Current Events > "Radical centrists" contribute to the problem of political division

(+) Yeah! (+)

The whole problem is that we view politics as two teams in America. Politics is a spectrum and not everyone on either side of middle is completely agreeance, and speaking to actual people makes that obvious. Saying "I hate both sides" or "Both sides make good points" just reinforces the notion that there are two beliefs and the solution is a logical compromise of the two. You're bound to wind up in situations where the "2" options are not equally valid, but your desire for equilibrium forces you to validate bad ideas. Also, unless you have literally none of your own opinions or make a conscious effort to split up your beliefs equally between both "sides", then you are likely not in the center and do trend in one direction or the other.
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The center allows for compromise which is best for everybodg.

People disagree. You MUST have compromise or you will get nowhere in life, not just in politics.
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except that there are two sides and if both sides each gain momentum and shut down anything but one agenda that they follow, who is going to break that up and bring people to reason?
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catboy0_0 posted...

except that there are two sides and if both sides each gain momentum and shut down anything but one agenda that they follow, who is going to break that up and bring people to reason?

There aren't though.

Even the last American election had two different sides in each party fighting for power.
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Are you kidding? Compromise is shit in politics, you get nowhere actually trying to compromise with your enemy more than just steam rolling over them especially in modern politics and even more so in the Trump era of politics, their base actually pays attention to their votes and they know it, as such they can't ever try to compromise with Democrats and why should they? Democrats have no power in washington so what they do is fake compromise then completely reign on that promise after their bill is passed, then when shit goes bad they can point at the Democrat and say "Well they voted for it,too so be more mad at them for not stopping us" even through even if they didn't vote for it it'd pass anyway.
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SoMeOnE HaS to CoMpRoMise !!!!!!
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Just for conversation sake.

http://www.mamartino.com/projects/rise_of_partisanship/

I would be interested in comparing public opinion polls regarding public approval of Congress as a body and the years which feature the highest level of bipartisanship and "centrist" behavior.
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There are things you can refuse to compromise on, but if you refuse to compromise on everything you will get nowhere.
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halomonkey1_3_5 posted...

SoMeOnE HaS to CoMpRoMise !!!!!!

Not when you control everything in the government you don't.
Damn_Underscore posted...

There are things you can refuse to compromise on, but if you refuse to compromise on everything you will get nowhere.

Not compromising with Obama rewarded the republican party with total control of the government and a supreme court justice seat and possibly 2 more picks for them effectively giving us a hard conservative supreme court justice full of corporate humping hard conservative voting republicans. They never would have gotten away with that compromising.
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tremain07 posted...

halomonkey1_3_5 posted...

SoMeOnE HaS to CoMpRoMise !!!!!!

Not when you control everything in the government you don't.
Damn_Underscore posted...

There are things you can refuse to compromise on, but if you refuse to compromise on everything you will get nowhere.

Not compromising with Obama rewarded the republican party with total control of the government and a supreme court justice seat and possibly 2 more picks for them effectively giving us a hard conservative supreme court justice full of corporate humping hard conservative voting republicans. They never would have gotten away with that compromising.

Not compromising with obama had nothing to do with it. The president is the face of government and in his tenure had a terrible economy, two terrorist groups and several mass shootings. Not saying those are his fault but the leader always gets the blame

I've chosen a side.

It just isn't a side that can't be used by either group.
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lol how you can you radically in the middle?

https://twitter.com/miketheburrito/status/1010570495031435265
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FeatherCoin462 posted...

lol how you can you radically in the middle?

Committed to equilibrium to a fault
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Y2J0_sHBK_Blue posted...

tremain07 posted...

halomonkey1_3_5 posted...

SoMeOnE HaS to CoMpRoMise !!!!!!

Not when you control everything in the government you don't.
Damn_Underscore posted...

There are things you can refuse to compromise on, but if you refuse to compromise on everything you will get nowhere.

