• Soup@lemmy.cafe
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      5 days ago

      Often? I’ve never seen it NOT that way, and I’m a huge fan of nuance. With them, I just can’t see any justification for that argument.

    • SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social
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      Thanks for saving me the effort of pointing this out.

      “Yeah, I don’t agree with his racism, but I can’t support post-partum abortions by feeding babies to coyotes so we can afford to pay for 25 billion illegals to stay in the Ritz Carlton like the Democrats do. #BothSides”

  • TBi@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    Everytime I have a discussion with someone who says “both sides are the same”, they always end up voting right. I ask if both sides are the same why not vote left?

  • Arkatakor@lemm.ee
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    Oh this is the classic : “I’m socially progressive, but fiscally conservative” LOL

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      The thing is real fiscal conservatism relies on evidence. They just want to sell off the government so they can make a profit replacing it. A real fiscal conservative would have already passed universal education, universal healthcare, universal background checks, taken military procurement to task, and repealed half of the laws restricting unions.

      The Republicans talk about laws that spend less and create more revenue, but they fight tooth and nail against ones that actually would do that.

      • acosmichippo@lemmy.world
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        no no, republicans don’t want the govt to make revenue. tax cuts, ridiculously complicated tax code, gutting the IRS… all to let rich people keep as much money as possible.

        • zeppo@lemmy.world
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          Rich people making more money is true Republican goal and the reason for everything else. Co-opting the deranged fanatical Christian sector was just part of the strategy to achieve that.

      • Arkatakor@lemm.ee
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        Well the bar is six feet under when you compare Democrats to Republicans. Democrats appears leftwing simply because Republicans went further to the right on the spectrum unfortunately. If you place Democrats in Canada or Western Europe, they would be considered a right wing government, or centrist if we stretch it.

        • Saleh@feddit.org
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          So much this. The only thing that remedied US Democrats in this sense was their LGBT stances being more progressed than in many Western European countries. Otherwise they are in the right/far right/neoliberal spectrum by European standards.

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        At this point anybody can just download all the financial freedom they want, nobody is stopping us. So our votes only even matter for social issues anymore.

    • GraniteM@lemmy.world
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      “I want to smoke weed and not pay taxes and I lack basic empathy for anyone with problems worse than my own.”

    • barsquid@lemmy.world
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      Fiscally conservative somehow means hoarding money under the mattress instead of investing in projects like infrastructure, an educated populace, a healthy populace, or an environment that is habitable.

  • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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    It’s weird how often people say they “Aren’t for Right or the Left” and “Think BOTH parties are the problem”, but only ever have negative things to say about the Left.

    Concern Trolls are not your friends

    • ameancow@lemmy.world
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      It betrays a deep level of self-awareness of being on the “bad” side and knowing that if you say your actual values around a large number of normal people you will face criticism and attacks, so it’s shame. Centerism is almost always some level of shame, or at best woefully immature ignorance of actual politics.

      • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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        I actually got chills lately when Bill O’Reily came out and said Obama was the best president of his lifetime and he only talked shit on him because he got paid to.

        How can you know something is wrong and do it anyway?

      • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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        well the richest guy on the planet and the republican party candidate both are trying to portray kamala harris as a communist when she’s possibly slightly to the right of nixon.

        I do think the media needs to be broken up, the lack of competition for big media (including social media) has resulted in some level of complacency with unhinged conspiracies.

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        It’s weird how you made it your personal mission is to correct “other people’s wrong opinions”.

        Get over yourself 💁

  • darth_tiktaalik@lemmy.ml
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    It’s so funny to see Alex Jones present himself as above left-right politics despite constantly spewing far right BS.

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    It’s because they identify 100% with the party but don’t want the negative flack it rightfully deserves, so they pretend to be centrist.

    • PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee
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      This has actually been studied

      Anti-Authoritarians and Moderates view it as best to be seen as Anti-Authoritarians, Authoritarians view it best to be seen as Moderates.

      They literally view opportunistic claiming of the center not just as a political tool but as a social survival tactic to not be ostracized for their bullshit.

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      Exactly this. Many of them are concerned about how it might affect their work too and their families if they found out they’re were horrible racist people.

      It’s part of the reason why the KKK wore clokes

    • Soup@lemmy.cafe
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      It used to be libertarians that did this shit. Too afraid to commit to the bit, but still want to appear as if they’re the good guys.

