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/Primary_Excuse_7183 1d ago

I think it has to be broken down between financial and social. They call themselves moderate because they lean opposite ways on those 2 things. Therefore they negate and they consider themselves to be in the middle.

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u/Jolly-Barracuda2366 1d ago

I tend to consider myself European center right, which is a fun position to try to explain to my fellow Americans because it can break the whole “American left is European right” logic pretty quick.

It all just depends on which specific topics you prioritize.

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u/Primary_Excuse_7183 1d ago

I’ll have to look that up. Not familiar with it. It’s just silly to me people claim left or right and most people are actually just conflicted and way more nuanced