Not compromising with Obama rewarded the republican party with total control of the government and a supreme court justice seat and possibly 2 more picks for them effectively giving us a hard conservative supreme court justice full of corporate humping hard conservative voting republicans. They never would have gotten away with that compromising.

Not compromising with obama had nothing to do with it. The president is the face of government and in his tenure had a terrible economy, two terrorist groups and several mass shootings. Not saying those are his fault but the leader always gets the blame

Unless that leader is Trump then it's all Obama and Bush Jr.s fault
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Nobody really wants compromise or bipartisanship, you want the people on your side to vote down the line and you want the people on the other side to "vote with their conscience" (i.e. get some to vote the way you want).
Compromise leads to fuck all of importance getting done and ends with just kicking the problems down the line for someone else to fix (that'll be half-assed because of "muh compromise").
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tremain07 posted...

Y2J0_sHBK_Blue posted...

tremain07 posted...

halomonkey1_3_5 posted...

SoMeOnE HaS to CoMpRoMise !!!!!!

Not when you control everything in the government you don't.
Damn_Underscore posted...

There are things you can refuse to compromise on, but if you refuse to compromise on everything you will get nowhere.

Not compromising with Obama rewarded the republican party with total control of the government and a supreme court justice seat and possibly 2 more picks for them effectively giving us a hard conservative supreme court justice full of corporate humping hard conservative voting republicans. They never would have gotten away with that compromising.

Not compromising with obama had nothing to do with it. The president is the face of government and in his tenure had a terrible economy, two terrorist groups and several mass shootings. Not saying those are his fault but the leader always gets the blame

Unless that leader is Trump then it's all Obama and Bush Jr.s fault

Meh, people blamed Obamas messes on Bush. Im over the petty partisan stuff

Hinakuluiau posted...

Nobody really wants compromise or bipartisanship

Yes they do. I'm sure this has happened to you in real life - You want one thing, and the person wants something else, so you work out a compromise where you don't get everything you wanted but you are happy with the result.
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I don't get this disdain for compromise. Even within political parties compromise is a must in order to put forth a candidate that the majority of their base can (supposedly) get behind. We already saw last presidential election how a lack of compromise can kill a parties chances of taking an office. We also saw how not trying to find common ground with and instead insulting and deriding those who disagree, even under the same party, hurt a campaign. Yes, politics is a spectrum, but it is also highly tribal. The D or R next to a candidate's name is far more important than what their stances are, because hey, you don't want the other side to win, do you?

Not compromising, communicating or trying to find a better way lowers our expectations and has us accepting less than we should. I mean for god's sake, people were voting between the shitshow of Trump and Hillary last time. I don't know how people could argue we shouldn't try to find a better, more encompassing solutions when our standards got that low.
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Damn_Underscore posted...

Yes they do. I'm sure this has happened to you in real life - You want one thing, and the person wants something else, so you work out a compromise where you don't get everything you wanted but you are happy with the result.

Day-to-day life =/= Politics.
In real life, I don't get the chance at 100% control every 2 to 4 to 6 years. Why compromise now when I can just wait it out and get everything I want?
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hockeybub89 posted...

The whole problem is that we view politics as two teams in America. Politics is a spectrum and not everyone on either side of middle is completely agreeance, and speaking to actual people makes that obvious. Saying "I hate both sides" or "Both sides make good points" just reinforces the notion that there are two beliefs and the solution is a logical compromise of the two. You're bound to wind up in situations where the "2" options are not equally valid, but your desire for equilibrium forces you to validate bad ideas. Also, unless you have literally none of your own opinions or make a conscious effort to split up your beliefs equally between both "sides", then you are likely not in the center and do trend in one direction or the other.

-"treating politics like teams is a problem"

-"if you don't pick a side, then you're wrong"

make up your damn mind....

Y2J0_sHBK_Blue posted...

The center allows for compromise which is best for everybodg.

How so?

ElatedVenusaur posted...

Y2J0_sHBK_Blue posted...

The center allows for compromise which is best for everybodg.

How so?

Then everyone wins
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MangaFan462 posted...