      • auzy@lemmy.world
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        yeah… Here in Australia, they were also the only political party around who never removed their shitty signage after the election (and they legally have to). I’m surprised the Election council didn’t do it for them and send them the bill. I think the problem with those wankers is that they constantly try to get away with dodgy actions, and they end up being successful so many times, that they just keep doing it

  • A Phlaming Phoenix@lemm.ee
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    I’ve had a guy tell me he votes for Trump because he’s trying to take a balanced centrist view of things. But dude, if Trump is the center, wtf are your extremes?

    • celsiustimeline@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      Homie just heard a bunch of words online and attempted to string them together into a coherent political opinion. They failed, but hey they tried.

  • ceenote@lemmy.world
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    Actual centrists recognize how extreme the right has gotten, and vote accordingly. Bothsiders are the brainless, egotistical tools of the far right, going along with normalizing fascism because they don’t want to think too hard.

    • Zement@feddit.nl
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      … and because they want slaves back. The right is focused on having women-slaves and immigrant-slaves. Take away rights, invent crimes, jail, enslave.

    • Grainne@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      I’m undecided on Trump and the GOP in 2024, I can’t tell if they’re brutally evil or evilly brutal.

      • ameancow@lemmy.world
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        I’m a centrist. I say they’re brutally evil AND evilly brutal, and I would even add the hot-take as an ENLIGHTENED centrist that they’re probably also stupid.

        • GladiusB@lemmy.world
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          I am a centrist as well and therefore usually undecided. But these rights make it really easy to decide who not to be undecided about.

      • kinsnik@lemmy.world
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        same, but i am go between “he can’t be that stupid, he must know he is lying” and “oh, he is that stupid, he might believe the nonsense he says”

      • WaxedWookie@lemmy.world
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        The whole world is inundated with news about the election, looking on in horror at the fact that Trump, in spite of everything has a 50/50 shot at the presidency. The fact that he remains viable is one of the worst enditements possible on the US government and people.

        Yeah - we see you guys, and we’ve decided.

            • jaemo@sh.itjust.works
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              MTG would have called it an indication.

              But as a northern neighbor to this clown party, I cannot agree more.

              Stop fucking around, the USA! You’re supposed to model this shit for everyone! You want some other countries’ movies to get more popular than yours?!

        • Fugtig Fisk@feddit.dk
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          No its fine! But the whole world has left and right in their political spectrum, yet every comment in here is about USA (and one(?) about France)

          • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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            Well, yes…this instance and community are full of Americans, so that’s the viewpoint the comments will revolve around.

            Please do offer your country’s difficulties with right wing politics instead of a sarcastic comment. The more we all know of nationalist, populist, and theocratic fascists trying to make inroads around the world the better.

  • Allero
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    Let’s just start with the fact that American political system is super skewed to begin with and no actual left has any power.

    Dems are highly pro-capitalist, moderately nationalist and merely call to strike a bit less horrible balance between the interests of people and businesses. This is not left, this is a bit better right.

    This fallacy keeps people trapped in an idea that the only possible options are “good” ultra-capitalism and “greedy” ultra-capitalism, which is not true.

    People that try to have “both sides heard” totally ignore that there are way more than two angles in this conversation and that Dems are not some sort of a political extreme. Reps, ironically, kinda are.

    And Democrats often think they vote for something actually good, when it’s actually just a lesser evil. Keep that in mind, no matter what you decide.

    • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      And Democrats often think they vote for something actually good, when it’s actually just a lesser evil. Keep that in mind, no matter what you decide.

      well i mean to be clear, not voting for a literal fascist, is a pretty good vote.

    • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      i mean, i dont think this is blatantly wrong i mean it’s not correct either, i think the main failing in their viewpoint is that trump and the maga crowd are literally fucking insane.

      But if we woke up tomorrow and trump didn’t exist, they would all be gone.

      I don’t think all far lefties are fucking mental, but i’ve definitely met my fair share of tankies and people who pretend to know politics while being super fucking wrong. I’ve also met plenty of reasonable far lefties though so. Goes both ways.

