this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2023
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People that claim themselves to be centrists in this economy, are either plain stupid or republicunts in disguise.
Yes, they are not mutually exclusive.
I can talk person to person with reasonable people. I do not find people reasonable that hate others for their skin color, their faith, or their identity, instead of hating them for their actions. I do not find people reasonable that want to exterminate those. I also do not find people reasonable that do not care about those being hated and death being wished upon them just because they are fiscally conservative .
My problem with "centrists" is that they're using the word to avoid consequences for the hatred they spew online. Those "centrists" claim to be centrists but the only issues they ever talk about are right-wing issues, 99% of the time the culture war that they wage. Just say you're republican and make it easy for me, I don't care if we agree or disagree on other issues at the current time, if you think that exterminating different people is okay you cannot convince me of anything anymore.
It’s not even that black and white, because the term democrat and republican as far as political views mean much different things when it comes to different ages, backgrounds, area, etc.
For example, I tend to lean right when it comes to economics, however I do support things like public healthcare. Also, I lean pretty far left on social issues.
There are people all over the spectrum on all sorts of issues. I can see where it bothers people to be labeled one or the other because that’s not really who they are. I truly try to break candidates down by what their stances are and pick who most aligns with what I believe. I can honestly say every ballot I’ve ever cast I’ve voted for both Democrats and Republicans.
The only people I have a problem with is people that try to tell me I’m stupid because i didn’t vote all one way or the other.
There is a saying that if you have 9 people at a table and a nazi takes a seat you have ten nazis at a table. Inaction against damaging retoric is bad, but actively voting for it is worse. I know the whole nazi thing is very charged right now, but that isn't the point.
If you vote for a republican than you are voting for another person in congress to push the party line. They may not agree with stopping bills that are good for the environment, but if they want to get reelected than they will vote how the party wants when it really matters.
Any vote for a republican is a vote for general public life to be worse for everyone. Your taxes will go up, trump made sure his tax hikes would all hit during the Biden administration, that isn't an accident. And you will get less use out of your tax money with Republicans in charge. So what do you gain by voting for them?
The Nazi thing is extreme, but I get what you are saying.
I’m also not disagreeing with your overall message but it’s my opinion on why the current political scope in the US is the way it is.
A large issue with the US system is we have no left wing party. We have the Cia and fbi attacking leftist ideas across the world and domestic. And we have no option to vote for a party that says, "hey, we have enough, let's make sure all of our citizens can eat" it shouldn't be such a revolutionary thought.
You're in favour of bloated government spending, the rich owning politicians, tax breaks for billionaires, increased taxes for the working class, companies polluting for free, fossil fuel subsidies, and increased healthcare costs to both the government and the individual to subsidize insurance companies?
Not really, some of those things yes but others no.
Well those are all right wing economics. Maybe you could be more specific
I have some people here telling me I’m a leftist, and others right.
Guess that kind of proves my point I’m not really left or right
You can't talk to them person to person. That type of persuasion works in matters when the other person is operating in the cerebral realm of logic. The problem in politics is that we're operating in the realm of identity, and you cannot reason somebody out of a matter of personal identity, because the brain treats threats to personal identity the same way as physical threats. Especially when it is a closed belief system that defines politics as tribal combat, veracity as irrelevant, any information that comes from outside the tribe as per se objectionable, and agreement as a failure of will.
Basically, the psychological research funds that you have to take them out of the Q/MAGA bubble, and surround them with people with diverse views. It can't be done in online forums. I've tried. If you listen, you just get regurgitated talking points, and if you ask questions that start to make them think they abruptly disengage.
There's a difference between prescriptive and descriptive, between saying what should be, and what is. I'm telling you the result of my empirical observations. You are welcome to try changing minds of people in the MAGA world. Don't let me stop you. I'm just pointing out why it won't work.
Sorry. I won't stop calling a spade a spade.
Do they understand that the greater evil must be vanquished first?
Just another few hundred years and we can finally kill that other party and make a new one again. Like back when we killed the Whig party and they became Republicans and fixed everything.
The greater evil is not just the party, but the awful ideology it represents. If only the party is vanquished, but people still believe in the ideology, then yeah, it'll reassemble itself like the T-1000 and menace America all over again.
It's possible to be left in one area, and right in another. Someone could be left economically, but not necessarily socially.
Left economically but right socially? Like, they'd want single payer healthcare but only for straight white people?
I got my parents to almost agree with free healthcare if only whites had it, but they caught on and doubled down on "waiting times". Despite surviving on socialism Medicare.
That's not far off what Strasserism was/is. Though ultimately being x left and y right always means your just a right winger as people drop the x left to preserve the y right.
That's not what I meant, but sure, that's a position someone could have.
Or someone could want single-payer healthcare for all but thinks abortion should be outlawed. Or hell, the opposite is possible too. Someone could want to remove all safety nets, but want marriage equality.