ElatedVenusaur posted...

Y2J0_sHBK_Blue posted...

The center allows for compromise which is best for everybodg.

How so?

Then everyone wins

This! Instead of one person having one pie, everybody gets a piece of pie!!

hockeybub89 posted...

You're bound to wind up in situations where the "2" options are not equally valid, but your desire for equilibrium forces you to validate bad ideas.

Not really, because centrists don't "validate" both sides of individual issues. They take individual issues and form a stance, one by one. Example: "I'm against political correctness but I'm for free healthcare"

If you see a flaw in people doing this then you can tell me your stance on gay marriage and that will automatically let me know what you believe about abortion, immigration, PC, the role of government, your economic views, etc., which is actually ridiculous.
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NonDairyMiltank posted...

hockeybub89 posted...

The whole problem is that we view politics as two teams in America. Politics is a spectrum and not everyone on either side of middle is completely agreeance, and speaking to actual people makes that obvious. Saying "I hate both sides" or "Both sides make good points" just reinforces the notion that there are two beliefs and the solution is a logical compromise of the two. You're bound to wind up in situations where the "2" options are not equally valid, but your desire for equilibrium forces you to validate bad ideas. Also, unless you have literally none of your own opinions or make a conscious effort to split up your beliefs equally between both "sides", then you are likely not in the center and do trend in one direction or the other.

-"treating politics like teams is a problem"

-"if you don't pick a side, then you're wrong"

make up your damn mind....

Yes. The problem is viewing politics as two distinct teams (left and right) with a set of beliefs and the heroic centrist thinks the solution is in the middle. However, politics is a spectrum and it is highly unlikely that you are dead center unless you are a mindless husk or basing your beliefs more on balance than any personal conviction. The problem isn't the spectrum. It's the false belief that it is a dichotomy. The "Both sides" centrist is buying into that belief.
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I'm not personally bothered by people being in the middle ground politically.

I'm fairly liberal myself, but if our side isn't really doing a great job at selling itself to people on the fence then I'm not really going to blame them for being uninterested.

If we want more people to join our political party, we need to sell our agendas better. Brow-beating them with rhetoric like "it's the right thing to do " is a really weak selling point in the modern US...especially when we follow it up with a version of "join or else ".

If my neighbor wants to be a centrist, even if some of our political beliefs differ, I'm typically fine with it.
We probably agree enough on a number of things already that we're not going to negatively impact each other much.

Not everyone agrees. While occasionally inconvenient, it's still a valuable part of humanity that's actually helped us evolve, because some people decided to think differently instead of being herd animals who submit to the loudest growls.
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attitudes of literally everyone in this topic is the exact reason why I have no faith in backing one side. people act like it's a sport and ride or die with their "team" and shun and hate anyone not on their side. That's WHY we have all the problems we have today, it is in fact the whole problem with politics. People deny this and go "LA LA LA you have to pick a side!". I generally side with liberal candidates but people act absolutely disgusting and blame it all on people who are disgusted by this modern day gladiator sport circus called politics.
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Just look at this last election and how people have been treating each other leading up to and since. People getting verbally attacked, threatened, harassed for political reasons. No one has a problem with this, they just blame it on the other side.
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People need to wake up and see that we're all just forcing our country to run in circles while we kill and destroy one another. There doesnt' need to be a civil war because we are already at war with ourselves and it's anything but civil.
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ClockworkHare posted...

I'm not personally bothered by people being in the middle ground politically.

I'm fairly liberal myself, but if our side isn't really doing a great job at selling itself to people on the fence then I'm not really going to blame them for being uninterested.

If we want more people to join our political party, we need to sell our agendas better. Brow-beating them with rhetoric like "it's the right thing to do " is a really weak selling point in the modern US...especially when we follow it up with a version of "join or else ".

If my neighbor wants to be a centrist, even if some of our political beliefs differ, I'm typically fine with it.
We probably agree enough on a number of things already that we're not going to negatively impact each other much.

