Political discourse

Anyone who stands against genocide and opposes war has been lumped in with “tankie” for a long while now. That centrist is empowering the Nazis.

Thank you.
Because being a passive centrist while the world slides towards authoritarianism, global conflict, and environmental holocaust is not morally acceptable.
You don't have to be a Tankie to want to fight these fascist fucks and their suicidal agenda.
- Well if you say anything like ‘we shouldn’t give weapons to Nazis,’ you’re going to be labeled a tankie, too.
- I mean a lot of people don't want to have their way of life userped by these radical idiots. One side is calling for a civil war and the other side is effectively campaigning for concentration camps. Normal people don't want to engage with either brand of insanity. They just want to go to work and go home, spend time with their family.
Someone misinterpreted the post.
- Another centrist who thinks the left just doesn’t get it.

The enlightened centrism is strong in this one. No, the US don't have a conflict of left vs. right. The conflict is between the right and everyone else. And most of the right are just rubes who think they being part of some kind of movement but in reality are just being fleeced by a bunch of grifters

I'd say the curve it's much flatter on the left side. As in right side is shouting tankie, meanwhile there are like 2 tankies and the right wants to set the whole barn on fire to get them both.
- Meanwhile thr Tankies are in the Right's barn the entire time.
Not just the right vs. everyone else, the right vs. everyone. The right is also fighting itself.
- The left is also fighting itself. Literally the comment chains in this post are prime examples.
  People who probably align with the majority of the stances, tearing each other down with bad faith arguments, grandstanding over the remaining things they disagree on.
  "Perfect is the enemy of good."
  I might not politically align with the average .ml user, but my views are a hell of a lot closer aligned with them than MAGAt views.
also the usa has never had a true left to begin with, being the most right wing of the western countries should be telling.its most like right on right-lite violence/rhetoric
Grifters? They’re hellbent on christofascism.
- And if they suffer under that Christofacist regime they helped bring about? That is righteous and holy suffering, and their reward will be eternal in Heaven.
  Voting against their interest? No, they are voting in their eternal interests, so what does it matter if they endure poverty, violence, sickness, famine and the destruction of our biome in this life? 'Tis but a moment before the beauty they have earned in the Here After brother!
Perfect example of this was Jimmy Kimmel. He openly said that shooting a commentator was a horrible thing, and tried to call for moderation. MAGA declared that wasn’t enough, and ordered him fired.
They have specified that if you’re not with them, you’re against them.
- Kimmel got fired for pointing the spotlight back at Trump and Epstein. Had nothing to do with Kirk.
Doesn't directly bringing up "enlightened centrism" (I assume sarcastically) from a non-right position indicate disdain for centrism? That would be a conflict between whatever you are and both centrists (for not being where you are - right of you, but to them, still left of the Right) and the Right.
Also, if you're aware of the Three Percenters and their claim that only 3% of colonial America supported the revolution, it means that even if they're off by a factor of 10, with 30% for the revolution, and 30% against, it leaves 40%, a plurality of people, who have the sentiment from this meme where they just want to be left alone and not forced against their will into a conflict that indroduces instability and violence to their lives.
- "Enlightened centrism" is not the same as centrism and yes that label is meant to be sarcastic. There are basically two kinds of enlightened centrists. One are right-wingers who want to avoid the social stigma of being far right. The other one are people who close their eyes to the blatant attempt by the right wing to destroy democracy and pretend everything is normal. That's what basically the corporate media are doing.
- Letter from Birmingham Jail, MLK Jr.

