this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2025
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[–] [email protected] 9 points 18 hours ago (33 children)

I don't consider myself a centrist, but I do consider myself between the two parties currently.

I don't like the "both sides are wrong" mentality often associated with centrists. I don't think I am inherently better than either side. I think I am disillusioned by both sides.

I was a Leftist/Democrat for the majority of my life. Then at some point ~8-9 years ago saw the pipeline that leads to radicalized righty thinking and said "fuck that" but when I turned around and looked back on my old party critically I also didn't want to walk back through that door either.

Basically I think both "sides" need to shut up and stop slinging poop at each other. Occasionally you need to listen to the other side. Neither one is always right or always wrong. Some of the moderates from either side can admit this and they hang out in the middle ish with me. But most people just sprint farther to either side when their ideas are challenged.

But since everyone has this "us vs them" mentality over every little thing I don't see communication or collaboration getting any better going forward.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah... you're a centrist.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 23 hours ago (3 children)

Left pushes reading and education right pushes illiteracy and blind faith in the leader but m'authoritatianism

[–] [email protected] 23 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

There are many examples of the left pushing blind faith in the leader (see Mao, Kim Il Sung, Stalin)

[–] [email protected] 15 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

There are many cases of authoritarians claiming labels that so not reflect their actions or goals, yes.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 21 hours ago (5 children)

No true Scotsman fallacy

I'm progressive, but we should not deny the failure modes of progressivism

[–] [email protected] 19 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

Adopting the names of left leaning styles of government does nothing to change their actual oligarch and kleptocratic styles is leadership, so that does not apply.

Unless we're to believe that Nazi Germany was somehow just a bunch of misguided socialists...

[–] [email protected] 6 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (1 children)

Well, Elon and German far-right politician Alice Weidel claimed in a recent talk that Hitler was a communist...

[–] [email protected] 4 points 15 hours ago

(a) love your name... though I do prefer farro/emmer when given the choice ;)

(b) of course those nazis did... always co-opting existing names and symbols for evil

[–] [email protected] 3 points 15 hours ago

Yeah idk, excluding all the historical Marxist Leninists movements from the leftist continuum feels a bit disingenuous.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 8 hours ago

It’s a well documented fact that authoritarians utilize leftist terminology as the keystone of their propaganda/branding strategy. The masses, sadly, will always accept charismatic, strongly-worded branding over genuine ideals. There is nothing “no true scottsman” about it.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

There was literally a ~~slip~~ split in the first international. You can't blame those aligning with the lesser influential side for the things the authoritarians did. "The Left" is a far too broad concept to apply the No True Scotsman fallacy to.

Edit: typo

[–] [email protected] 12 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

Soviet Russia wasn't exactly a model of progressivism though— it was a rigidly hierarchical society with extreme wealth disparity.

Same for the other examples.

The NTS fallacy is about redefining terms to cherry-pick data. Those regimes don't match any version of 'progressive' I've ever seen.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 15 hours ago

Stalin wasn't progressivism, actually the opposite, it was the conservative part of the party, that inspired the other dictators.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) (13 children)

Ah yess," we need to create classless society by eating all the rich, killing all the landlords and destroying capitalism around the world" is totally different from the far right which is also "do violence against people we don't like in order to get the society we want". Youre not a faschist if you think the people who you want to kill are responsible for all your issues I guess. Wait, wasn't that literally what hitler said?

Calling to violence is sure to get all the reforms you want. You could also, idunno, take a page from the rightwingers playbook and viralize memes about every single thing the administration does wrong so the public does not forget and is turned against them.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Why can't you just get along with the nazis like we on the enlightened center do

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 19 hours ago (14 children)

Wow, author doesn't know what centrism OR horseshoe theory are, lol.

Hint: Neither of them are accurately described as "both sides are equally bad".

I'm reminded of a Christian fundamentalist depicting an atheist being gotcha'd by being asked where his morality comes from if there's no God, and literally having a "checkmate atheists" moment over it. Equally smugly dumb.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 22 hours ago

I'd argue it's not that horseshoe works in rhetoric but voting patterns. Both "extremes" of "the horseshoe" end up being moralistic and favor dismantling the system.

They may say oppression is bad from the far-left but at the same time when voting that oppression might just mean globally to them and not to the domestic matters.

The blame can be shared and probably where the horseshoe fails.

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