4 ms·

They are not completely exclusive, but more extreme politicians are certainly unlikely to become very popular, and more importantly, the more popular they are,

• dragonwriter 10y ago
  > the more popular they are, the more dangerous it is to think of them as extreme. Especially if you turn out to be wrong. I don't think this is true at all. The closest thing I can thing of to this that would be true is "The more popular they are, the more dangerous it is for you to call them extreme. Especially if you are right." There's is generally little danger in thinking of a moderate politician with moderate followers as extreme, or even of overtly calling them that, no matter how popular they are. OTOH, there's plenty of danger in calling an extreme politician with a demonstrated history of encouraging violent reprisals against dissenters extreme, especially if they are popular (and, especially if the people with whom they are popular are also extreme.)
  • 794CD01 10y ago
    The danger I was referring to is in shaping your own worldview to be too widely divergent from reality. If you don't care about that, I suppose that's your choice.