I'm too uneducated on politics (read: stupid) to even know what left and right means. Where do I land
- Well they are slightly vague terms, so please don't feel stupid. A shocking amount of people who think they know, don't know.
  Left wing politics are generally about a rejection of hierarchy of people. Consequently, they tend to be interested in an international community because we are all the same and deserve the same. As freedom is something that everyone wants for themselves, the left tend to be in favor of an equally free community, e.g. freedom to love.
  Right wing politica are generally about hierarchy of people. But not because the hierarchy is necessarily the point, but it tend to be in favor of maintaining the current state, Which just happens to be hierarchical. And usually everything get viewed from a hierarchical pov. E.g. nationalism is a hierarchical view of country and people, your country and its people above other country and their people.
  Obviously you could point at the historical stance of us republicans that they want a small government and argue that a small government creates less of 2 class citizens, the law markers and the citizens. But the left would point out that a small government just enables the powerful people to exploit the weak people and create more 2 class citizens.
  On the left: The strong hierarchy in the previous attempts of "communism" is the reason why some people will say that true communism was never tried. Other will argue that you need a little bit of authority to run a communustic state.
  So the whole thing is a little more complex than "freedom" and "restrictions" and who supports what "restrictions" when.
- Most people have confused politics. If you want to land somewhere you need to educate yourself and develop principles so that instead of not knowing where you'll land, you'll know exactly where you stand
- Right: in favor of privately owned means of production.
  Left: in favor of publicly owned means of production.
Can I be a leftist without being a tankie then?
- Yes? You do realize tankies are a minority group and that in many nations "leftist" is just a normal political position?
  I'm honestly not sure what you're trying to say here
- Try anarchism. Goes down smooth
- Yes, you can even be a communist without being a tankie.
- Absolutely. There are numerous strains of leftist philosophy that are anti-authoritarian.
- tankie is, as i understand it, a combination of authoritarianism, leftism, and some weird nostalgia for the soviet union i'm not entirely sure i've just been casually trying to pick stuff up.
- Not now that the term has expanded to mean everything to the left of Kamala Harris.
Six strawmen in a single post! Well done, that must be some kind of record!
- Reeeeeeeeeee I spouted centrist nonsense in a leftist space and I'm getting ratio'd reeeeeee
- It is clever, you see, that any disagreement must be done online, therefore reinforcing the premise of the meme.

Imagine looking at the current state of the USA and saying "communists are the problem!"

tankies are such a small niche group, i dont think theres enough of them to have a significant on policy, unlike right wingers have real numbers on thier hands.

Isn't there a difference between the right and the far right though
- I wouldn't say so, I'm a consequentialist so when I see a pedophile felon in the white house removing the 14th amendment while not a single GOP congressman opposes him, I feel like the entirety of the US right is effectively gone and only the far right remains.
- the one's who do the bad shit and the one's who support it. sure if thats enough difference for you ig
- In many cases, I think so. People everywhere get their morality from culture. Since many people are raised conservative, and risk damaging their social connection in their community by straying from conservative values, people can be very protective of certain social conventions and perspectives, out of fear of social isolation or even alienating themselves from their actual nature in order to adhere to social convention.
  Its an understatement to say that the far right/fascism weaponizes this fact. But many many conservatives are workers which means that they share lived exploitation with the rest of us. Capitalism is the force that divides the working class, and when we participate in divisive/sectarian tendencies then whatever ideology we claim, leftist or whatever, then we are carrying water for the billionaire class.
  Its not always that simple though. Many people experience real trauma by having conservative values thrust upon them. Objective morality is a plague, but so is dualism. We need to think completely differently and work with others to navigate these dynamics
They run TikTok among many other CCP funded operations, I wouldn't disregard them personally.
- Lol
  The tankies engaged in hypercapitalism
- You’re not wrong. Many of them are exposed to propaganda on TikTok and it is a growing issue. Espionage is being done to divide the left and consolidate the right. Just because it’s not as noticeable as the propaganda from the right doesn’t mean that it’s not having subtle effects. If it gets people to disengage or not look out for their best interests then it is effective. All this to say, there is a way to bring about positive change and that has to do with being involved locally.
Thanks for the grasroots money, this small group is actually very loud. The loudest of them all. They maintain the illusion that communism is when you like Russia, and that's their entire purpose
- The fuck are you babbling

Uh... fucking cope hard. The Nazis won't care about your enlightened centrism when they arrest you for being brown and/or the wrong kind of white.

"I think we need a mixture of both!", he shouts while be loaded into a cattle car.

if you were a centrist before 2020, and you still are in 2025, then you've moved Right, since the Overton window shifted Right.

if you kept your principles you're now Left. that's how the window works.

The very model of the modern major liberal.

If you think the next US civil war will be fought between Nazis and Marxist-Leninists, you don't understand American politics very well. The US in 2025 isn't Stalingrad in 1942.

Nitpick: They're Marxist-Leninists, not Marxism-Leninists.

https://imgur.com/gallery/cmon-do-civil-war-dzKQtkt

But also

!enlightenedcentrism@lemmy.world

Let's be honest, the Nazis and Tankies align on like 98% of policy. They both support Donald Trump, for example. They both enable ethnostates to send minorities to camps. They believe in a nation ruled by one supreme absolute leader.

