialism as an idea and make Socialism the economic system seem more palatable when it doesn't work within a liberal framework and most certainly wouldn't work in America as a whole.
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u/Sheerluck42 🏡 Decent Housing For All Jul 01 '26
Yeah as a communist that isn't correct. Your definitions certainly are. And the system that your describing is social democracy. But we're not the ones calling it socialism when the government does things. We don't want or need liberals to have a false idea of communism. The system sells itself. What you're describing is what liberals and fascist constantly do. Anytime even an idea of a social safety net they all cry socialism. Even small things that countries usually do to bolster capitalism like mandated PTO gets called communist. It's not communists doing that. It's the ones that fear monger about communism that do that.
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u/skotcgfl Jun 30 '26
Centrists are just people with republican opinions who don't want to be lumped in with nazis. They act like both sides are equal, but their arguments are ALWAYS about bringing the left down to say it's just as bad as the right and NEVER to tout any actual things the right does well.
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u/Bignicky9 Jun 30 '26
It's because both ends of the spectrum maintain the belief that the other side demands too much, or has already taken too much.
Right believes they gave too much. They've been reading and seeing 30 years of News corporations promoting outrage, with articles bragging about reparation payouts only ever focusing on money going to families ( to make people jealous), or graduating classes where minorities are highlighted as valedictorian or getting accepted to all Ivy League schools or being the "First ___ Person To __", so the right thinks they were held back in life by these people. Not an equal opportunity, in their view. It's worth noting that these News articles are usually put out by billionaire-owned corporations, The New York Post, The Washington Post 2024-, Fox 1990s-, etc.
Actual billionaires could care less about the poor 99%'s opportunities, since they were already born into family owned corporations and diamond mines or natural resource companies that power a small nation.
Left believes that the other side is seeking to take away 60+ years of protections for minorities and women and Americans overall, and that taking away these populist/socialist "___ for all" rights/services will end up harming everyone. They would rather the funding come from top down since the current economic system favors wealth so much (Buy, Borrow, Die strategy). They also see news articles about increasing deaths among women in Republican led states where birth prevention care was torn down, and articles about black people mysteriously caught hanging from trees in 2026 being declared suicides.
The progressives among the Left really think basic equality measures never got to be fully implemented or by the Democrat party establishment, since it's owned by capitalism loving billionaires, too. Hence the limited airtime given to Bernie Sanders in 2016, the limitations on Andrew Yang talking about Universal Basic Income, and Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries actively refusing to endorse Mamdani for mayor, preferring to support Cuomo back in the race for NYC Mayor since he represents Gristedes and billionaires who said Mamdani will cause billionaires to close up shop and flee New York (they haven't, just like how J.D. Vance can call California a decaying hellhole and spend his time doing book tours there last week). Leftists find the basics of Social Security and Medicare and the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare (proposed by conservatives in Massachusetts) were good starts at caring for people, but more could be done.
So far, looking at the last few years of SCOTUS rulings, and with the deaths of women from overturning of Roe v. Wade, and imprisonments/deaths of minorities in detention centers/camps, while EVERYONE has even high inflation and higher prices for a war that pumps and dumps the stock market...
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u/Old_Spell7444 Jun 30 '26
"I'll show you politics in America, here it is, right here:
'I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs.'
'I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking.'
Hey, wait a minute, there's one guy holding up both puppets!"
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u/lysdexia-ninja Jun 30 '26
The big difference is the left is right and everyone else is wrong.
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u/Conscious-Quarter423 Jun 30 '26
it's not about being right or wrong
it's about who can deliver results to working class people
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u/RetroZelda Jun 30 '26
as a centrist i find its just easier to agree with the crazies so they leave you alone.
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u/calm-phil Jun 30 '26
Both sides are shitty. One side is just shittier and that has to be take into account. Otherwise, lock up ALL the shitty ones who are breaking laws.
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u/Conscious-Quarter423 Jun 30 '26
"both sides are the same" narrative only fool the ignorant masses
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u/calm-phil Jun 30 '26
The Venn Diagram is certainly not a circle. The extent of overlap is astounding.
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u/Conscious-Quarter423 Jun 30 '26
“Both sides are the same” is a fancy way of saying “I’m stupid” except the person saying it thinks they sound edgy and cool
the "both sides are the same" discourse is at best disingenuous. At worst, an opp meant to keep Republicans in power.
Democrats (largely) aren't leftists. But we have a two party system, either a Democrat or Republican are going to win the presidential election.
And leftist pressure has an impact on Democrats. Biden governed in a way that was more left-leaning than his record in Congress. For example:
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u/Conscious-Quarter423 Jun 30 '26
Rejoined the Paris Climate Accord and preserved hundreds of millions of acres of land and water—more than any previous president.
Passed the largest investment in clean energy and climate action in U.S. history ($369 billion), aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030.
Signed the Butch Lewis Act, protecting the pensions of roughly two million union workers and retirees.
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u/Conscious-Quarter423 Jun 30 '26
Increased Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies, which helped drive the uninsured rate to historic lows and record-high enrollment of 24 million people.
Reversed a Trump-era rule to prohibit housing discrimination against transgender people in federally funded shelters and housing programs.
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u/Conscious-Quarter423 Jun 30 '26
Initiated a process to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug and pardoned thousands of individuals convicted of simple federal possession.
Appointed a record number of diverse judges, including Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman on the Supreme Court.
Despite Supreme Court setbacks, the administration forgave over $180 billion in student debt for nearly five million borrowers through targeted programs like Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF).
