The enlightened centrism is strong in this one. No, the US don’t have a conflict of left vs. right. The conflict is between the right and everyone else. And most of the right are just rubes who think they being part of some kind of movement but in reality are just being fleeced by a bunch of grifters
Not just the right vs. everyone else, the right vs. everyone. The right is also fighting itself.
The left is also fighting itself. Literally the comment chains in this post are prime examples.
People who probably align with the majority of the stances, tearing each other down with bad faith arguments, grandstanding over the remaining things they disagree on.
“Perfect is the enemy of good.”
I might not politically align with the average .ml user, but my views are a hell of a lot closer aligned with them than MAGAt views.
The left largely fights by arguing, which can lead to better ideas if people are open to listen. That isn’t always the case, but it’s a possibility. The right is fighting with homicide.
Liberals perceive criticism for enabling the right and opposing the left at every opportunity as left in-fighting.
The left identifies the liberals as part of the right.
Grifters? They’re hellbent on christofascism.
And if they suffer under that Christofacist regime they helped bring about? That is righteous and holy suffering, and their reward will be eternal in Heaven.
Voting against their interest? No, they are voting in their eternal interests, so what does it matter if they endure poverty, violence, sickness, famine and the destruction of our biome in this life? 'Tis but a moment before the beauty they have earned in the Here After brother!
Doesn’t directly bringing up “enlightened centrism” (I assume sarcastically) from a non-right position indicate disdain for centrism? That would be a conflict between whatever you are and both centrists (for not being where you are - right of you, but to them, still left of the Right) and the Right.
Also, if you’re aware of the Three Percenters and their claim that only 3% of colonial America supported the revolution, it means that even if they’re off by a factor of 10, with 30% for the revolution, and 30% against, it leaves 40%, a plurality of people, who have the sentiment from this meme where they just want to be left alone and not forced against their will into a conflict that indroduces instability and violence to their lives.
“Enlightened centrism” is not the same as centrism and yes that label is meant to be sarcastic. There are basically two kinds of enlightened centrists. One are right-wingers who want to avoid the social stigma of being far right. The other one are people who close their eyes to the blatant attempt by the right wing to destroy democracy and pretend everything is normal. That’s what basically the corporate media are doing.
OK, so just to recap:
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You start off by deriding anyone that isn’t carrying the same label as you as either evil or stupid.
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Immediately and unironically say that it’s only the Right vs. everyone else after just saying that it’s the Left vs. everyone else because they’re either wearing your label or they’re Secret Hitler or an idiot.
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Double down and imagine that everyone actually has secret but strong political feelings and simply are confused or too chicken shit to reveal them, but that all the secret opinions of average people are not just mildly conservative, but actually full-on far-right?
My friend, I’m not sure you understand how many people don’t spend 18 hours a day online reading political news. Because that’s exactly how you end up alienating normal people who are all out of fucks to give about politics, and fracturing opposition to fascism like you’re doing here. You’re not helping anyone but the fascists by calling the people stuck in the middle fascists for just trying to live their lives.
Case in point, this is a shitpost comm and you’re too wrapped up in your self-labeling to read the room and the meme that most people don’t care about the things you care about. That’s the meme, and lesson, that you missed.
Polls are usually pretty consistent in that the majority of people (usually between about 65% to sometimes up to 80%): 1) Don’t actually care about politics at all, which is a big part of why we have a representative democracy in the first place, 2) Certainly don’t keep up with political news or even the actual news that much, 3) Are so self-absorbed and wrapped up in their own affairs that until the rapid disintegration of the nation and Constitution affects them specifically, they won’t even notice because they have a job and kids and a universe of other shit to be doing so they want the status quo always, whatever that was.
Which is all supported in depth by game theory studies about what it takes to get people out in the streets. Which you clearly can’t be bothered to think about because we’re all secret nazis and idiots you wouldn’t associate with in the streets, right?
You’re taking the same bait that Mandella fought against people taking in South Africa. Apartheid specialized in turning everyone who wasn’t white against each other. Fracturing opposition was how a small minority stayed in power for generations.
Which is exactly how the GOP managed to work out Red Stating and Gerrymander me and my formerly solid blue district into a solid red district. That’s not on me. That’s on you for fracturing opposition to fascism, like you’re happily doing here, because all the rest of us aren’t “pure” enough - because most people are either secret Nazis or idiots, right? I get the same shit from the GOP, but they actually accomplish the shit they set out to do, so at least I have something to react against.
