I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice. - Martin Luther King Jr.
Most centrists I have interacted with have the same thought, I don’t care as long as I’m not affected by it. As long as the sense of order is maintained they will let babies starve, houses burn, and deforest our planet to maintain that stability. So you must excuse those of us on the left who have interacted with people more conservative to us for so long. We’re tired of the bullshit and we’re not going to let you live it down anymore. I have heard people talk about how centrists/moderates, whatever term you use to describe them, are the swing voters. From my personal experience in the USA with the moderate, the moderate fucking sucks.
If the moderate is who truly votes in presidents then they have failed us multiple times now with Trump. Thoroughly, absolutely. I don’t know how you can live a life seeing the horrors perpetuated for money and power to still think our system okay. If you’re not swayed by the plight of the fact we can feed everyone on the Earth, we just cannot satisfy the gluttony of the wealthy to do so. Of maintaining order while a group of people who had no choice in their birth are subjugated, beaten, rounded up and jailed just for existing, and lynched for existing. If you look at everything wrong in this world and aren’t galvanized away from moderation and right wing politics, then you’re lost.
Sorry for the delay in reply, I’ve been off of social media lately. Thanks for the cogent reply, I appreciate the time you put into it.
I think you make a solid case, except for one central fallacy. I am galvanised away from the right by the atrocities you list. However, you smuggle in the assumption that pushing away from the selfish, parochial right must push me towards the contemporary political left—both the formal political parties, and the informal zeitgeist of leftist culture/ideology. I can (and I believe morally should) reject that too.
The space of alternatives is much larger, and varies on many more dimensions, than the current political dichotomy. I believe that insistence on that dichotomy, that you must pick between left and right, does far more long term harm than even right wing bigotry does. I’d even go as far as to let the selfish right wing bullies win, whatever the immediate costs, if I believed it would eventually bring about a system that is fair and just for future generations, to escape this historical trap of perpetually short-sighted left-right swings. My views are more nuanced than this, but that’s beyond the scope here.
This position makes me a centrist, because I support neither contemporary political party and oppose both. However, I find that zealots from both sides insist that it means I must be on the side of their enemies. You’re with us or you’re against us, if you’re not part of the solution you’re part of the problem, blank and white, no alternatives. It’s that kind of thinking that keeps the pendulum swinging, prevents conversations about long-term, global solutions and dooms future generations to more vicious bickering about which bathroom 0.1% of the population should use while the world around them burns.
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice. - Martin Luther King Jr.
Most centrists I have interacted with have the same thought, I don’t care as long as I’m not affected by it. As long as the sense of order is maintained they will let babies starve, houses burn, and deforest our planet to maintain that stability. So you must excuse those of us on the left who have interacted with people more conservative to us for so long. We’re tired of the bullshit and we’re not going to let you live it down anymore. I have heard people talk about how centrists/moderates, whatever term you use to describe them, are the swing voters. From my personal experience in the USA with the moderate, the moderate fucking sucks.
If the moderate is who truly votes in presidents then they have failed us multiple times now with Trump. Thoroughly, absolutely. I don’t know how you can live a life seeing the horrors perpetuated for money and power to still think our system okay. If you’re not swayed by the plight of the fact we can feed everyone on the Earth, we just cannot satisfy the gluttony of the wealthy to do so. Of maintaining order while a group of people who had no choice in their birth are subjugated, beaten, rounded up and jailed just for existing, and lynched for existing. If you look at everything wrong in this world and aren’t galvanized away from moderation and right wing politics, then you’re lost.
Sorry for the delay in reply, I’ve been off of social media lately. Thanks for the cogent reply, I appreciate the time you put into it.
I think you make a solid case, except for one central fallacy. I am galvanised away from the right by the atrocities you list. However, you smuggle in the assumption that pushing away from the selfish, parochial right must push me towards the contemporary political left—both the formal political parties, and the informal zeitgeist of leftist culture/ideology. I can (and I believe morally should) reject that too.
The space of alternatives is much larger, and varies on many more dimensions, than the current political dichotomy. I believe that insistence on that dichotomy, that you must pick between left and right, does far more long term harm than even right wing bigotry does. I’d even go as far as to let the selfish right wing bullies win, whatever the immediate costs, if I believed it would eventually bring about a system that is fair and just for future generations, to escape this historical trap of perpetually short-sighted left-right swings. My views are more nuanced than this, but that’s beyond the scope here.
This position makes me a centrist, because I support neither contemporary political party and oppose both. However, I find that zealots from both sides insist that it means I must be on the side of their enemies. You’re with us or you’re against us, if you’re not part of the solution you’re part of the problem, blank and white, no alternatives. It’s that kind of thinking that keeps the pendulum swinging, prevents conversations about long-term, global solutions and dooms future generations to more vicious bickering about which bathroom 0.1% of the population should use while the world around them burns.