Not everyone agrees. While occasionally inconvenient, it's still a valuable part of humanity that's actually helped us evolve, because some people decided to think differently instead of being herd animals who submit to the loudest growls.

But they're not being different. They've bought into the notion that there are two sides and become slaves to it all the same. There are no sides. There are thousands, millions of points along a spectrum. Very few, if anyone is center. And what are you center of? Extremes? Most people already aren't at those, hence why they are the extremes. Self-proclaimed centrists are just people on the left and right who think they're woke because they don't agree 100% with whatever the current platforms are of the 2 major American parties. Not being an extremist or a stooge does not make you center. It makes you a person. The problem isn't that we value differences and refuse to compromise. The solution isn't balance. It's putting more unique voices into the open in politics.
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This bullshit, which I say as the Literal God of the alt-center.
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What the hell is a "radical centrist"...?

Never heard of them before. I can't imagine there's enough of them to really be concerned about. Wouldn't they be easy to ignore since they probably have very little political power in number?

It sounds like a term someone made up to troll some right or left leaning extremists lmao.
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The total inability to compromise our engage in civil debate is why we have people like Trump in power. This "my way or the highway" mentality is not acceptable in a supposed democracy.
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Hinakuluiau posted...

Nobody really wants compromise or bipartisanship, you want the people on your side to vote down the line and you want the people on the other side to "vote with their conscience" (i.e. get some to vote the way you want).
Compromise leads to fuck all of importance getting done and ends with just kicking the problems down the line for someone else to fix (that'll be half-assed because of "muh compromise").

this mindset comes with the false premise that the other side needs to "vote with their conscience" to switch to your side. in other words, when you think this way, you need to assume the other side (a) is wrong, and (b) is taking on a morally questionable viewpoint in order to vote how they do

it doesn't take into account situations where neither side is wrong (there are MANY shades of gray, and partisanship intentionally ignores this), or situations where perhaps YOU are wrong (which happens in about 50% of situations where someone is wrong). The mindset which you describe very accurately describes how people thing, and its set up for failure because half the time it leads to the wrong option (without any compromise to temper it), and the rest of the time it can be reversed when the other party gets in control.

A compromise-based solution will get some results, limits the damage of wrong decisions, and can actually withstand changes in administration. And if you have smart people on both sides (haha, i know), you can make solutions that move things forward in a slow, but steady way (And won't be turned all the way back and to the opposite direction when your party loses control)

OpenlyGator posted...

What the hell is a "radical centrist"...?

Never heard of them before. I can't imagine there's enough of them to really be concerned about. Wouldn't they be easy to ignore since they probably have very little political power in number?

It sounds like a term someone made up to troll some right or left leaning extremists lmao.

its an uncommon, but standard term. it's not a party, but a political ideology that change can be brought about in the long term through slow approaches that involve incremental changes derived from compromise, rather than letting things wildly swing from left to right and back after changes in majority parties. its radical in that it wants to use compromise to make substantial change (rather than maintain the status quo by doing nothing), but unlike partisan radicals, the goal is to involve both parties in change by making choices that will make the chances get accepted and kept over time, rather than destroyed when the winds blows in a different direction.

So you think what we have now is healthy? People who hate Trump say not only Trump but his supporters are literally evil.

American history is all about compromise and slow change, in fact so is the history of every country... with a few exceptions like fascism and communism in the 20th century. That is the end result of refusing to compromise.
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Damn_Underscore posted...

So you think what we have now is healthy? People who hate Trump say not only Trump but his supporters are literally evil.

American history is all about compromise and slow change, in fact so is the history of every country... with a few exceptions like fascism and communism in the 20th century. That is the end result of refusing to compromise.

"Literally evil" come on man no one says dumb shit like that.
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Damn_Underscore posted...

American history is all about compromise and slow change,

It really isn't, though. We've had decades of relative inaction, and then rapid fire reorganization of society: the civil war, the new deal, the civil rights era.
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ImTheMacheteGuy posted...

Damn_Underscore posted...