For the people who not only do care about politics, but also hate every bit of it and just want people to shut the fuck up and do rational policy stuff without egos like big boys and girls, it’s cringe to see shit like “Hur durr, all Centrists are just closeted Nazis!” because it undoes coalition; it accomplishes exactly what fascists love to see - infighting among their opposition. You give them power like this, with uninformed blanket statements that alienate people who actually ARE fighting these people and now know that you can’t be counted on as an ally. But that’s fine, I know for sure that I 100% can not count on the Left to accomplish a damn thing because y’all are too enthralled with the Old Money Traditional Branding BS the Dems offer you so they can once again use you up to trot out Candidate Dickbag and get you genuinely thinking “yeah, this time, they’re gonna win!” before they lose again and steal your money and time and energy.
But I expect you stopped reading 4 words in and said to yourself “yeah, secret Nazi I think. Or idiot. Either way, I have to hate that one, too” and turned away an ally once again.
Edit: Downvote all you want - look at exactly what the Democrats are doing to the Left right now. This is not an appeal to centrism - this is a party appeal to stay in power because they’ve fucked themselves.
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Letter from Birmingham Jail, MLK Jr.
Perfect example of this was Jimmy Kimmel. He openly said that shooting a commentator was a horrible thing, and tried to call for moderation. MAGA declared that wasn’t enough, and ordered him fired.
They have specified that if you’re not with them, you’re against them.
Kimmel got fired for pointing the spotlight back at Trump and Epstein. Had nothing to do with Kirk.
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Can I be a leftist without being a tankie then?
Yes? You do realize tankies are a minority group and that in many nations “leftist” is just a normal political position?
I’m honestly not sure what you’re trying to say here
I think they’re interpreting your response to the meme as “centrism bad” while the meme in question only offers Nazi, Tankie, or Centrist. These sort of mixups happen in these discussions where the implied context is just so massive.
To me it looks like you’re trying to paint everyone who’s not a Nazi or a tankie as an ‘enlightened centrist’.
🤷 try glasses
The vast majority of communists globally are “tankies”. I know that Westerners don’t consider non-westerners to be “real” though
Good thing the political spectrum left of center is far more nuanced than just being communism, then.
Also, not going to get into a debate about whether certain people should be considered people or whatever you’re baiting, sounds like fascism to me.
“thinking that non-westerners are people sounds like fascism to me. I’m a leftist by the way”
All people are people, regardless of where they live. Borders are just another way for capitalists to fuel the class war. Keep malding that I’m not a tankie 🤙
Incoherent.
Try anarchism. Goes down smooth
i’ve known too many people who went anarchist > ancap > asshole > sovcit. I’m sure it works well for you, but i feel like it’s playing with
fireblack tar heroinSay what. No one I know has ever gone down that route. Anarchism is the furthest reach from ancap or sovcit.
I guess I and my friends have the antidote: read some actual theory. You couldn’t possibly agree with theory then go ancap. Sounds like you’re describing YouTube anarchists.
tankie is, as i understand it, a combination of authoritarianism, leftism, and some weird nostalgia for the soviet union i’m not entirely sure i’ve just been casually trying to pick stuff up.
That’s more likely to be Nationalist Bolshevism. The correct term is should be ‘NazBol’ and they’re nationalistic right wingers.
Keep in mind some users on Lemmy use the term ‘tankie’ to include anyone with opposition to capitalism and will argue to include anyone who is pro-palestinian or even anti-war ironically.
But those users just so happen to be critics of the Nuremburg Trial verdicts, so their opinions matter less than the NazBols to begin with.
i remember talking about the nuremburg trials with some… now that i think about of it most of them were lawyer friends, and i only have basic education about the nuremburg trials. a few of them have studied them in depth, and now that i think about it the only criticism i ever heard about the verdict was, if you’ll allow me to paraphrase, “you’re going to spend your whole life disappointed if you keep expecting everything to be perfect”.
Here I distinctly recall a user calling the execution of Julius Streicher an inhumane act and that we lost our humanity executing unrepentant Nazis.
So that’s fun.
so i’m very much not a fan of the death penalty as i’ve seen the criminal punishment system fuck up. a lot. they’ve gotta be above reproach if we can trust them with literal power over life and death.
at the same time, unrepentant Nazi. if it had been up to me, I’d’ve wanted to give him the ol’ Robert-François Damiens. first: people are allowed contradictions. second: sometimes the brutality is part of the point. hold the unrepentant nazis up for generations as villains. don’t allow them to be buried in normal cemeteries. Take their ashes and spread them around the country to be on permanent display in each and every post office as an example of why you don’t fuck with the postmaster. teach your kids “you end up being one of those damn nazis i’ll put you in the community ash jar myself”. we really could have done better.
