4 ms·

In what ways is it a good place to be?

by gatlin 6y ago

peteretep 6y ago
Take a list of countries in the world that have the best HDI rankings, press freedom rankings, universal healthcare and so on. Almost all are run by parties who are described primarily as being center-right or center-left.
- ideamotor 6y ago
  Thank you. Do these people not realize that centrist basically means stable and successful? Probably just sad sacks who want things to go sour. And I want to be clear, in the U.S. Dems are a center-left party and GOP is a (increasingly) far-right party. You can see this objectively by the percent of the time each member flips. Approx. around 80% GOP never flips versus only 20% Dems.
  - secondcoming 6y ago
    Really. Everything I've read and heard about US politics would seems to suggest that the Dems are being pulled increasingly towards the extreme left.
    - peteretep 6y ago
      > Everything I've read and heard about US politics would seems to suggest that the Dems are being pulled increasingly towards the extreme left We are either reading very different news, or your use of “extreme left” is highly out of sync with anything approaching common usage. Wake me me up when they start nationalising pensions
    - kalleboo 6y ago
      The Democratic party as an institution is not very left at all. There are people who identify as Democrats who could be described as extreme left, and they may get a lot of airtime, but they do not represent the party and do not influence it's policies.
      - secondcoming 6y ago
        AOC et al? She'll be leading the party in 5 years.
        secondcoming 6y ago
        I'm not sure if I'm being downvoted by Republicans who don't like her, or Democrats who think I think I'm a Republican!
        edgyquant 6y ago
        This is a bad uninformed take. AOC would be a literally who without Conservatives pushing her as a villain in their media.
    - Nursie 6y ago
      > Everything I've read and heard about US politics would seems to suggest that the Dems are being pulled increasingly towards the extreme left. Have you been using Fox news exclusively to form those opinions? From a British perspective, the Democrats are to the right of all the major parties in our parliament.
      - secondcoming 6y ago
        No. I'm not American and have lived in Britain for over 15 years.
  - viridian 6y ago
    What do you mean by flips?
- avar 6y ago
  > Almost all are run by parties who are described primarily as being center-right or center-left. They're described like that by the local standards of the country they're in. But if you were to transplant e.g. some "right wing" parties in certain European countries to a country like the US you'd have an extremist left wing party by local standards. So it's no more evidence that things move towards the "center" in general than people in Venice and Mexico city saying "uphill" and "downhill" being evidence that those two cities are situated at the same altitude.
  - edgyquant 6y ago
    The idea that right wing Europeans are American leftists is an untrue and ridiculous meme.
    - avar 6y ago
      Most developed European countries have a tax to GDP ratio 10-15% higher than the US. Fiscally conservative right wing parties in those countries typically run on a platform of at most reducing that by 3-5%. If you then take what they'd do to military spending (at most 1/2 or 1/4 what the US spends per capita), social services (maybe a bit less spending, but not dismantling it), the state's regulatory role, fuel taxes etc. I don't think this is a far-fetched assertion.
fenomas 6y ago
> The middle of the road is all of the usable surface. The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters. (Eisenhower)
- jfengel 6y ago
  Eisenhower's idea is attractive, but incorrect. The extremes are where the most enthusiasm is. People in the middle who lean one way or the other can find themselves pushed to go further and further that way, or risk being treated as unreliable allies. The "gutters", in turn, are thus encourage to drift further and further from the center. People don't turn out for centrists. They turn out for extremism. You'd like to think that sooner or later people would find that they've veered so far one way that the only correction is to jump over the center line, and restore Eisenhower's faith, but I don't see much evidence of that.
  - peteretep 6y ago
    > People don't turn out for centrists Centrists have been in unbroken power since suffrage began in most countries, so this is simply false
    - jfengel 6y ago
      If you consider the current leadership of the United States to be "centrist", then you and I have irreconciably different definitions of "center". It has has a history of veering more and more wildly to each side. The previous leader was an exciting cipher when elected -- he turned out to be centrist, but was only elected because a lot of people imagined he was more to the left than he turned out to be. And at that, he was completely stymied in his progressive platform by an extremely right-wing legislature -- which turned out to be so popular that their party repeatedly increased their power in the legislature. Before him, the country elected a clear idiot, and then re-elected him after starting a war on clearly false provocation. People were more likely to appeal to Eisenhower's approach in the 20th century, but in the 21st, the extremes have better access to mass media, making them better able to cast the center as extremist and shifting the Overton window. I see this only increasing. It's possible that it won't succeed this November, but even if it doesn't, I don't believe that the trend will change.