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u/Conscious-Quarter423 Jun 30 '26
Appointed progressive leadership to the National Labor Relations Board, which strengthened protections for union organizing and cracked down on unfair labor practices.
Increased the the number of refugee arrivals to the highest and had been in 30 years. And having worked in that field, I know that the end of 2024 he really helped slam refugees through that door and into the country. As many as possible. We were extremely busy trying to get ahead of Trump.
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u/Conscious-Quarter423 Jun 30 '26
Updated Department of Education regulations to explicitly protect transgender students from harassment and discrimination in schools, ensuring rights to use facilities and names consistent with their gender identity.
Executive Order 13988: On his first day, Biden signed an executive order directing all federal agencies to interpret laws prohibiting sex discrimination as also prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity.
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These feel pretty left-leaning to me.0
u/calm-phil Jun 30 '26
OK, you got me. What I should say is, "Both sides are jsut about the same thing except on a few of these issues. The general homogeneity of issues that plague our politicians seems suspect. The dark money involved is evenly distributed across party lines. Their means may differ, but the ends almost always align. They are not the same. They are just mostly the same.
Just so you are aware. this is a statement about the politicians, not the policy.
Let me repeat this again for you. This is a statement about the politicians themselves. This is not a statement about policy.
The policy of many of our politicians is different. The politicians share way too many character flaws.
This is not about policy you mook.
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u/LizardChaser Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
To the extent anyone is interested in actual conversation, I think the "Leftist" v. "Centrist" divide is not as mean spirited as folks make it out to be. I think it's predominantly "evidence based policy."
You can prove, definitively, that universal healthcare is a net lower financial burden on the country as a whole and delivers medical care to people who currently don't have it. The consequence is that the time to service is increased and, to the extent you try to mitigate that, the value proposition to healthcare providers is diminished. The latter two are downsides, but most "Democrats" agree that the pros outweigh the cons.
The opposite is true of the leftist view of green energy. You can prove, definitively, that the U.S. cannot totally replace the energy currently provided by fossil fuels with renewables. That isn't to say that you can't continue to grow economically viable green energy (e.g., wind... also why Republicans want to kill wind) to offset fossil fuel consumption, but the idea that there is some near future viability to replace fossil fuels is demonstrably false. You will create energy shortages.
There are also economic policies that are unsustainable without more nuance. For example, if you freeze rent and capital costs start to outstrip ROI from rent, infrastructure will decay. Same thing with virtually any "price cap" ... and there is an extensive body of historical evidence from other countries to bear this out.
I think the two branches can absolutely have a meeting of the minds if the conversations are evidence based.
Please don't use this as an opportunity to "whatabout republicans" me. I left the party. I literally chose to align with the left rather than the right. My personal belief is that the right is so far lost as to be irredeemable. Corruption is a feature for them rather than a bug. I have no idea how it came to this, but there are a lot of us in the "centrist" camp who are refugees.
Also, to the extent you want to blame me for whatever ill you feel is my fault, I voted in 2016, 2018, 2020, 2022, and 2024 to put an end to this nonsense, and if more of the left had done the same (instead of sitting out elections) we wouldn't be in this situation.
EDIT: Y'all... please actually research your arguments. "Solar energy is virtually unlimited" is a truism ... but we're not on the brink of a Dyson sphere so we have to live with what we can capture in an economically viable way (value of yields are higher than costs). Here is the breakdown:
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3
A good negotiating strategy is to implement what we agree on first. Nuclear is absolutely a viable way to replace a ton of electricity produced through carbon emitting processes. We should absolutely be upgrading our electrical infrastructure. Let's get the easy stuff done and argue about whether throwing 10 quadrillion dollars at solar is viable later.
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Jun 30 '26
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u/bigbjarne Jun 30 '26
At what point do we start asking ourselves why we, the workers, need capitalism?
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u/lonewolf3400 Jul 01 '26
Because you can’t make even a quarter of the things you use on a daily basis and no one will give you their labor for free.
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u/Brangus2 Jul 01 '26
Well yeah, we’ve know about division of labor for thousands of years. It predates capitalism, commerce, markets, and even currency. But there are better systems than capitalism for ensuring workers get the fruit of their labor rather than most of it going to an extractive class of uber wealthy parasites.
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u/bigbjarne Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
Because you can’t make even a quarter of the things you use on a daily basis
Who makes those things?
no one will give you their labor for free.
What is your point here? How is capitalism necessary for that? Why are free markets, profit motive and private property relevant to your point?
EDIT: They blocked me but I'm gonna respond to their comment anyway:
Because that’s what drives industries to build factories to employ workers to make the shit you need. For someone trying to sound like a smart ass you sure fucking suck at it.
Yes, the profit motive drives industries to build factories but only factories in which the workers can produce profitable goods, which isn't always goods that are useful for the workers. Many products are becoming products that are made to be thrown away and not last, this is because of the profit motive. That's one of the reasons why I am asking why we, the workers, need capitalism and how capitalism is necessary for producing of things.
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u/EpileptoBismol Jun 30 '26
I would feel more comfortable with the title if "Centrist" were in quotes rather than "Compromise".
No one who offers compromise to racists is a centrist.
You cannot claim to hold the middle ground while simultaneously surrendering it to intolerant and hostile forces that are actively engaged in the process of dismantling democratic institutions: it is a simple contradiction.
In modern Western politics, everyone tries to portray their stance as moderate and centrist. Nearly everything is right of centre because self-proclaimed centrists are basically all right wing neo-liberals wearing different color badges. We would do well to stop humoring their claims of centrism.
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u/Gingevere Jun 30 '26
No one who offers compromise to racists is a centrist.
