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Are moderates extinct

Sure with the heretics thing but the GOPs version is anyone not currently kissing Trumps ass. At least the Dems have some ideological heresies.
 
This is the natural result of politics degenerating from "government must do the best for this complex country and its diverse people" into "my political party MUST win power at any cost, regardless of the country and people". The emphasis changes on who is "winning". The latter leaves no space for moderates.
 
This is the natural result of politics degenerating from "government must do the best for this complex country and its diverse people" into "my political party MUST win power at any cost, regardless of the country and people". The emphasis changes on who is "winning". The latter leaves no space for moderates.

There is no middle ground. For instance, lets try something here. Anyone can participate.

If you claim to be a "moderate" or a "centrist" tell me one policy you really like that the GOP is actively pursuing, followed by one that the liberals are pursuing. Not something vague like "oh I'm a fiscal conservative and that's why I'm a centrist". I mean like a specific policy that each party has put forward that you genuinely stand behind.
 
There is no middle ground. For instance, lets try something here. Anyone can participate.

If you claim to be a "moderate" or a "centrist" tell me one policy you really like that the GOP is actively pursuing, followed by one that the liberals are pursuing. Not something vague like "oh I'm a fiscal conservative and that's why I'm a centrist". I mean like a specific policy that each party has put forward that you genuinely stand behind.
LIBERALS: universal health care
 
Pre or post Reagan?

Current. I'm trying to figure out what is considered "moderate" nowadays. If the question is "Are moderates extinct", I'm kind of trying to place where the line for "moderate" would be and what would be "extremist". I don't know what a "moderate" or "centrist" Republican looks like.
 
Current. I'm trying to figure out what is considered "moderate" nowadays. If the question is "Are moderates extinct", I'm kind of trying to place where the line for "moderate" would be and what would be "extremist". I don't know what a "moderate" or "centrist" Republican looks like.
Then every politician who is not a Trumpite is a "moderate", because MAGA is just SO far to the right. That includes soft-right and even solidly conservative Republicans. So you can pick and choose any "compassionate conservative" policies you like. They will be moderate in the current climate. So "moderates" are not really extinct at all.
 
Certainly an endangered species at best in this time of extremists. Wondering if there are any others out there as I've found pretty much all family/friends are on one extremist "side" or the other and so impossible to have an objective or even rational discussion about politics with. God forbid you suggest that any liberal (or conservative) idea ever had any merit of any kind ever...it's like blaspheming their holy cause. Sad and scary.

I have friends who are Democrats, and we have no problem disagreeing about our politics without getting angry or disagreeable. But, I know other people who match the description in your post: it's their way or the highway, and they find it hard to socialize with you if they know you disagree with their politics.

In general, I think that people who limit their news sources to one side or the other are the ones who tend to be dogmatic and extreme. If you get all of your news from left-wing or right-wing sources, you are likely to be polarized and unwilling to seriously consider opposing views.

We see that on this forum quite a bit.
 
No, moderates are still common in the U.S. It's just that the Republicans are so far right now that moderates get characterized as far left in comparison. Hell, Richard Nixon would be lambasted as a pinko Commie by Fox News and OAN for calling on Congress to introduce legislation creating public healthcare. Many people in the middle or near left get categorized as radically partisan for refusing to compromise on issues like women's reproductive rights, or universal healthcare.
 
I'm also not entirely sure what moderate should mean. I think people are using moderate as centrist or basic liberal/libertarian.

To me, moderates favor compromise and incremental change under the current system. Basic liberals are the ones often thought of as moderates today, Democrat or Republican. I think that's what people mean here. If you are a socialist but fairly pragmatic like Bernie Sanders does that still make you extremist? To some people being a socialist is already pretty extreme, but until recently and for most of his career Sanders has worked within the system, befriending mainstream politicians.

If the Trump movement completely took over the country, would militant liberals who want to overturn the system and bring things back to pre-Trump standards be considered not moderate?
 
I'm also not entirely sure what moderate should mean. I think people are using moderate as centrist or basic liberal/libertarian.

I consider myself moderate, but very clearly not a centrist.

Take gun control. I favor greatly increased regulation of the purchase and ownership of firearms, universal background checks, registration, safe storage, waiting periods, and more. But I also think that we should focus more on handguns than on long guns, because most firearms deaths and injuries are from handguns, that's a clear break with the more liberal side of the gun control movement. I also see nothing wrong with owning multiple guns for hunting and target shooting - within limits (owning multiple hundreds of guns is just plain weird).

