Quote:
Originally Posted by Fighting Banana Slug
Is Centrist now a bad name? I thought the US was a bit loony for thinking "socialism" was an insult...
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Meant to respond to this. No, not on its own it isn't. It's just a description of where someone falls on the political spectrum.
My issue with SOME centrists is their insistence on half-measures that intend to placate both sides in the name of compromise or pragmatism. There are a number of problems with this, especially in terms of American politics:
1) Many centrists fall victim to the fallacy of false-compromise, also know as "the right answer must be somewhere in the middle of the extreme positions," or some variation of this.
2) The Overton window in the U.S. has been dragged so far right by the extremists who have hijacked the Republican, that compromises often end up being, at best, centre-right policies.
3) Placating GOP voters is very rarely an effective strategy for winning elections. They tend to be about as tribal and partisan as it gets.
4) The half-measures centrists implement can do more harm than good. There are some instances where either the left or right policy positions are the correct ones, but the centrist approach provides us with a watered down version that is ineffective and/or worse from a policy perspective, but has the effect of creating hostility towards the policy position they're watering down (e.g. Mayor Pete's poorly thought out "Medicare for all who want it" plan).
5) #4 can be particularly damaging if it's a watered down version of a leftist policy or program which advocates for greater government interventions. If these government programs end up being ineffective or poorly administered, it feeds the narrative pushed by the right that government intervention is bad, thereby contributing to #2.
6) Because of #s 1-5 many progressives/populist leftists feel disenfranchised politically, which inevitably leads to either apathy, nihilism, or radicalization. This can often lead to lower voter turnout from leftists, which then perpetuates this whole cycle.
7) Because centrist economic policies are essentially centre-right to right-wing in nature, they have quite often contributed to the economic devastation of the working class, which has been a major factor in the rise of Trumpism and right-wing populism in general (right-wing populism is essentially a gateway to fascism but I'm trying to be charitable).