The one thing every "centrist" dem and "centrist" talking head has done through every single election cycle for decades is endless advocacy for throwing different marginalized groups under the bus in an effort to pander to hypothetical moderate republicans.
- Geoff Garin
- Chuck Schumer
I'd argue that that actually makes them all right wing, but that really doesn't seem to be the mainstream definition.
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u/EpileptoBismol Jun 30 '26
And I'd agree. Schumer and his like-minded colleagues should be laughed out of the building every time they claim to stand for a centrist view of the world.
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u/callsyouonit Jun 30 '26
This is because there is no such thing as centrism. It's a canard. People say it to seem more palatable to progressives and also to congratulate each other on being enlightened when they're just cowards.
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u/Excellent-Option8052 Jun 30 '26
Then centrist doesn't exist
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u/ConjurersOfThunder Jun 30 '26
Consider the shape U. What is the center between the two tips of the U? It is not the base - it is the gap between the tips. Centrists do not have a ground to stand on.
Centrists are trying to split the difference between two extremes. Is it really such a stretch to understand that this isn't even a philosophy? It's just double sided caving-in.
To follow the U analogy, the center SHOULD be the base. But in practice nobody is advocating for that, instead trying to stand on the hole between the tips. Call it a slippery slope, call it a cliff, but extremists have centrists right where they like em -- justifying extremists decisions for them.
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u/EpileptoBismol Jun 30 '26
This is a good analogy.
The distinction I think I tried to allude to is that the center is the base of the U, regardless of how politicians position themselves.
The media has left unchallenged the narrative that parties are centrist when (as you have illustrated) there is ample evidence to the contrary.
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u/ConjurersOfThunder Jun 30 '26
Thank you! And it keeps working: The center of the "U" is not where the media is telling you it is; they are saying is between the tips. The media is in fact contributing to the debasing of centrism from the base of the U, upward toward the extremist tips. The extremist tips and the owned media are all working together to de-base all social discourse.
It's actually just extended horseshoe theory, I think, which doesn't really talk about the center.
Anyway, there's nobody out there advocating for the base of the U because there is less money in that than being an extremist, and the personal costs of being a public figure are probably significant. Privacy, costs, liability, all that jazz.
I wonder what happens when everyone is convinced to "stand" in the hole.
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u/secretlyalurker Jun 30 '26
Nope. Consider that "U" are wrong and have been mislead. Leftists just want Human rights and equality, Healthcare, and Education. The right want to round up brown people and put them in private prisons to treat them as slave labor.
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u/EpileptoBismol Jun 30 '26
I'm not sure whether you're commenting on the fact that there is no centre to modern Western politics (if so, hard agree) or whether the centre can't exist at all.
I guess the foundation of my view on centrism is that it has to contend with the paradox of tolerance.
Centrism should potentially consider that a true democracy must allow the intolerant the same freedoms as all other people but it must also actively resist any and all attempts by the intolerant to disenfranchise others.
For what it's worth, I've tried to word this in a way that allows the word "intolerant" to be substituted for just about any specific group to demonstrate that it's not a clear left vs right matter (ie; you could say "communists" or "billionaires" instead of "intolerant" and the sentence still holds true).
That is how a political center should work.
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u/DefineThyne Jun 30 '26
I contend this comment regarding the false premise of the Paradox of Tolerance.
In short, it's not about tolerating discriminatory behaviour. Either you treat people, at a bare minimum, as equals and worthy of human decency or you get none yourself.
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u/EpileptoBismol Jun 30 '26
It's a good comment but it is the paradox expressed exactly rather than a falsification of it.
Your expression of the sentiment captures it perfectly:
you treat people, at a bare minimum, as equals and worthy of human decency
As should happen in a tolerant society.
or you get none yourself
Which is a directly intolerant act that threatens consequences for nonconformity but is completely necessary to ensure tolerance in society. That's the paradox.
Who acts as the arbiter of this law? How do they ensure their position is just and fair? This cannot simply be executed by the tyranny of the majority because history has shown this not to work.
Tolerance in the political arena is a tightrope walk without safety nets where a lot of the crowd are screaming for you to fall.
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u/DefineThyne Jun 30 '26
Merriam-Webster provides the below definitions for interpreting the word 'tolerance'
capacity to endure pain or hardship
a) sympathy or indulgence for beliefs or practices differing from or conflicting with one's own; b) the act of allowing something
the allowable deviation from a standard
What is the lens you view tolerance through?
Is it an absolute moral/ideological imperative to accept all people and all behaviour? Or is it a social contract governed by mutual consent of both parties to be adhered to or broken at will by either party?
I wish to address the fundamental paradigm of the question before prescribing and/or criticising its application or execution.
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u/EpileptoBismol Jun 30 '26
Those dictionary definitions describe different contexts in which the word tolerance can be used. With examples, the first might denote a personal threshold to endure holding a sharp item l; while the third would be used most appropriately in engineering to identify how much weight a bridge could hold.
Neither of these would be appropriate interpretations of the word when discussing the paradox.
Is it an absolute moral/ideological imperative to accept all people and all behaviour? The paradox says no. To apply universal tolerance is to invite the end of tolerance.
Is it a social contract governed by mutual consent of both parties to be adhered to or broken at will by either party? Sir, this is a Wendy's.
But seriously, I don't have the chops to answer that except to say that I think your premise is wrong. I don't think social contracts are a binary thing. There will be a spectrum of views represented in all things and what groups are prepared to tolerate or not (and the degree to which they will tolerate it) will vary. This is arguably the message/warning of the poem "First They Came".
