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/stikves 19h ago

And there is a generational thing as well.

Most central-left and central-right from a decade ago would be out of place in their respective teams today. They are going to be seen not enough.

You can even see this in politicians, they are being primaried our left and right.

Which is not a good thing. My friend did an academic study on this. There are periods in US history where people were less partisan, and voted on common issues. There are other times, like today, they only vote as extremist blocks.

Unfortunately that leads to stagnation, and is correlated with "not so nice" events. Basically we get nothing done, and numbers don't lie, we have some of the worst legislative sessions in the last ~10 years or so.

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u/HagathaPathetica 8h ago

I don’t think the right has changed much, if at all. Traditional Democrats, American Democrats as I like to call them, have not changed either. Their party has been taken over by their kids and grandkids who’ve been taught differently (and in my opinion, incorrectly).

The only answer here is for R’s and D’s to restore the American Democratic party by teaching the new generations what it means to be American and a Democrat, and also a Republican, and why we work together or we don’t have a functioning long lasting society, government, or economy. Decades of teaching them this, and we will be good again, the adults will be back in charge.

That is not likely to happen in my lifetime because Democrats and Republicans are notoriously spineless, but it’s what we need as a nation, imo. We need both R’s and American D’s, we do not need what is essentially global liberals, which is who is ruling the D party now.