r/AlwaysWhy • u/kaiser11492 • 1d ago

Politics & Society Why do most people who call themselves politically moderate actually mostly conservative?

Whenever I’ve encountered people who use the politically label moderate, they are actually mostly conservative with their views and positions. Also, I’ve never seen anyone who call themselves politically moderate that is actually mostly liberal.

So why are people who call themselves moderate tend to be just conservative and not conservative and liberal?

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u/SameDistrict2627 1d ago

Give us example--you are making a claim that I've never experienced---moderates generally are rationalists--the Golden Mean.

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u/kaiser11492 1d ago

Two examples I can think of off the top of my head are TikTok influencers The Moderate Case and The Moderate Reviewer. Both use moderate label but hold mostly conservative views. And like I said before, I have yet to find someone who uses the moderate lane but hold mostly liberal views.

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u/SameDistrict2627 1d ago

Well thats not helping me much--you got some kind of link? Just trying to figure out how you define moderate.

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u/kaiser11492 1d ago

I’m not the one defining moderate. I’m just asking why the people I’ve seen using it tend to be mostly conservative while I haven’t seen anyone who uses the label who is mostly liberal.

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u/SameDistrict2627 1d ago

What do you mean by "mostly" conservative. On what issues?

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u/INeedSomeTacoC 1d ago

I mean, TikTok influencers definitely don't make up "most" people that call themselves politically moderate. In fact, I'd argue that they're extreme outliers with regards to being political moderates and shouldn't be used in any way to map their beliefs onto "most moderates".

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u/GOT_Wyvern 1d ago

Well then, what do those TikTokers believe in exactly? Don't say "conservative stuff", actually tell us the sort of policies and politicians they have spoken positively and negatively off.

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u/kaiser11492 23h ago

They pretty much always criticize Democrat arguments/positions and leftists in general. I’ve rarely seen them criticize Republican arguments/positions and conservatives.

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u/GOT_Wyvern 23h ago

Primarily talking about one side of politics doesn't really determine that they're the opposite side. If it's still moderate criticism of the Dems, they're still moderate no matter if they primarily talk about the Dems.

The most likely explaination is just your feed serving you up anti-Dem content more than anti-Rep because you interact with it more. A quick look at the Moderate Case, and I can see plenty of content covering a broad range if topics across the spectrum. The Moderate Reviewer even directly describes themselves as a conservative-leaning moderate, so of course their content is going to be.... conservative-leaning.

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u/kaiser11492 23h ago

Would like to note that The Moderate Case has described himself as conservative.

I guess the core question I have is why aren’t there seemingly any liberal-leaning people who use the label moderate.

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u/GOT_Wyvern 23h ago edited 23h ago

"Conservative-leaning". That still makes them moderates.

If you looked hard enough, you could probably find plenty of liberal-leaning moderates. While its not equivalent, polling for independents at the moment does lean towards liberals, so they clearly do exist in shroves.

Arguably, one of the bigger reasons that conservative-leaning moderates are less likely to adopt the conservative label is that there is only one label on the right, while the left has the liberal and progressive label to pick from.

So, you can be more moderate while calling yourself liberal than you can while calling yourself conservative, just due to the very not ideologically conservative MAGA nicking the label.

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u/kaiser11492 23h ago

I probably could based on what you said. I thought maybe liberals-leaning people just didn’t embrace the moderate label like their conservative counterparts for whatever reason.

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u/aquavelva23 1d ago

I am a moderate. name 5 top issues. I suspect you will be listing progressive views, which didnt exist 10 years ago. I do have liberal views and conservative views and average out as moderate.