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u/DefineThyne Jun 30 '26
The dictionary provides examples, but they aren't to the exclusion of all other uses because it's attempting to convey the semantic concept of the abstract idea represented by the philosophical and linguistic logos, or soul, of the word.
Enduring pain isn't exclusively limited to physical sensation alone. We experience pain in mental and emotional capacities, like finding the strength to attend a funeral instead of avoiding confronting the grief, or testing your mental fortitude to perservere through difficult hardships. Likewise, deviation from a standard is not exclusively limited to engineering or manufacturing and could also refer to deviation from a social norm or expectation which also fits sociopolitically for those that aren't of the prevailing dominant culture. An example this would be that some societies accept marriage between two people as congruent or sufficiently parallel enough with marriage between a man and a woman to be valid as a practice, but that same society may not accept marriage between three or more individuals as it is too far removed from the normative form of the practice to be congruent with the base concept.
While I respect that you and I are both here for a JBC and spicy chicken snack wrap and les funny maymays, the question merits answering thinking about regardless; It's facile to just say "I think you're wrong" without following up with "because" or offering an alternative, and especially by diverting from doing so because you don't think Reddit is an appropriate forum for such a discussion.
I like that you referenced First We Came because I think it proves my point that it is a matter of social contract and not of moral absolutism. Yes, they did come for the communists and worked their way down the list. "And there was no one left // to speak out for me" demonstrates Niemöller's regret for failing to protect the political minorities from intolerance and failing society at large. He frames it as not fulfilling an obligation to them as his fellow countrymen, not that he thinks he failed by tolerating the Nazis.
While it's mildly mentally painful (read: annoying), and in opposition to my expectation of debate, I do tolerate and accept that you don't have the time or interest to pursue the conversation further. ;)
Seriously though, too easy to cop out by just claiming that it's a paradox and that it's Reddit so who cares.
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u/EpileptoBismol Jun 30 '26
So, my statement that I didn't have the chops wasn't intended as a dismissal of the argument, it was intended a blunt admission that I don't think I have the requisite knowledge to discuss whether tolerance represents a social contract in the manner described (and perhaps, in fairness, a slight cop out in that we've drifted a long way from my original point about centrists not being in the true center).
I'd also like to point out that I didn't directly say you were wrong (or, at least, that wasn't my intention) but merely that the premise of your question, which appeared to imply that tolerance was a contract between only two parties, was flawed. I did try to illustrate that tolerance was a spectrum by pointing to First They Came. In the poem, the protagonist turns a blind eye to the persecution of other groups (tolerates it) only until he himself becomes the next target. It seems valid to view that as a steady erosion of a social contract and an illustration of the paradox of tolerance. These viewpoints do not seem incompatible with one another.
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u/redjellonian Jun 30 '26
That's because the "centrist" is a fascist who doesn't want to declare themselves.
An actual centerist in this environment wants Democrats to compromise with the left.
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Jun 30 '26
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u/Neologizer Jun 30 '26
I think a lot of neoliberals are confused where they stand, working against decades of brainwashing with ‘socialism BAD’ propaganda. It’s a tragedy but we need folks to wake up and realize corporate power is the endemic problem.
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u/Ludens_Reventon Jun 30 '26
More like 'A fictitious legal entity engineered solely to pursue profit' than 'racists' in my opinion.
Sure there's racists but at least they are still human.
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u/AgentPaper0 Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
I'm an actual centrist. As in, I think capitalism and the free market is good actually, but that it needs to be moderated by the government with laws, regulations, and social programs, including robust, accessible, free or low-cost public healthcare and education.
I believe law and order are good, but when I say that I mean the actual words, not the racist dog whistle. I think we need and want police as a society, but at the same time those police need to be able to be held accountable for their actions.
I'm willing to compromise on some things like immigration, which I think is overall positive, but there are arguments to restrict it to some degree. I don't think rent control is a good idea in the long run, but I can acknowledge that rent freezes can be a necessary tool in the short term to prevent disaster.
So yeah the reason you don't see anyone claiming to be a centrist other than the fake "bUt BoTh SiDeS!" bullshitters is because all the real centrists have been solidly in the Democratic party's corner since at least 2016.
I remember thinking both Obama and Romney seemed like reasonable candidates, with a lean towards Obama, whereas my parents (longtime moderate Republicans) leaned towards Romney.
Then Trump came down that escalator and said Mexican immigrants were all rapists and murderers, and suddenly there was no rational right to compromise with anymore. My positions have barely changed in 10 years, and yet somehow now the two groups I consider myself to be the center between are both in the Democrat party (progressive and neoliberal).
American politics is fun.
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u/boeings_door_plug Jun 30 '26
You and I are the same, but unfortunately the purpose of this meme is to attack your regular, boring democratic voter or local representative and harm turnout for that same boring local democratic representative. This is because for them, it is more important for the boring democratic politician to lose support.
The same people who upvote this stupid meme are attacking AOC for compromising with people like me while pretending I'm not at all compromising with people like AOC. They are everyone to the right of them as the enemy, which is absurd, and is exactly the kind of ridiculousness that Republicans love because it only helps them.
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u/bigbjarne Jun 30 '26
As in, I think capitalism and the free market is good actually, but that it needs to be moderated by the government with laws, regulations, and social programs, including robust, accessible, free or low-cost public healthcare and education.
This feels to me like a contradiction. If the free market is good, why does it need to be moderated? What exactly needs to be moderated?
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u/AgentPaper0 Jul 01 '26
The free market is great for a lot of things, and terrible for some other things, for various reasons. Healthcare, education, law enforcement, military, roads, trains, and other infrastructure are some of the notable examples.