Take climate change: I know that the climate is changing, and that we need to reduce carbon emissions asap. But I don't see planting trees as a viable way of pulling carbon from the atmosphere because they often get killed by insects, or wildland fire, or just don't survive period. Oceans and soils make for much better carbon sinks. I also appreciate that worldwide energy consumption can and needs to increase. We are fooling ourselves if we think that people in India or Nigeria or Brazil will never use as much energy per capita as what we in the west use. We need to focus on providing them with non-carbon based energy, including nukes, rather than expecting them not to adopt Air conditioning and refrigerators and personal transportation. And in those ideas I am less far to the left than the people gluing themselves to the Mona Lisa.

I could go on. I kinda bristle at people who can't distinguish "moderate" from "centrist". That's as false of a dichotomy as it gets.
 
I'm also not entirely sure what moderate should mean. I think people are using moderate as centrist or basic liberal/libertarian.
Waaaay back when I was in school, they taught the political spectrum as being thus, from right-to-left:

[Right Side] Reactionary - Conservative - Moderate - [center point] - Progressive - Liberal - Radical [Left Side]

with each stage away from the center being "more" of its sided quality. Libertarians were placed outside this scale, in the loony bin.

In recent years the right has been using "progressive" to mean "radical", possibly because thanks to 90s slang "radical" just sounds too cool to fight against. And they've been crying-wolf about "liberal" for decades and not making much headway. So they seized "progressive", formerly rightmost segment of the left side, and maligned it to the point of ridiculousness. So I suspect the old terminologies, which made sense, are no longer really applicable in modern times, which do not make sense.

eta: I just realized I could have put Right and Left on the actual right and left sides of the scale, but I didn't think of that. Let's pretend I was thinking "stage left" and "stage right" which is from the actors' POV and thus reversed from how the audience sees it. I'm not stupid. Really!
 
I largely agree with Crescent but owning 100s of guns is no weirder than owning hundreds of ......action figures, hummel figurines, or what not. Folks collect stuff, it's all a bit weird if you ask me but. And the guy that owns hundred of guns isn't really any more dangerous than a guy that owns two guns.

The handgun thing versus long guns is a huge point. Most gun deaths are suicide, almost all hand guns. Most murders, also handguns. Handguns are cheaper and easier to hide than long guns. Cheaper in most cases anyway. They also don't have much use other than killing humans and targets. Some folks need them for vermin but otherwise. We'd reduce gun deaths by up to 90 percent if we could make handguns dispear tomorrow, but everyone focuses on the guns that kill almost nobody.

Edit to add. Tragic monkeys right scale is well, off. First, left is on the right and right is on the left? What's up with that?

Second, nothing conservative about Trump, so the modern American right is radical. Liberal should should be orthognal to progressive. Lots of progressives are quite illiberal. If its going to be on the same access, then liberal should be closer to the center than progressive.

And of course the explanation for why progressive should be the right most part of the left is, idiosyncratic at best.

Then there's libertarians as loons, they also range from moderate to radical.

You must of gone to a very progressive school.
 
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Waaaay back when I was in school, they taught the political spectrum as being thus, from right-to-left:

[Right Side] Reactionary - Conservative - Moderate - [center point] - Progressive - Liberal - Radical [Left Side]
Yeah, but what those terms actually mean depends on where you happen to be standing.
 
Yeah, but what those terms actually mean depends on where you happen to be standing.
They're segments of a spectrum. Any given individual may occupy any given point, if they're within the range of a named segment they would be whatever that segment is. They'd be more X or less X relative to another point on the spectrum, but a moderate does not become a reactionary simply because there's another moderate a few steps to the left of them.
 
Waaaay back when I was in school, they taught the political spectrum as being thus, from right-to-left:

[Right Side] Reactionary - Conservative - Moderate - [center point] - Progressive - Liberal - Radical [Left Side]
Also, why would moderate bet right of center, that seems odd to me. Strikes me that you can be moderate on the right or a moderate on the left.
Moderate being the opposite of radical not necessarily on either side. Same is true of radical. Sure, a true conservative can't actually be a radical but a reactionary can, that's kind of what they are, radical rightist. Fascists and NAZIs are on the right but are also clearly radical. Anarchist are mostly on the left but not always and are pretty much always radicals.

Center obviously depends on time and place, a Conservate soviet citizen in 1981 would generally be considered left by most folks estimation. There was a time when a conservate American was a liberal, from 1776 to IDK, 1820 or so. Then originally Right was monarchist and left was anti-monarchist. Honestly the more I think about the less value the spectrum has.