      The far right is insane, Similar to the opposing factions of the far left, though i think those are probably smaller. The MAGA right is literally just a deluded group of stupid people, it’s just fascism doing fascism. The moderate right is probably not voting for trump, and if they are, they’re just stupid. The rest are independents, from there you start getting into the moderate left, which is generally more “centrist” than the moderate right, so they’re a lot more willing to reach across ideological differences if it aligns with their general understanding of the world. (the kamala harris campaign) past that idk, you get weird mixes of entrenched dems, and the fringe sub groups of socialists, anarchists, shit like that, though they will generally align with the broader left, i think. Past this you have the “far left” israel palestine types, tankies, uber socialists/communists, the diehards. People that don’t care about anything other than the thing they espouse.

      This has been my reading on the political sphere over the last few years or so.

      Generally, i think the left, currently is a lot more cohesive than the right, the right seems to be undergoing an ideological fracture right now, which is interesting. I think the defining difference is the lack of a “blue MAGA” so to speak.

      • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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        But if we woke up tomorrow and trump didn’t exist, they would all be gone

        They existed before Trump with the tea party, they will exist after him. The far right also exists in other countries

        the kamala harris campaign

        Right, not centrist. They just aren’t as right as the competition

        “far left” israel palestine types

        Not a left or right issue, you will find people on both supporting both sides

        Generally, i think the left, currently is a lot more cohesive than the right

        This has never been the case, the lack of cohesion is why right wing governments are more popular despite not being popular in a population. People will just not vote because there is no coheson on the left. Meanwhile the right will always come out to vote, even when they don’t agree with their candidate

        • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          They existed before Trump with the tea party, they will exist after him. The far right also exists in other countries

          it depends. I think MAGA as it is today, would stop existing if trump stopped existing, it would probably fracture into a few different camps, completely killing any momentum it has.

          Right, not centrist. They just aren’t as right as the competition

          you’ll have to demonstrate this one “freedom and liberty” are some of the most right leaning things they talk about. The only thing they aren’t doing is social progressivism, which from a federal perspective i think is relatively appropriate.

          Not a left or right issue, you will find people on both supporting both sides

          i don’t fundamentally disagree here, but i’m talking about a specific camp of people, so it’s relevant. Right leaning people are more likely to support israel, especially farther right people. Even moderately religious people will generally back israel. The primary camp of pro palestine is younger college aged people. There’s a reason you don’t see very many senior citizen homes protesting israel palestine.

          This has never been the case, the lack of cohesion is why right wing governments are more popular despite not being popular in a population. People will just not vote because there is no coheson on the left. Meanwhile the right will always come out to vote, even when they don’t agree with their candidate

          it depends on how you view it. Ideologically the right tends to be more cohesive. Their views and ideas are more malleable. However the left is more socially cohesive, and given the current climate, i would expect the vast majority of the left to vote for kamala on the basis of it being “not trump” and also a pretty good shot at getting something other than an old white fuck into the government.

          this was a weirdly bad faith interpretation of my comment, honestly.

              • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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                you’ll have to demonstrate this one “freedom and liberty” are some of the most right leaning things they talk about. The only thing they aren’t doing is social progressivism, which from a federal perspective i think is relatively appropriate.

                Just more Keynesian economics, privatize profits and socialize losses. Pro-globalization

                Right leaning people are more likely to support israel, especially farther right people. Even moderately religious people will generally back israel.

                Muslims tend to be against Israel

                Ideologically the right tends to be more cohesive. Their views and ideas are more malleable.

                There are some that don’t support trans-rights despite it being a conservative stance. Some believe the government should intervene to protect the climate while others think it should be on the companies. You’ll even find some that are socialists when it benefits them (Trump campaigns left of Harris economically occasionally even if he flips to the opposite side the next time he speaks). Others are straight up communists (libertarians/anarchists)

                • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                  Just more Keynesian economics, privatize profits and socialize losses. Pro-globalization

                  Keynesian economics is broadly left leaning, the only thing more left leaning is literally socialism/communism. Idk what you mean about privatizing profits, profits are already privatized, it’s the trump admin that wants to delete like 50% of the federal government, not the harris admin.

                  The biden admin literally introduced direct filing, idk what the status of that is but i heard it went over pretty well already so that may have been implemented.

                  As for pro globalization, that’s a good thing. Anti-globalism is a right leaning talking point, literally only the trump admin wants to do this. Although generally every society wants to have some level of domestic production, as does the harris admin through things like the CHIPS act, and the home buyer/building policies as well. These are almost always met with globalism, rather than against it, as with trumps policy.

                  Globalism as already stated is good for the economy, it’s good for the global economy, and it ensures more efficient and reliable production as well.

                  just as an aside here, right leaning economic theory literally just says “stop doing anything at all” which is worse than Keynesian economics.

