this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2023
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Hate this whole reductionist left/right theory. I know/hope most of you don't think it's "Democrats are 100% right" and "Republicans are 100% wrong". And hopefully not many people actually think some mixture of the two is 100% right either. There's huge fundamental issues that they're both wrong about. And the real "both sides" is that both parties in government are responsible for crimes against humanity (regardless of which one is worse), it's like railing against "enlightened centrism" is this shortcut so people don't have to confront hard questions about things our society is doing fundamentally wrong. Like, people, it's not that either you're 100% Dem, you're 100% Republican, or you're some milquetoast combination of the two. This whole system is fucked. The GOP is basically just the vanguard of oppression and the Dems are like this still-unacceptable compromise between horrible oppression and a sane society.
And it's really just textbook whataboutism that any time somebody points out that there are also horrible things done by Dem politicians, they point to something worse done by the GOP. That's why "lesser of two evils" is a fallacy, we get so myopically focused on how each individual could opt for a slightly better option than "the worst possible option", but we never even consider that the sum of individuals going outside that system and creating something better than both awful options would give a better result.
Republicans are almost always wrong on everything, and even when they are right, they're either on the same side as everyone else or they're on the right side for the wrong reasons. The main problem with the Democrats is that they're moderates unwilling to roll up their sleeves and do what it takes at best, or simply grifting at worst.
However, on trans rights, there's no contest. Dems are almost entirely right, with Republicans being so far in the wrong that they're not even worth talking about. For a bunch of out of touch politicians, democratic lawmakers are doing a decent job on that issue in particular. This is obviously thanks to a ton of hard work by outspoken advocates, but the major improvements they could make would really be less specific to trans people, like better civil rights protections or better access to Healthcare.
What you are describing is the Overton window in the United States. The Democrats are not left of center on the political spectrum. They are controlled by neoliberals and are center right. The Republicans are controlled by fascists and are far right. Political theory is more expansive than just left and right. And there is a lot more to the left of the Democratic Party.
I'm curious what centrists actually mean when they say they are centrists. Do they mean between neoliberalism and fascism as would be the case in the US? Or do they mean moderate on the political spectrum, between center left and center right, so actually to the left of the Democrats.
It's not quite the "Overton Window", specifically because the whole left-right scale is nonsense to begin with. Maybe if you reformulated the idea as a set of acceptable ideologies.
Anyone who goes around calling themselves a "centrist" is probably an idiot. It's basically like "I haven't even thought the 20% enough about politics to pick a side like everyone else feels compelled to, so so I'm just going to say 'eh maybe it's either'".
https://www.mackinac.org/OvertonWindow
Acceptable ideologies is what the Overton window is all about.
In the US specifically the Overton window has been shifted to the right since the Regan administration in the 80's. So for over 40 years now.
Huh you're right. I've just seen it cited a billion times before in terms of left/right, like, "the Overton Window shifted to the right". Like you just said. People cite it in terms of "only candidates this far left to this far right are acceptable", you know.
Anyway, point being that it describes an area in a highly multidimensional space, not a slice of a univariate left/right spectrum.
Everytime I say this, I get shut off by some politician-worshipper that says nuh-uh, you're wrong and refuses to elaborate or even worse, spreads the same lying FUD their god preaches.
I encourage this the most from Biden and trump worshippers; I wish they both weren't so clueless at how much both Biden and trump sucks and hung onto their fairy tales