The ACP is the only american so-called communist org that supports Trump, and virtually every other segment of the serious organized left considers them a fascist org. Don't buy into fascist framing of issues or you are working for the fascists when you spread them
- And Chinese state run TikTok promoted him and Hexbear was singing his praises. Bottom line is anybody who opposes "us imperialism, capitalism" is happy to see Trump make cruelty the point, happy to see Americans suffer in decline.
  Tankies aren't far left, they're just the CCP's tools of war.
They both support Donald Trump, for example.
lmao what?
They both enable ethnostates to send minorities to camps.
lmao what?
They believe in a nation ruled by one supreme absolute leader.
Dictatorship of the proletariat doesn't mean total rule by one dude named proletariat, it means total rule by the people.
- These liberals and their "both-siding" will be the death of us all
- Dictatorship of the proletariat doesn't mean total rule by one dude named proletariat, it means total rule by the people.
  Tankies want a vanguard of the best brightest to lead and educate the proletariat into a new "socialist" future. Conveniently, the best and brightest happens to be them and their homies.
  They also just so happen to have a new vision of socialist utopianism of you working in a sweat shop for 14 hours a day and eating rationed food while they sip fine wines and write bullshit very online mutants will recite as scripture in the future.
- Tankies support China and the USSR, neither of which have ever practiced rule by the proletariat, and of which the remainder is committing their own little genocide at home.
And they are both downvoting you haha
- There is literally only 1 downvote
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bv9rC69VMOI

It's not a bell curve. It's a trumpet headed to the right.

This can be attributed to a method of gaining and maintaining political power called divide and conquer. Poisoning the discourse with targeted manipulation in (social) media, while treating politics as kind of bizarre and grievous reality TV show, where everyone is trying to throw the biggest pile of verbal shit on the other.

Wait does bellend mean at the end of a bell curve?

Bellend means penis tip cos it looks kind of like a bell
- I would have never guessed
- Double entendre.
No its what german dogs do.

Ideological polarization is actually pretty low among average Americans. It’s mostly felt among the highly politically engaged and politicians. So to that extent, this image seems accurate.

it is very clear you don't live in a small southern county

you will, with that attitude

People need something else to focus on. When everything is politics then politics is everything and it's stupidly difficult to get people interested in doing anything positive.

It's hard to avoid politics when giving kids lunch at school is fucking political for some reason.
There is a group to blame for politicizing everything, and it is disingenuous to blame 'people' in general instead of that group in particular.
I mean, everything is politics whether anybody likes it or not, because politics is just what you get when you have a hierarchical power structure.
- And this is what I mean. Everything is very much not politics but if you politicize everything then by definition it becomes so. People need to stop doing that.

Maybe if you mean this as the left vs the left… sure.

When I have centrist views about anything (not just politics but more trivial matters like pop culture), I'm reluctant to share them online because extremists on both sides interpret you as an extremist on the opposing side

Centrist views such as? grabs popcorn
No seriously, what do you happen to be sitting on the fence about?
- I don't care from which side to peel banana
- This will be fun to watch.
- Preferring discourse over violence
- Centrism doesn’t mean sitting on a fence. It means most of the time understanding that both sides are right and wrong at the same time, I often see the problem identified correctly but the solution that is prescribed is absolutely incorrect.
  Here are some centrist positions.
  We need to stop unfettered immigration, so closing the borders is great, locking up and kicking out immigrants who have committed legal offenses is good, and we should expedite that process but we shouldn’t be kidnapping or profiling people. We shouldn’t be giving economic assistance to illegal immigrants. I know it doesn’t happen at the federal level but it does happen at the state level.
  Banning guns won’t solve the violence problem, guns don’t kill people people kill people. American violence is caused by inequality and lack of mental healthcare. Solve that instead of taking guns away.
  We should have higher taxes, universal healthcare and stronger safety nets but also much less regulation because most of it is actually designed to protect the incumbent corporations. Free the markets as much as possible, but never bail out a single corporation that fails, bail out the employees.
  Increasing the minimum wage does nothing.
  Instead of relying on underpaid immigrant labor the US should stop giving cash and tax subsidies to farmers and instead directly subsidize their wages by paying the employees directly. This is my middle of the road solution, we should actually consider nationalization of farms. One of the few things where that could work right now because I think nationalization in general leads to terrible mismanagement. But farms are already inefficient, corrupt and mismanaged and also living on the government tits so we might as well.
  Justifying things as “scientific” when the science is social science and the results are not reproducible is intellectually dishonest, and is rampant in discourse about various topics nowadays. The academia brought upon themselves the mistrust they have garnered. This is good because universities have become job training centers and they were never meant to be that, so maybe we’re due for a little creative destruction.
  I could continue, but I got shit to do.
- That's still an oversimplification. In reality political opinion varies across a spectrum; it's not just hard left, hard right, or no opinion. My own views for example are a little left of centre with a leaning towards liberty (i.e. away from authoritarian). So of course I get called a nazi by the hard left, and a tankie by the hard right, both of which are utter nonsense.
Daniel Sloss has a funny bit about exactly this.
https://youtu.be/O-qcXpapsoY Sadly it's so true