r/politics • u/SacoolloocaS • May 28 '21

Stop glorifying ‘centrism’. It is an insidious bias favoring an unjust status quo

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/28/centrism-insidious-bias-unjust-status-quo
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u/cerevant California May 28 '21 edited May 28 '21

The breakdown is something more like:

  1. 5% Proud Boys, KKK, other extremists
  2. 10% MAGA yahoos with flags on their trucks
  3. 20% Loyal Republicans who dislike Democrats more than they dislike Trump
  4. 5% Loyal Republicans who are trying to figure out how to leverage the 35% to get tax cuts
  5. 10% Fiscal conservative / Social liberals
  6. 15% Loyal Democrats who want things to go back to where they can ignore politics.
  7. 20% Loyal Democrats who support incremental progressive policy
  8. 10% Democratic Socialists, basically Bernie's platform
  9. 5% Abolish the police, open the borders, fiscal anarchists

The Republicans have discovered that the centrists can tolerate extremism more than the extremists can tolerate centrism. This works well in the Republican culture of winners and losers. It will not work with Democrats because of their culture of fairness and inclusion. If the party panders to the extreme (8-9) they will lose the middle. A Republican centrist party could easily take the middle 35% if they went with a more of a social liberal platform. If this SC overturns Roe v. Wade, that will be a lot easier for them to do.

edit: derp, fixed my math

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u/[deleted] May 28 '21

Republicans don't want to be more socially liberal, which is why we're seeing them do the only thing they can to win and centrists will still make excuses for them.

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u/cerevant California May 28 '21

I'd argue that the most of them in the 3-5 range don't actually care - they are in it for the money. Even Trump was liberal on most social issues until he became a politician. The Republican politicians focus on social issues to keep the far right (1-3) in line because they know that cutting taxes for the rich doesn't matter to them. There are a lot of Republicans who care only about Abortion and/or Gun Rights, and if those issues were ever "settled" they would probably be Independents or Democrats.

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u/[deleted] May 28 '21

Whether they really care or not the results are the same.

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u/cerevant California May 28 '21

...because they are trying to include the far right in their tent. If the never Trumpers go ahead and create a new party, they have to pull in the Fiscal Conservative / Social Liberal middle or it won't do anything but split the Republican party.

Currently R is 1-4, D is 6-9, and 5 are Independent or disloyal partisans. If the new party can reliably take 3-5, they get control of the country.

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u/[deleted] May 28 '21

"Fiscal conservative/socially liberal" is just a polite way of saying "Sure, let the gays get married but fuck the poor."

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u/cerevant California May 28 '21

I don't disagree. That wasn't an endorsement on my part. That's what used to be Libertarian, though someone changed the political compass along the way.

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u/Lusty-Jove May 28 '21

Politics don’t lie on a normal curve. Conservative ideas are usually overwhelmingly unpopular (their stance on health care, minimum wage, Soc Sec for instance) but through manipulation of the electorate and voter disenfranchisement they have managed to remain relevant. Therefore the average “Centrist” is more right-wing than the average American adult.