this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2023
664 points (82.2% liked)
Political Memes
8800 readers
3118 users here now
Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
No AI generated content.
Content posted must not be created by AI with the intent to mimic the style of existing images
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
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.