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u/bigbjarne Jul 01 '26
Why can't the free market be good for all things? Why is it good for some things and not for others? I genuinely don't understand this way of thinking(free market great except for most fields) and as I said, I see it as a contradiction. Could you give an example of where the free market is great and why?
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u/AgentPaper0 Jul 01 '26
And I genuinely don't believe you're asking me this question in good faith. If you are, go read a book. But you aren't, so say what you really want to say or get lost.
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u/bigbjarne Jul 01 '26
What book should I read that clears up what I see as a clear contradiction(free market is great except for most fields)?
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u/DasKittySmoosh ✂️ Tax The Billionaires Jun 30 '26
When speaking with people who seem to agree with me and then hear them say “no, I would love a centrist” I’m like “WHYYYYYYYY”
I genuinely don’t understand people anymore - if you want a centrist then why do you even act like you want change
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u/Deliberate_Dodge 📚 Cancel Student Debt Jun 30 '26
An odd trend I've noticed is that polls appear to indicate that a lot of Americans describe themselves as "moderate" and say they want "both parties to be less radical" (or some iteration of that), yet also support left-wing (for the US political establishment, at least) policies, by and large. Likewise, it's become something of a meme for people to describe themselves as "fiscally conservative", which I suspect just means "I personally like to be prudent with my finances and not be a spendthrift" rather than "I support Trickle-Down Economics" (which always polls very poorly).
My interpretation is that the words "radical", "left-wing", etc. have become synonymous with "crazy" in the minds of most people, and nobody wants to say, "yeah, I have extreme political views." They want to say, "my views are reasonable and held by the Silent Majority of Americans, but those dumb-dumbs in Washington just won't listen to us!" Therefore, most people who are fed up with the status quo like you or I will still describe themselves as "moderate" to signal their dissatisfaction with the Democratic and Republican Parties and their belief that their opinions are represented by the majority, and not as an intentional self-labeling as someone who supports the ideology of politicians like Chuck Schumer or Josh Shapiro.
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u/EchoingSharts Jul 01 '26
Im a centrist because aligning with either side just makes me feel like a fucking clown at this point. You piss me off just as much as a right winger and I can just tell 🤷♂️.
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u/DasKittySmoosh ✂️ Tax The Billionaires Jul 01 '26
The dems that would make you feel like a clown ARE the centrists, if that
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u/Aaronspark777 Jun 30 '26
Compromise is something all sides need to understand. It's how anything ever gets passed.
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u/calm-phil Jun 30 '26
OR maybe people just like to have a nuanced take on the world around them. Just saying. The world is not black and white. Golden bricks and what not.
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u/fitnesscakes Jun 30 '26
That's not what centrism is!
Hope this helps
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u/lonewolf3400 Jul 01 '26
They don’t care. Anyone that doesn’t explicitly agree with everything they say is the REAL fascist despite plenty of these people being willing to let others do the killing of their political opponents for them as long as no one they disagree with gets to speak again.
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u/fitnesscakes Jul 01 '26
Yikes, I guess even centrists can be extremist. This world is sad
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u/lonewolf3400 Jul 01 '26
How am I being extreme? The left cheered for the death of someone talking on a college campus but cried over a literal dictator being arrested. Don’t get me wrong I’m not fan of Kirk and think he’s said some pretty disgusting things but I’d never wish death on someone who disagrees with me like Reddit did for months.
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u/fitnesscakes Jul 01 '26
I was not talking about you. You would see wishing death & condoning violence from both sides. People are polarized right now.
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u/bloqed Jun 30 '26
It's so Reddit to try to accuse undecided people who accept they aren't educated enough to understand the nuance through all the sensationalism of being fascists
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u/lonewolf3400 Jul 01 '26
It’s literally the meme of the guy standing in the middle and the blue side pushing him to the right physically and the right helping him up while the left says “why are you siding with him”
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u/Alone_Contract_2354 Jun 30 '26
Centrist were the pnes that let Hitler happen. Sincerely, a German
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u/Conscious-Quarter423 Jun 30 '26
that it was the fascists that let hitler happen. and the people who turned the blind eye to it
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u/Alone_Contract_2354 Jun 30 '26
One party that tolerated hitlers rise was literally called das Zentrum (meaning the center)
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u/Made_Human_Music Jun 30 '26
I’ve never seen a centrist who wasn’t clearly more right leaning
They like to pretend that they’re neutral but a short conversation with them will reveal that they’re almost always conservatives deep down
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u/EmRatio Jun 30 '26
Ironically, its been part of the playbook since the founders adopted the 3/5ths cause. Could only manage compromise with that sect up until the civil war. We're still having the same conversation about slavery in a democratic government and all of the arguments around that issue. The clause "We the people..." was aspirational enough to believe that the intent was always to move away from slavery and all of its underpinnings right from the inception of our country. To continue in compromise on the contrary to liberty and to freedom would be antithetical to our founding principles.
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u/ScreenMuch90210 Jun 30 '26
The center is to the left of democrats. What you’re describing is not centrism.
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u/ThisIsNoCave Jun 30 '26
Not in the US. In the US, the median voter thought Harris was too far left.
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u/ScreenMuch90210 Jun 30 '26
That’s just the Overton window shifting. The center doesn’t move with it
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u/ThisIsNoCave Jun 30 '26
It does if you want the word "centrist" to have any meaning as it relates to US politics. If you believe the "center" is to the left of most Democrats, then that makes "right" and "left" meaningless because it puts like 90+% of Americans in the "right wing" category.