The version I remember from school was more like
Communist - socialist - progressive - liberal - center - conservative - fascist - NAZI

And, tragic, sorry about the nitpic not trying to overly snarky and of course I'm not saying anything new here.

ETA: South might explain it, the south was a at on point a hot bed of progressive racists. Woodrow Wilson for instance.
 
Nothing conservative about Trump? I would agree he's politically incoherent and above everything an opportunist.

But within the Trump movement I think there is a sizeable faction that is conservative like the paleoconservatives---generally illiberal, think Civil Rights legislation is stupid, think modern Republicans are too similar to Democrats, unafraid of being called racist, etc. What some might call radical they might be truer to the Conservative movement overall.

Was Pat Buchanan an extremist? He kind of softened his tone later in life but during his peak many Conservatives considered him the savior of a dead movement.
 
Nothing conservative about Trump? I would agree he's politically incoherent and above everything an opportunist.

But within the Trump movement I think there is a sizeable faction that is conservative like the paleoconservatives---generally illiberal, think Civil Rights legislation is stupid, think modern Republicans are too similar to Democrats, unafraid of being called racist, etc. What some might call radical they might be truer to the Conservative movement overall.

Was Pat Buchanan an extremist? He kind of softened his tone later in life but during his peak many Conservatives considered him the savior of a dead movement.
He was more or less hounded out of conservative politics shortly after his peak though.

You aren't wrong in that the MAGA movement does include some folks that are fairly called conservatives, but it also has RFK and Tulsi Gabbard apparently.

I would ask, what exactly is conservative about Trump? Anti-immigration but there he takes much farther than anyone before.
Tariffs? Industrial policy? Anti FBI/CIA. He nominated a gay man to a cabinet position. In 2015 he said anyone could use whatever bathroom they wanted to in Trump tower. So, if you think being racist and misogynist is synonymous with being conservative. I guess he's conservative.
 
Also, why would moderate bet right of center, that seems odd to me. Strikes me that you can be moderate on the right or a moderate on the left.
Moderate being the opposite of radical not necessarily on either side. Same is true of radical. Sure, a true conservative can't actually be a radical but a reactionary can, that's kind of what they are, radical rightist. Fascists and NAZIs are on the right but are also clearly radical. Anarchist are mostly on the left but not always and are pretty much always radicals.

Center obviously depends on time and place, a Conservate soviet citizen in 1981 would generally be considered left by most folks estimation. There was a time when a conservate American was a liberal, from 1776 to IDK, 1820 or so. Then originally Right was monarchist and left was anti-monarchist. Honestly the more I think about the less value the spectrum has.


The version I remember from school was more like
Communist - socialist - progressive - liberal - center - conservative - fascist - NAZI

And, tragic, sorry about the nitpic not trying to overly snarky and of course I'm not saying anything new here.

ETA: South might explain it, the south was a at on point a hot bed of progressive racists. Woodrow Wilson for instance.
Well, the whole thing was invented during the French Revolution, it was the seating arrangement in the National Assembly. Montagnards happened to sit on the left side, Girondins on the right side, and everybody else between them. Communism and Fascism hadn't been invented yet, those were future examples of political philosophies that could be fit into the spectrum.

The idea of the spectrum isn't about specific policies, it's about resistance to change vs making change. The left side wants change, the further left the more drastic the changes wanted. The right side resists change, the furthest right (reactionaries) wanting not only to stop change but undo prior changes.

But that, at least as I was taught, was the classical, original right-left spectrum. And, as noted, it probably no longer applies. Politics has grown much too weird to fit onto a single spectrum anymore, or even fit onto a spectrum that only occupies three or four dimensions and isn't full of holes and bitemarks!
 
I don't buy that moderates are endangered. Only that people are defining differently what a moderate is. My positions are relatively the same as they were in 1975. And my positions were definitely viewed as moderate. Now Republicans are suggesting being pro-labor and pro environment, pro equality as crazy woke ideas.
 
I find that moderates are kind of hated by everyone, because they assume you're lying and actually farther opposite them than you claim. I am called damn near a commie pinko by my conservative side of the family, and fascist leaning by the more liberal. If you're not joined at the hip with them on the ragged edge, you're the enemy.
 
I would ask, what exactly is conservative about Trump? Anti-immigration but there he takes much farther than anyone before.
Tariffs? Industrial policy? Anti FBI/CIA. He nominated a gay man to a cabinet position. In 2015 he said anyone could use whatever bathroom they wanted to in Trump tower. So, if you think being racist and misogynist is synonymous with being conservative. I guess he's conservative.
Synonymous is the wrong term. Conservatives are more tolerant of racism, or at least think the government shouldn't do much about it on the level liberals and leftists do, because anti-racist efforts largely come from liberal universalist thought.
 
