this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2023
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Politics
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'Neither Left nor Right' is a fascist dogwhistle. Fascism has a rich history of marketing itself as the apolitical choice.
There's a big different between centrism and apoliticalism. Apolitical people are targeted by fascist/authoritative movements as they lack the understanding of the issues at play and are suckered in by easy answers, centrists understand the issues but don't think an extreme left/right solution is the answer but elements from both sides should be considered.
If "centrists" understood the issues they'd have rejected the concept of centrism existing at all.
The workers own the means of production or they don't.
The government exists to protect human rights or it exists to protect its heirarchy.
You do not earn progressive points for supporting gay rights and lose them for still thinking brown people aren't people, not matter what a "political compass" test thinks is worth +5 or -4.
You do not earn partial leftist or libertarian points for thinking the Divine God Emperor is bound by noblesse oblige.
The very idea of centrism, is, and always will be, a con on people that do not understand the core political divides, but think you can trade morality like currency.
Centrists exist because they listen to alternative views and can empathize with those views even if they don't quite agree with them or if they can't decide between the pros and cons. But to an extremist on either side, it looks like they are stupid, weak, or possibly just bad people, because if they were smart, Good people, then the centrists would OBVIOUSLY agree with THEM, and then they wouldn't be centrists. This lacking of empathy or inability to understand opposing viewpoints, and therefore assuming malice or evil as the motive of anyone not WITH them, is the hallmark of all extremists.
Oh yeah, also people hate centrists because they come across as smug. Sorry about that.