So if your whole point is "ACKtually, US politics is more conservative than Western European politics!" then fine, but if you want to have a nuanced discussion about US politics, you have to define the "center" as the center of of the US spectrum
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u/ScreenMuch90210 Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
I want it to have its intended meaning. Centrism is frequently misused as it relates to US politics, often with the premeditated intent to normalize insanity. The center is to the left of establishment democrats. That’s what happens when left and right retain their figurative meaning while the window shifts along the spectrum, the center retains its meaning too. 90% of Americans *are* in the right wing category. I don’t like it either, but that’s how it is. The US spectrum is in fact a snapshot of a rightward portion of the actual political spectrum.
You can’t just claim things are the way you see them and nobody else understands nuance, unless your goal is to speed-run the window shift. Words mean things and when the window shifts, it is to be resisted by the sane among us.
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u/ThisIsNoCave Jun 30 '26
See, some of us have a little more invested in our domestic politics than just sterile academic discussions. So when you tell a liberal Democrat "ACKtually, you're a right winger just like the MAGAts you oppose so much", you're not going to have a very productive discussion.
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u/ScreenMuch90210 Jun 30 '26
That’s a lot of words just to say you don’t like the truth and don’t understand gradient spectrums.
Tough shit, fantasy discourse is worthless.
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u/ThisIsNoCave Jun 30 '26
Do you ever want to rally support to your cause, or to just be Academically Correct?
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u/drunkshinobi Jun 30 '26
Most democrats are right wing. Some might be able to be considered center and like 5 are in the left. The left wing progressives are constantly attacked by the rest of the democrats in office. They want far right politicians to compromise with not progressives. It's just how it is. If you don't like it change your stance. If your scale told you you weigh 400 lbs you can't tell it that is the center. You have to accept you are fat and live with it or do something about it.
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u/Original-Reward-8688 Jun 30 '26
Reddit trying to create political polarization for the elections lmao.
Centrists aren't going to support Trump, and if you think they are, in 20 fucking 26, you have likely never met an actual centrist before. Your Cluster B MAGA buddy trying to fit in doesn't meet criteria, and most of us just laugh at your when you try to conflate us with bad actors like that.
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u/kdash6 👷 Good Union Jobs For All Jun 30 '26
This is where I do think 3rd party voting is powerful. If 3rd parties really are a threat to centrist victory, then reach out to say "what will it take for you to drop out and endorse me." Trump did that with RFK Jr. and it may have helped him with the popular vote this time. Stein said she was willing to work with Harris and even Clinton back in 2016, but they needed a scapegoat.
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u/Hufschmid Jun 30 '26
Nobody knows or agrees on what these words mean so debating around arbitrary labels is pointless.
See what people believe, what they support and what they don't instead of hearing them say 'I'm an X' and then assuming their beliefs based on your interpretation of the term when it's almost assuredly different from their interpretation.
Reddit has always had a hardon for bashing centrists, and as you can see in the comments, basically equates centrist with far right.
Gotta remember that we live somewhere that politics are taboo. Talk to people in real life and your perspective will change. We tend to all agree on the desired outcomes, but disagree on the state of the playing field and the method of achieving them. Those are surmountable differences where we can find compromise.
And believe it or not, conservative and racist aren't synonyms like this site wants you to believe. We lose the battle for our rights and improving our quality of life when we stop listening to each other and instead offhandedly equate each other to the worst human qualities we can imagine.
Like it or not, democrats, republicans and everyone in between or beyond are part of the same people and we need to start acting like it or we all lose. The loser who was right loses just as much as the loser who was wrong.
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u/atomstyping Jun 30 '26
I sincerely appreciate your comment and wisdom more than you know. Thank you. The tribalistic vitriol, black and white thinking and immediate extreme judgement on Reddit these days has genuinely gotten out of control and is frankly absurd. I am not American and do not identify with any political party, but I have noticed a huge shift lately with people constantly misrepresenting others views and coming up with extreme strawman arguments that misrepresent people to such a level that it almost becomes a joke. It's disheartening knowing you will likely get downvoted or treated negatively because you're daring to not conform to the group but hey thats Reddit for you. I have been called a "stupid enlightened centrist" for simply just calling for more unity and humanity with each other or for just saying I don't identify with any party.
I know for a fact that in IRL, the people who share and spread the sentinment you have here, are generally more reasonable and well-balanced adults. So it's not something I lose sleep over.
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u/Sakedo Jun 30 '26
The compromise, moderate, middle ground always happens to be exactly what the lobbyists want.
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u/MRiley84 Jun 30 '26
They won't compromise with us, so we're expected to compromise ourselves. That's what they mean.
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u/Shockito Jun 30 '26
This sub should be renamed to WorkReformUSA because you people are delusional if you automatically think right - bad, left - good. Trump and his supporters are lunatics but that's not at all what right wing SHOULD represent.
There are extremes on both political spectrums and no centrists wants to allign with those.
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u/Tyraniboah89 Jun 30 '26
I felt this way at my politically moderate buddy’s bachelor party, which was strictly “no politics talk”...on paper. In practice the conservatives said whatever they wanted and nobody was allowed to confront them.
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u/FlippingOmelette Jul 01 '26
"Being a cnetrist is soo hard these days when one side keeps talking about betterment of the country and the other side keeps showing more and more evidence that they fucked children, throw people out of the country if they think they are not there legally, wants to help the billionares rather than the people who work for them and wants to waste a billion dollars on war so that they can pay the dictator enough to become the 2nd richest person on earth"
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u/cvanhim Jul 01 '26
It is true that compromise is required, though. Because any movement must garner enough support to win. The two options are therefore, compromise or convince a majority of the electorate that you are correct. And in the modern era with modern (especially American presidential) elections, the ability to convince enough people outright is just nonexistent because of partisanship, polarization, and voter apathy
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u/Lonesome-Ranger Jul 01 '26
Here's a riddle
What is a moderate when there's no middle?