So you think what we have now is healthy? People who hate Trump say not only Trump but his supporters are literally evil.

American history is all about compromise and slow change, in fact so is the history of every country... with a few exceptions like fascism and communism in the 20th century. That is the end result of refusing to compromise.

"Literally evil" come on man no one says dumb shit like that.

I mean, it might be an exaggeration in general, but you are wrong.
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Antifar posted...

It really isn't, though. We've had decades of relative inaction, and then rapid fire reorganization of society: the civil war, the new deal, the civil rights era.

what was rapid about those societal reorganizations? how was society reorganized?
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Balrog0 posted...

what was rapid about those societal reorganizations? how was society reorganized?

Rapid in they brought about massive changes in quick succession: the abolition of slavery and granting citizenship to black people wasn't a piecemeal, gradual process. Stuff like social security and the WPA was made possible by the Democratic supermajority of the time (and the circumstances under which they came into power); they weren't on the table just a decade earlier. The civil rights era undid 80 years of legalized segregation in 1/8th that time.
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Damn_Underscore posted...

ImTheMacheteGuy posted...

Damn_Underscore posted...

So you think what we have now is healthy? People who hate Trump say not only Trump but his supporters are literally evil.

American history is all about compromise and slow change, in fact so is the history of every country... with a few exceptions like fascism and communism in the 20th century. That is the end result of refusing to compromise.

"Literally evil" come on man no one says dumb shit like that.

I mean, it might be an exaggeration in general, but you are wrong.

Well I hate trump and I don't use the word evil in a serious context ever, only in a joke context or quoting or explanation such as in this post.
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Antifar posted...

Rapid in they brought about massive changes in quick succession: the abolition of slavery and granting citizenship to black people wasn't a piecemeal, gradual process.

It really quite literally was a process that wasn't completed until the civil rights era (and arguably continues to this day) though

Antifar posted...

Stuff like social security and the WPA was made possible by the Democratic supermajority of the time (and the circumstances under which they came into power); they weren't on the table just a decade earlier. .

did the social security act of 1935 really reorganize society? what about all the additions we've made to it over several decades, like adding disability to it, adding dependents, being more inclusive of who is covered by it, etc? is none of that incremental?
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Antifar posted...

Balrog0 posted...

what was rapid about those societal reorganizations? how was society reorganized?

Rapid in they brought about massive changes in quick succession: the abolition of slavery and granting citizenship to black people wasn't a piecemeal, gradual process. Stuff like social security and the WPA was made possible by the Democratic supermajority of the time (and the circumstances under which they came into power); they weren't on the table just a decade earlier. The civil rights era undid 80 years of legalized segregation in 1/8th that time.

10 years for change is a slow, long, process. particularly for people who actually fought for it. that's not "quick succession" for changes, its long, hard work for people

I mean rural workers and home service workers were excluded from social security until the 1950s specifically to win over support from southern democrats that did not want to help black people
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I just mean to say that acting like no change happens incrementally is really odd, and at worst is really bad for progress since it makes it sound like you just need to pass a big bill and then, since society is reorganized, you're done

but in reality these laws that pass are almost always incredibly flawed and take years and years and maybe decades of work before they fulfill the desires which caused the passage of the legislation in the first place
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If centerists were really radical and had power they would fix the system that sucks.
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Damn_Underscore posted...

ImTheMacheteGuy posted...

Damn_Underscore posted...

So you think what we have now is healthy? People who hate Trump say not only Trump but his supporters are literally evil.

American history is all about compromise and slow change, in fact so is the history of every country... with a few exceptions like fascism and communism in the 20th century. That is the end result of refusing to compromise.

"Literally evil" come on man no one says dumb shit like that.

I mean, it might be an exaggeration in general, but you are wrong.

This
Hell, there's a guy whose news show I used to watch named David Pakman (still do occasionally) who's said that all Trump voters are either evil or stupid. He's not even the most hardcore leftie hack either, he disagrees with PC culture and a few other leftie things, so there are probably a LOT of guys like him
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