Absolutely. There are numerous strains of leftist philosophy that are anti-authoritarian.
Not now that the term has expanded to mean everything to the left of Kamala Harris.
Six strawmen in a single post! Well done, that must be some kind of record!
Reeeeeeeeeee I spouted centrist nonsense in a leftist space and I’m getting ratio’d reeeeeee
It is clever, you see, that any disagreement must be done online, therefore reinforcing the premise of the meme.
I’m too uneducated on politics (read: stupid) to even know what left and right means. Where do I land
Right: in favor of privately owned means of production.
Left: in favor of publicly owned means of production.might need to back up a little. personal, private, and public ownership are different things in one of the areas i worked in. same distinction? personal property is still legal, just privately held businesses not so much. brain’s fuzzy, am i remembering right?
Firstly, this concept only applies to means of production, as in the stuff that is used to produce stuff which could be sold. So e. g. a sewing machine.
Without getting into the weeds:
a. Personal: You own and operate the sewing machine, you pay for the resources consumed and own the item produced. (Good)
b. Private: You own the sewing machine but someone else operates it. You pay the resources consumed, the laborer a previously agreed upon amount and own the item they produced. (bad)
c. Public: the public owns the sewing machine and pays for the resources consumed. The laborer is paid the value of their work. That is, the value of the item produced minus the value of the resources consumed. (Very good)
How “the public” and “the value” are determined is the source of leftist infighting (anarchists vs marxist-leninist). But since both agree that private ownership needs to be abolished the call is for leftist unity to stand together against the people that currently own the means of production privately (the bourgeoisie) and exploit those that have to sell their laborforce in order to survive (the proletariat).
thanks for the refresher! i have worked in too many similar fields with bullshit jargon where they have basically made homophones antonyms just to fuck with anyone who decides to get uppity and do anything cross-discipline so now my brain is:
it’s one of those “i know i learned this somewhere, and i’ll remember in 3 days i’m sure!” things so thanks for helping a fellow out.No issue, here is a good intro to Marxism if you want it https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/index.htm
Uh… fucking cope hard. The Nazis won’t care about your enlightened centrism when they arrest you for being brown and/or the wrong kind of white.
“I think we need a mixture of both!”, he shouts while be loaded into a cattle car.
Anyone who stands against genocide and opposes war has been lumped in with “tankie” for a long while now. That centrist is empowering the Nazis.
Thank you.
Because being a passive centrist while the world slides towards authoritarianism, global conflict, and environmental holocaust is not morally acceptable.
You don’t have to be a Tankie to want to fight these fascist fucks and their suicidal agenda.
Well if you say anything like ‘we shouldn’t give weapons to Nazis,’ you’re going to be labeled a tankie, too.
I mean a lot of people don’t want to have their way of life userped by these radical idiots. One side is calling for a civil war and the other side is effectively campaigning for concentration camps. Normal people don’t want to engage with either brand of insanity. They just want to go to work and go home, spend time with their family.
The left is not calling for a Civil War. They’re demanding basic human rights for everyone, and the capitalists have made it clear they’d rather kill everyone.
If you feel equally threatened by the left and the right, it’s because you support fascism. You just prefer a lighter flavor of it that you benefit from.
But sometimes history comes along and says “too bad.” There is no historical precedent for fascism or extreme wealth inequality being corrected by electoral politics.
If you’re able to comfortably sit on the fence, recognize two facts: One, that’s a position of entitlement (Plenty of people are already having their lives destroyed by what’s happening). Two, being passive is choosing to allow authoritarianism to win.
To reiterate, I’m not a Tankie. I don’t whitewash the heinous history of revolutions, upheaval, and failed government systems. And I am positive that I’m screaming into the void. In every historical example I’ve studied, the comfortable middle class eventually sides with elite authority and not the peasants. And the peasants always lose. But the alternative is too awful to surrender to. Centralized techno-fascism and eventual catastrophic conflict with China are what’s in-store.
I don’t believe that’s true. I’m not aware of any revolution the peasants lost.
“Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
Someone misinterpreted the post.
Another centrist who thinks the left just doesn’t get it.
Imagine looking at the current state of the USA and saying “communists are the problem!”
If you think the next US civil war will be fought between Nazis and Marxist-Leninists, you don’t understand American politics very well. The US in 2025 isn’t Stalingrad in 1942.
Nitpick: They’re Marxist-Leninists, not Marxism-Leninists.
When I have centrist views about anything (not just politics but more trivial matters like pop culture), I’m reluctant to share them online because extremists on both sides interpret you as an extremist on the opposing side
The very model of the modern major liberal.