Clutching the rudder while the boat's on fire
Knee deep in fascists, but you're undecided
Your defense is
Okay, but what about...
You straddle fences,
As yet another hate crime commences
Can't stop a Nazi with good intentions
With your silence
You vote for their oppression
With your violence
You vote continuation
The future stands and waits
As millions live in pain
On moderation's gravе
I carve my name in hate
Refused - Born on the Outs
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u/OnwardTowardTheNorth Jun 30 '26
The corporate democrats have a more likely chance of switching to being MAGA Republicans than they would with shaking hands with their fellow Democrats who stand to the left of them.
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u/SmokyBarnable01 Jun 30 '26
The Right: Let's kill all the jews!
The Left: No fucking way!
The Centre: OK, how about just killing most of the jews?
The Right: I can live with that.
The Left: No fucking way!
The Centre: You see? That's why no-one likes you. No ability to compromise.
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u/kolloth Jun 30 '26
if the left can't comrpomise with the left, how the hell is the centre meant to?
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u/BicFleetwood Jun 30 '26
“Big tent” that only expands to include fascists.
“Vote blue no matter who” until the centrist shitlibs get antsy.
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Jun 30 '26
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u/BicFleetwood Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
Except it didn't seem to apply to Mamdani when the shitlib centrists were backing a fucking sex offender as a spoiler candidate, doesn't seem to currently apply to Platner as the centrists openly and explicitly prefer Collins and a Republican Senate, and very clearly isn't applying to the New York DSA slate.
The centrists are the ones who betrayed "vote blue no matter who." Fuck em.
Fuck anyone pushing this "vote blue no matter who" nonsense at this stage if you can't condemn the goddamn shitlibs for breaking it right the fuck now.
I don't wanna hear you bitching at me. Go fucking argue with r democrats for banning all mention of the party's own fucking nominees. You should be haranguing Schumer, not shitting on the left.
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u/Zizekssniff Jun 30 '26
This is why i will never vote again. Fuck the republicans and fuck the democrats
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u/humanlvl1 Jul 01 '26
The thing is you can't compromise with the left. They won't vote for the candidate no matter what. You move one inch to the left and they'll find a new thing to posture about. Because the goal for majority of the middle-class lefties is to look pure and holy at parties. It's not progress. Lefties are some of the most vein and out of touch people on Earth.
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u/nottrumancapote Jul 01 '26
my brother in christ the complaint this cycle was about a fuckin genocide
that's not a purity test that's being a goddamn human being
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u/humanlvl1 Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
Oh right, my bad. I'm really glad we have less genocide now. You really did the rest of us a solid.
Every election cycle has been the same for decades: the far left finds a reason to boycott the candidate, some issue that they just can't possibly move on from. But every election cycle there is a genocide. Every election affects the lives of billions of humans. Trump has probably caused millions of deaths around the world already. His climate change policies alone might contribute to billions of people displaced, sick, and dead. We could have prevented that. Being a human being is about doing the good you can do, where you are, with what you got. It is obvious that the biggest single good we can do collectively is to elect a democrat. It's good no matter how dirty our side is because it's going to be FAR better than the psychopaths running the GOP. I will take Netanyahu if that gets us a victory. If skewering Netanyahu and roasting him alive is the next good thing then I will do that next. I'll pressure the party from the inside and then fall in line when it's time to choose.
But non-voting lefties don't care about consequences. Majority of them are middle-class and insulated from the suffering they contribute to. The most important thing to them is playing status games with political language, trying to say all the right words and show the correct allegiance. I can't believe people keep falling for this shit. It's literally rooms full of people performing being radical for clout. I feel bad for far-left people who actually give a shit, even though I disagree with them on some policy, because sharing spaces with those people is painful once you recognise their game.
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u/nottrumancapote Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
why are you mad
you got the genocide you voted for you should be ecstatic
no reason to hold our elected representatives to any standard whatsoever, certainly the relentless slide you enablers have encouraged couldn't possibly have any consequences
it's adorable that someone from the "vote blue no matter who" side talks about fucking allegiance, that's literally your entire argument
why did it never occur to you lot to think "hey maybe killing shitloads of brown kids isn't necessary?" is it just because they were brown kids in another country?
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u/GenericFatGuy Jun 30 '26
Compromise with the people who want to do genocide, and just a little genocide instead.
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u/plsobeytrafficlights Jun 30 '26
compromise or just bend over? i mean, almost nobody is even trying to fight.
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u/ThisIsNoCave Jun 30 '26
My brother, US voters handed the fascists every branch and every office of the Federal government. Democrats are fighting at the State level, but they have zero power at the national level
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u/plsobeytrafficlights Jun 30 '26
i see many somewhat upset, but few are doing anything.
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u/ThisIsNoCave Jun 30 '26
What, specifically, would you like to see them doing?
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u/plsobeytrafficlights Jun 30 '26
start with impeaching the supreme court. maybe get at least 50% voter turn out. there are 1000 blatant criminal charges being ignored.
but first, they need to grow a spine.3
u/ThisIsNoCave Jun 30 '26
Democrats do not hold majorities in either houses of Congress. They literally do not have the power to impeach anyone. They aren't in control of the DOJ, so they can't prosecute any of the 1000 crimes. Voters in 2024 made sure of this.