For example, a party like https://www.solidarity-party.org/platform is a combination of left and right positions. Their first two party positions are: 1. Sanctiy of Life (anti abortion) and 2. social justice. They explicitly support workers rights and economic security as well as care for the environment. At the same time, they have a pretty conservative view on family (and probably by extension homosexuality, though I haven't seen that explicity mentioned).
literally mutually exclusive.
Anyway, what you're describing is liberalism and neo liberalism, and both serve the status quo and enable fascism, hence are garbage. You simply can't claim to care about the welfare and wellbeing of people while supporting the systems that need to destroy and exploit that welfare and wellbeing to exist.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/10/14/liberalism-and-fascism-partners-in-crime/
https://blacklikemao.medium.com/how-liberalism-helps-fascism-d4dbdcb199d9
https://truthout.org/articles/fascism-is-possible-not-in-spite-of-liberal-capitalism-but-because-of-it/
https://nyanarchist.wordpress.com/2019/01/23/scratch-a-liberal-a-fascist-bleeds-how-the-so-called-middle-class-has-enabled-oppression-for-centuries/
That would be one possible position, but that is not what is espoused by the link I gave. " You simply can’t claim to care about the welfare and wellbeing of people while supporting the systems that need to destroy and exploit that welfare and wellbeing to exist." They explicitly don't want to do this but want to build those systems up.
My point exactly - they uphold and maintain the status quo that is oppressing and killing millions if not billions for the benefit of a few hundred people.
Anyone who not only supports those systems, but wants to make them stronger, cannot, sincerely anyway, claim to care about the welfare and wellbeing of anyone but themselves and the oppressors whose boots they lick.
Sorry, I misread what you wrong and thus was very unclear. My mistake.
They explicitly support "a universal healthcare system as well as an economy containing widespread distribution of productive property, in particular increased worker ownership and management of their production." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Solidarity_Party
If you view that as supporting the status quo, then I don't think I understand your position.
My position (well, the reality) is that it doesn't matter if you support workers rights if you're also opposed to some people's human rights, and that it is literally impossible to support universal healthcare while opposing abortion. The Nazis called themselves socialists and were all for (some) workers rights, that doesn't make them leftist, on anything.
There is no such thing as socially one way (left/right) and economically the other since the two (social and economical) are inextricably linked, and being conservative on one automatically means you are a hindrance (at best) to progress on the other.
Anyone who tells themselves otherwise is just doing mental gymnastics to defend their cognitive dissonance, while serving those at the top, who are known to co-opt leftist ideas to get in to power.
The disingenuous party's platform isn't really relevant. It's not a real platform and their "solidarity" is a lie, they're just republicans with a different label.
I mean, " It favors fiscally progressive policies[12][8][13] and a social market economy with a distributist character,[14][15] that seeks "widespread economic participation and ownership"[15] and providing a social safety net program." .... "The American Solidarity Party supports a universal healthcare system as well as an economy containing widespread distribution of productive property, in particular increased worker ownership and management of their production.[25][26][27]" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Solidarity_Party)
That doesn't sound at all Republican to me. That sounds remarkably liberal.
Now, other parts do sound very Republican. For example, "The American Solidarity Party opposes abortion, euthanasia, and capital punishment on the basis of the sanctity of human life. It views the traditional, heterosexual family as being central to society.[13]" With the exception of capital punishment, that sounds very republican.
But my main point was that a person or party can be left in some areas, and right in others, which those positions seem to be. Simply saying "that's not what they really believe" seems like a cop out to me. How are you every supposed to have a discussion if that's your response?
I'm not sure why you think quoting their platform has any meaning whatsoever as a reply to me.
While your point may be valid in general, this example is counter to it. Find a real example or don't use one at all next time if you want to have a discussion.
I'm quoting Wikipedia which has sources for the claims I made.
But besides that, it seems like the most logical 2ay to talk about what a group believes is to look at what they say about what they believe. That is read their platform.
If you think they are describing their own platform I'm bad faith, I think it's on you to demonstrate that.
I would be interested in you demonstrating that to me. It would certainly affect my opinion of them if you did so.
Lmaoooo
I think it’s more common that people claim to be fiscally conservative and socially liberal.
Yeah that's been my experience. It's a stupid position that's logically inconsistent, but those people definitely exist.
I will never understand people that claim to be "fiscally conservative" and vote R.
I'm fiscally conservative and I vote greens. I want there to still be an economy in 100 years!
(Also I'm australian and would really like to go back to the communist way of doing things. This capitalism fad is dangerous.)
Is it? That's not been my experience, but I guess that would depend on the group of people you happen to interact with.
Some of them are rich enough or have assets that they are profiteering from the policies of the right !
Can't tell when the last time was that the right actually cared about economy instead of wanting to put all non-white, non-straight, non-christian people into camps
They only care about the economy when the democrats are holding the purse strings, then suddenly it's all they care about.
Just remember that "the economy" means "rich peoples' yacht money"