                  Muslims tend to be against Israel

                  the US isn’t broadly muslim? Or catholic/christian for that matter, it’s broadly agnostic/atheistic. I don’t even think muslims are a census break out yet either? If we’re talking about the middle east, yeah muslims tend to be against most things that isn’t directly in-line with their view points, that’s sort of how they operate. As do most other people as well, to be fair.

                  There are some that don’t support trans-rights despite it being a conservative stance.

                  what? Are you saying that some lefties don’t support trans rights? That’s not a conservative stance, that’s a stance that conservatives broadly adopt. Technically in isolation it could be considered conservative depending on their personal reasoning for holding that belief.

                  Some believe the government should intervene to protect the climate while others think it should be on the companies.

                  i think most people probably agree that it should be both.

                  Trump campaigns left of Harris economically occasionally even if he flips to the opposite side the next time he speaks

                  i don’t think this is broadly true, though to be fair i don’t watch much trump shit. 95% of his monetary policy is tarrifs and tax cuts, that’s it, neither of those are really “economically left” as understood today. Outside of that he doesn’t like globalism, which is broadly isolationist, which is broadly nationalist, which tends to be right leaning, he pretends to support blue collar workers, though im pretty sure every president does (except democrats who often have effects on them)

                  I think if we’re talking about the makeup of the left, that it’s important to remember tha maybe 10% of the left is communist/socialist, or even sympathetic to it. The vast majority of left leaning people would be more willing to vote for someone like this, as they’re moderates, but are generally, more moderate, shocker. I think something like at least 50% probably closer to 70-80% of the left could be considered “moderate” I think there are very few “far left people” if you remove moderates/staunch dems into separate categories, it’s probably like 40/30 or something. But those are still vastly more aligned than you would see on the right.

                  Whereas on the right i think you have probably about 10% far right neo nazi type people. 20-30% far right/maga people (broadly aligned) and then the rest is either staunch conservative or moderates. so probably about 20-30% staunch, and the remained being moderates, with the current political climate a lot of those staunch conservatives are either shifting more moderate, or are simply not going to vote. I don’t think very many of them are going to vote for trump, and if they do, they’re pretty much what would be expected out of the average “i vote” voter.

                  I think this time around, moderate republicans are swinging into the harris campaign (due to the moderate proposals and policy) which is going to bleed a lot of votes on the conservative side, and bolster a lot of broad left leaning support. Even if your farther left people aren’t going to support kamala, they’ll still likely vote for her anyway.

  • disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world
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    It’s the media, not the people. If you read the same article from sources across the political spectrum, you’ll find the further right you go, the more information is omitted and the more opinionated the journalist becomes. So, someone who reads primarily right wing and centrist media will naturally have a right wing opinion when reading centrist articles.

    • EleventhHour@lemmy.world
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      Yeah, I’m not buying the “your opinions are just biases” argument. I don’t deny the influence of past experiences, I just believe humans are more nuanced than that.

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        Opinions are absolutely subjective, but the content they’re based on is also skewed.

        If all of the news you consumed was curated through an engagement algorithm, it would change the way you see the world. Your opinions would be based on that perception.

        • EleventhHour@lemmy.world
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          Now you’re just describing human perception. That’s not really remarkable. And, still, there’s a lot more to it, such as the sum total of experiences a person has.

          I still think this concept is being oversimplified quite a bit.

    • ochi_chernye@startrek.website
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      While this is true, people still bear responsibility for the media they choose to consume. People wake up every day and decide to get their information from liars and grifters, because they prefer the way lies feel. It isn’t as if they don’t have options. Now, media literacy is definitely a problem. But the only solution is education, and that’s a silver bullet too slow to save us from all the extant ill-educated mooks.

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        I agree. Many people make the mistake of getting their news exclusively served through algorithms. They see a very skewed painting of the world based on what they’ve shown interest in previously.

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    After the VP debate, I was stuck under two babies and couldn’t get up before CBS did it’s spin room coverage and fake analytics. During their focus group of 6 undecideds, I nearly fucking lost it when one said “I like that Vance said he’s pro-family”.

    This shit repeated on my stream I was watching several times and I inevitably woke up my 8mo having to get to the computer before every last drop of my sanity was gone.

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      “pro family” and “family values” might be the most vomit inducing dogwhistle in politics.