In what ways is it a good place to be?

by gatlin 6y ago

In what ways is it a good place to be?

Take a list of countries in the world that have the best HDI rankings, press freedom rankings, universal healthcare and so on. Almost all are run by parties who are described primarily as being center-right or center-left.

ideamotor 6y ago
Thank you. Do these people not realize that centrist basically means stable and successful? Probably just sad sacks who want things to go sour. And I want to be clear, in the U.S. Dems are a center-left party and GOP is a (increasingly) far-right party. You can see this objectively by the percent of the time each member flips. Approx. around 80% GOP never flips versus only 20% Dems.
- secondcoming 6y ago
  Really. Everything I've read and heard about US politics would seems to suggest that the Dems are being pulled increasingly towards the extreme left.
  - peteretep 6y ago
    > Everything I've read and heard about US politics would seems to suggest that the Dems are being pulled increasingly towards the extreme left We are either reading very different news, or your use of “extreme left” is highly out of sync with anything approaching common usage. Wake me me up when they start nationalising pensions
  - kalleboo 6y ago
    The Democratic party as an institution is not very left at all. There are people who identify as Democrats who could be described as extreme left, and they may get a lot of airtime, but they do not represent the party and do not influence it's policies.
    - secondcoming 6y ago
      AOC et al? She'll be leading the party in 5 years.
      - secondcoming 6y ago
        I'm not sure if I'm being downvoted by Republicans who don't like her, or Democrats who think I think I'm a Republican!
      - edgyquant 6y ago
        This is a bad uninformed take. AOC would be a literally who without Conservatives pushing her as a villain in their media.
  - Nursie 6y ago
    > Everything I've read and heard about US politics would seems to suggest that the Dems are being pulled increasingly towards the extreme left. Have you been using Fox news exclusively to form those opinions? From a British perspective, the Democrats are to the right of all the major parties in our parliament.
    - secondcoming 6y ago
      No. I'm not American and have lived in Britain for over 15 years.
- viridian 6y ago
  What do you mean by flips?
avar 6y ago
> Almost all are run by parties who are described primarily as being center-right or center-left. They're described like that by the local standards of the country they're in. But if you were to transplant e.g. some "right wing" parties in certain European countries to a country like the US you'd have an extremist left wing party by local standards. So it's no more evidence that things move towards the "center" in general than people in Venice and Mexico city saying "uphill" and "downhill" being evidence that those two cities are situated at the same altitude.
- edgyquant 6y ago
  The idea that right wing Europeans are American leftists is an untrue and ridiculous meme.
  - avar 6y ago
    Most developed European countries have a tax to GDP ratio 10-15% higher than the US. Fiscally conservative right wing parties in those countries typically run on a platform of at most reducing that by 3-5%. If you then take what they'd do to military spending (at most 1/2 or 1/4 what the US spends per capita), social services (maybe a bit less spending, but not dismantling it), the state's regulatory role, fuel taxes etc. I don't think this is a far-fetched assertion.

fenomas 6y ago

> The middle of the road is all of the usable surface. The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters. (Eisenhower)

jfengel 6y ago
Eisenhower's idea is attractive, but incorrect. The extremes are where the most enthusiasm is. People in the middle who lean one way or the other can find themselves pushed to go further and further that way, or risk being treated as unreliable allies. The "gutters", in turn, are thus encourage to drift further and further from the center. People don't turn out for centrists. They turn out for extremism. You'd like to think that sooner or later people would find that they've veered so far one way that the only correction is to jump over the center line, and restore Eisenhower's faith, but I don't see much evidence of that.
- peteretep 6y ago
  > People don't turn out for centrists Centrists have been in unbroken power since suffrage began in most countries, so this is simply false
  - jfengel 6y ago
    If you consider the current leadership of the United States to be "centrist", then you and I have irreconciably different definitions of "center". It has has a history of veering more and more wildly to each side. The previous leader was an exciting cipher when elected -- he turned out to be centrist, but was only elected because a lot of people imagined he was more to the left than he turned out to be. And at that, he was completely stymied in his progressive platform by an extremely right-wing legislature -- which turned out to be so popular that their party repeatedly increased their power in the legislature. Before him, the country elected a clear idiot, and then re-elected him after starting a war on clearly false provocation. People were more likely to appeal to Eisenhower's approach in the 20th century, but in the 21st, the extremes have better access to mass media, making them better able to cast the center as extremist and shifting the Overton window. I see this only increasing. It's possible that it won't succeed this November, but even if it doesn't, I don't believe that the trend will change.