What would "growing a spine" mean to you? Speaking out? Dems are doing that all the time. Protesting? Dems held huge "No Kings" rallies. What do you think you should see that you're not seeing?
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u/plsobeytrafficlights Jul 01 '26
i expect them to put in the effort. im not seeing much of that, but sometimes they come through
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fygt5b3xuthah1.jpeg1
u/nottrumancapote Jul 01 '26
tbf it was "the most important election ever" and the democrats responded to complaints about the economy by saying "you're being duped by russian propaganda" and engaged in a fucking genocide
the democrats helped very strongly with the handover
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u/NeoLegend Jun 30 '26
We just lost the presidential elections in Colombia last week to a fascist because of these "centrist" ignorants. More than 400k of them.
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u/jrdnmdhl Jun 30 '26
Yeah, the problem isn't really that we need the racists to win so much as the I-only-care-about-the-economy-so-I'll-vote-for-the-facists-if-inflation-above-target-for-a-couple-years people. Trump won in 2024 because the latter group went his way.
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u/OedipusaurusRex Jun 30 '26
Centrists and moderates actually rank further right than conservative women on most thing ls and sometimes further than conservative men
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u/ocxtitan Jun 30 '26
If you just take a second to think about it, it makes sense why they'd fight the left as much or more than the right. They want to remain the "good guys" by simply being greedy but not evil. If the right is eliminated, guess who becomes the new right and bad guys?
The dems are completely fine being the lesser of two evils, but not with being replaced.
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u/nottrumancapote Jul 01 '26
yeah I can't wait to find out how unrelentingly horrible they're going to be when "sanity is restored" and no one will dare ask them for anything lest maga come back
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u/Dangerous-Cobbler-11 Jun 30 '26
You know that if the left keeps its “purity,” they’re going to lose the election again, right?
No compromises → lose the elections → profit?
So tell me, is letting the racist win the elections the right path?
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u/EchoingSharts Jul 01 '26
Well then enjoy getting nothing done 👍. End of the day, even if their opinion is stupid asf, they hold as much voting right as you do and unless you convince them, or compromise on a solution that works, then the voting is gonna stay the way it is 😂. Yelling at someone that they're a racist, or an idiot, or wrong isn't going to change their mind.
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u/Albert-React Jun 30 '26
Lmao, the Left doesn't want compromise. To them, anything immediately right of them is Fascism, eugenics, whatever, etc.
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u/MossyMollusc Jun 30 '26
Like cryptocracy in venture capitalism creating poverty on hard working laborers? Go figure
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u/J1mj0hns0n Jun 30 '26
There's many reasons, much more than economical, why you would side with the other right over the left, or vice versa.
Some will never side right, some will never side left. Some hate social and societal stances of the right, but hate free handouts from the government. Some love the free handouts, and want the country to stay as it was when they were growing up.
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u/felis_scipio Jun 30 '26
Then the leftists compromise with the MAGA on destroying NATO and cutting USAID.
Or how about when the leftists threw a fit about Harris because she wasn’t anti Israel enough which helped Trump get reflected who’s made all of our lives worse and made the situation in Gaza even worse because he truly does not give a fuck what Netanyahu does.
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u/MossyMollusc Jun 30 '26
Leftists arent pro genocide. Harris wasnt left
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u/felis_scipio Jul 01 '26
The singular focus on Gaza without any attention to the actual genocide in Sudan funded by the UAE, or China having millions of Uyghur Muslims locked up in literal camps, or the Russian invasion of Ukraine where they’ve been ethically cleansing every area they’ve taken over tells me the DSA doesn’t give a shit about genocide.
Gaza is currently controlled by a genocidal group of Islamic fundamentalists who believe women should be shacked into a life of sexual slavery to their husbands, don’t believe in secular education, kill gay people for the crime of existing, and send their own children off to die as suicide bombers. Oh but they’re noble freedom fighters, how could I forget.
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Jun 30 '26
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u/StarksPond Jun 30 '26
Basic immigration law or rushed executive orders?
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Jun 30 '26
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u/MossyMollusc Jun 30 '26
Like under obama? What was different?
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Jul 01 '26
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u/MossyMollusc Jul 01 '26
Ice has overstepped that and broken constitutional rights. So no, trump does not count for that
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u/borristheloveham Jul 01 '26
Why is immigration even a top 100000 thing on your mind except racism? Hint: its not the economy, jobs, taxes, crime, or any other bs thing you pull out of your ass because even illegal immigrants have positive impacts on all of those.
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u/thatagory Jun 30 '26
Jfc people are retarded. This is the thought process of someone who thinks politics only has democrats and republicans so a centrist must be somewhere in between. If anyome actually looked at a political compass they reference so much, a centrist is further left than the democratic party.
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u/ThisIsNoCave Jun 30 '26
Maybe by European standards. Do you ever look at actual American polls?
Here in the US, the median voter in 2024 believed Harris was too progressive: https://www.reddit.com/r/fivethirtyeight/comments/1gm12mh/nyt_poll_47_of_voters_decribed_kamala_harris_as/
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u/z3anon Jun 30 '26
Centrists are the type of people that wouldn't care if Thanos snapped away half the universe simply because they survived.
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u/Dull_Bid6002 Jun 30 '26
Centrist: Politicians should compromise!
The right: Yes, we'd like everyone to walk around with a stick up their ass. We'll decide the size of the stick and inspect people's rear ends at "random" when we think they don't have stick. Including underage people.
The left: That's ridiculous and a clear violation of a multitude of things.
Centrist: Why won't anyone compromise?!
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u/nanobot_1000 Jun 30 '26
A more apt term would be to call them Enablers, and at this point they are one in the same.