Well, the whole thing was invented during the French Revolution, it was the seating arrangement in the National Assembly. Montagnards happened to sit on the left side, Girondins on the right side, and everybody else between them. Communism and Fascism hadn't been invented yet, those were future examples of political philosophies that could be fit into the spectrum.

The idea of the spectrum isn't about specific policies,
it's about resistance to change vs making change. The left side wants change, the further left the more drastic the changes wanted. The right side resists change, the furthest right (reactionaries) wanting not only to stop change but undo prior changes.
But that, at least as I was taught, was the classical, original right-left spectrum. And, as noted, it probably no longer applies. Politics has grown much too weird to fit onto a single spectrum anymore, or even fit onto a spectrum that only occupies three or four dimensions and isn't full of holes and bitemarks!
...to the extent that the change increases equality.

The left-right spectrum makes the most sense if we see it as a very basic stance of egalitarianism vs hierarchy. For most of recent history the changes, the apparent progress has come more from the Left as societies abandoned authoritarian forms of rule. But I don't think the Left has a monopoly on "progress". Some rightwing thinkers believe in what we could call Darwinian progressivism, involving eugenics and meritocratic reforms. They don't necessarily like the old stuff.
 
...to the extent that the change increases equality.
Not in the classical spectrum. The rightmost wanted to revive the monarchy and return power to the aristocracy, reducing what steps towards equality the French Revolution had thus far managed. Whereas the leftmost wanted to persecute the former aristocracy and thus treat them worse than everybody else, therefore also leading to inequality. When you're assessing attitude to change it's all relative to the current state of who's being assessed.
 
Not in the classical spectrum. The rightmost wanted to revive the monarchy and return power to the aristocracy, reducing what steps towards equality the French Revolution had thus far managed. Whereas the leftmost wanted to persecute the former aristocracy and thus treat them worse than everybody else, therefore also leading to inequality. When you're assessing attitude to change it's all relative to the current state of who's being assessed.
But that doesn't really contradict what I said besides persecuting the former aristocracy being an inequality thing. Justice was pretty ◊◊◊◊◊◊ back in the day. The important point is did the revolutionaries believe in a natural hierarchy like what was supposed before or liberty, equality, fraternity? Seems like the following century in France, Britain, and the US was quite different to the normal before.
 
There are a lot more moderates than you think. Problem is many of them (36% in this election) don't vote, which give the extremists more power than they should have. What's the answer? Let the extremists have their way until things get bad enough to goad those moderates into voting. Or don't. It doesn't matter what you do, it's going to happen anyway. Enjoy the ride!
 
"A moderate" is a nebulous term, that is thrown around as either an insult or a compliment, and exists somewhere on a slippery scale.

Much like the term "common sense", it means whatever the speaker wants it to mean.
 
Waaaay back when I was in school, they taught the political spectrum as being thus, from right-to-left:

[Right Side] Reactionary - Conservative - Moderate - [center point] - Progressive - Liberal - Radical [Left Side]
Note that places moderate at the center right. Why? Well, because generally only Republicans require the "moderate" or "good doggy" label; Democrats who break with their party get the "conservative" (bad doggy) label. I would generally say that liberal is less far left than progressive; the House Progressive Caucus is not made of up people on the right side of the left party.
 
An actual Moderate would actively work to moderate extreme policies and antidemocratic tendencies of one Party by siding with the other.
 
They're segments of a spectrum. Any given individual may occupy any given point, if they're within the range of a named segment they would be whatever that segment is. They'd be more X or less X relative to another point on the spectrum, but a moderate does not become a reactionary simply because there's another moderate a few steps to the left of them.
A moderate becomes "radical left" if they're being described by someone a few steps to their right.
 
"A moderate" is a nebulous term, that is thrown around as either an insult or a compliment, and exists somewhere on a slippery scale.

Much like the term "common sense", it means whatever the speaker wants it to mean.

My favourite definition of 'common sense' is: 'Agrees with me'
 
The USA trips itself up with its strange definition of trying to say liberal ideology is to the left of the political spectrum, when in fact conservative and liberal are both "to the right" political ideologies. The difference between the two are about government involvement in liberties. One way of putting it is that the liberals don't care what and who you do in your bedroom and conservatives do care. This is why the rest of the world sees the USA only ever giving people the choice between two right wing ideologies/parties.

There is no left in mainstream USA politics.
 
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