This can be attributed to a method of gaining and maintaining political power called divide and conquer. Poisoning the discourse with targeted manipulation in (social) media, while treating politics as kind of bizarre and grievous reality TV show, where everyone is trying to throw the biggest pile of verbal shit on the other.
Let’s be honest, the Nazis and Tankies align on like 98% of policy. They both support Donald Trump, for example. They both enable ethnostates to send minorities to camps. They believe in a nation ruled by one supreme absolute leader.
They both support Donald Trump, for example.
lmao what?
They both enable ethnostates to send minorities to camps.
lmao what?
They believe in a nation ruled by one supreme absolute leader.
Dictatorship of the proletariat doesn’t mean total rule by one dude named proletariat, it means total rule by the people.
Tankies support China and the USSR, neither of which have ever practiced rule by the proletariat, and of which the remainder is committing their own little genocide at home.
Weird how they brought a billion farmers out of poverty. I wonder why they would do that if those farmers didn’t have any influence.
We certainly don’t see that happening in capitalist countries right nextdoor, such as India.
the remainder is committing their own little genocide at home
lol you still believe that? Anybody can literally just go to Xinjiang, there’s no travel restrictions. Don’t you think they would try to keep foreigners from going there and talking to people if they were committing a genocide?
Thank you for being a perfect example of the point I was making, enjoy your dead minorities and your roads paved in the blood of the innocent.
Ah yes, if you oppose capitalism too much, you just start hating minorities. That’s just horseshoe theory. They wouldn’t teach it in schools if it wasn’t true.
Definitely don’t come to China, Vietnam, or Cuba and check for yourself, just trust your government.
Honestly wouldn’t go there if you paid me, but I respect the journalists brave enough to do so.
wouldn’t go there if you paid me
Why? Vietnam is beautiful, experiencing towns built around bikes instead of cars and being able to buy good meal for 1.20 USD is good for your soul. China is the most developed country in the world right now, and I’m planning to go back in a month or so. I haven’t been, but I hear Cuba has lovely beaches and rum.
Were you under the impression these places were dangerous?
Dictatorship of the proletariat doesn’t mean total rule by one dude named proletariat, it means total rule by the people.
Tankies want a vanguard of the best brightest to lead and educate the proletariat into a new “socialist” future. Conveniently, the best and brightest happens to be them and their homies.
They also just so happen to have a new vision of socialist utopianism of you working in a sweat shop for 14 hours a day and eating rationed food while they sip fine wines and write bullshit very online mutants will recite as scripture in the future.
Instead of listening to anticommunists from a century ago, why don’t we compare what communists have done in China over 50 years to their neighbor, India? One of those countries exports food for a profit while the children of the laborers who picked that food suffer from malnutrition. Or why don’t we look at life expectancy in Cuba today and before the revolution. You can even compare Cuba to their capitalist ruled neighbors.
To quote Michael Parenti:
If Communists, if we Leftists, if we Marxists, if we revolutionaries, if we progressives, if we—all we want is to hunger for power, then why do we side with the powerless? Then why don’t we toady up to power? Why don’t we take the road of the Henry Kissingers and the Patrick—Daniel Patrick Moynihans and the Zbigniew Brzezinskis and the Eugene V. Rostows and the McGeorge Bundys, who toady up and mouth for power? When Henry Kissinger was made National Security Advisor for Richard Nixon, Nelson Rockefeller gave him fifty-thousand bucks as a going-away present.
It’s not a bell curve. It’s a trumpet headed to the right.
Ideological polarization is actually pretty low among average Americans. It’s mostly felt among the highly politically engaged and politicians. So to that extent, this image seems accurate.
it is very clear you don’t live in a small southern county
People need something else to focus on. When everything is politics then politics is everything and it’s stupidly difficult to get people interested in doing anything positive.
I mean, everything is politics whether anybody likes it or not, because politics is just what you get when you have a hierarchical power structure.
And this is what I mean. Everything is very much not politics but if you politicize everything then by definition it becomes so. People need to stop doing that.
What’s an example of something that’s not politics but is politicized?
You’ve already asserted that there are no valid answers to that question. Why did you bother asking?
Because either you’ll cite a good example and prove me wrong, or you’ll cite a bad example and confirm I’m right. While I doubt you’ll be convinced in the latter case, someone reading this exchange might be, so there’s value to be had in either case.
You’ve already asserted that everything is politics whether I like it or not, including this conversation, and since I don’t get involved in “prove me wrong” political conversations on the internet I’ll just exit.
So you’re wrong but too arrogant to admit it
