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As a South African all of this is fascinating. Especially the shift of where the "center" is. It seemed every American not on the left is called "far right" fr

As a South African all of this is fascinating. Especially the shift of where the "center" is. It seemed every American not on the left is called "far right" from where I am sitting. Half a dozen of my friends have moved to the States and a few have scolded me for my understanding saying that plenty of centrists are labeled far right. I'm beginning to glaze over the label now. It doesn't hold any sway for me because it is used so flippantly.

cambalache 6y ago
Because the American mainstream left became bananas. The Democratic and Republican parties would still be right-wing/conservative all across the world except in America, but the woke/sjw/faang crowd is socially hard-left also all across the world (not in economics or international politics, they are very conservative there,even hawkish). So, for example, me, a very leftist third world person has now more in common with your average mid-westerner republican than with a coastal google employee.
- SrslyJosh 6y ago
  Ah yes, the old "you made me become a neonazi" trope.
  - cambalache 6y ago
    That is not a trope, much less an old one. The "I am ideologically pure and anyone against me must be censured, silenced or even more" is an old trope. You a white guy, are calling a POC a neonazi because I dont buy your discourse of being an enlightened superior being. Get lost.
    - Igelau 6y ago
      How do you know they're a white guy?
- PpEY4fu85hkQpn 6y ago
  Maybe you can refresh my memory, was it the "American mainstream left" that just sieged the Capitol in a murderous attempt to overthrow democracy?
  - cambalache 6y ago
    The looneys in the right also are plentiful. the "American mainstream left" has been: Silent on their idol Biden bombing a middle east country. Hawkish on having a confrontation with China. Even a military one. Calling for any people with real or perceived criticism of them to be cancelled. Organized the BLM protests which caused 100X more economic damages than the crazies in the Capitol. They are in bed with the mainstream media, the technology oligopolies and the entertainment industry where their worldview is relentlessly pushed and any dissenting opinion is squashed. They still call themselves victims.(Victims who act like executioners) They are silent on their hero Biden expanding jail facilities for latino children. Total silence and the few mentions are just euphemism= "expanding facilities"
    - saila 6y ago
      Everyone I know (personally or otherwise) who is an actual leftist is very vocally unhappy with the bombing of Syria, the lack of stimulus checks, ICE's policies, and Biden generally. He's most certainly not a leftist hero/idol.
      - cambalache 6y ago
        A beautiful not-true-Scotman in the wild. AOC -> Silent Bernie -> Silent Krugman -> Silent Reich -> Silent Faang Employees -> Silent Ilham Omar -> To her credit, she spoke out. If by "actual leftist" you mean people like Rania Khalek, I would agree, but unfortunately people like her are a tiny minority and constantly belittled, ignored or called tankies or something along those lines. The mainstream left is dominated by the tech companies, by the mainstream press, by the universities and by the entertainment industry, all coastal highly privileged, 2% of income elites. Those are the people dominating the discourse and as Chomsky said they are "Manufacturing Consent". That includes a big portion of the "commentariat" here too.
- saila 6y ago
  Your average Republican is going to be more authoritarian-leaning and hawkish than the not-actually-left FAANG caricature you're describing. Republicans are pretty unlikely to support such leftist notions as democratizing the means of production, whereas your average FAANG employee just might.
TylerE 6y ago
What’s labeled centrist in the US would be considered basically authoritarian fascism in most of the rest of the western world.
- naniwaduni 6y ago
  Not as much as you'd like to think of the "western world" is northern and western Europe. The "rest" of it includes, among other things, most of eastern Europe and pretty much all of South America.
  - rbanffy 6y ago
    I can say that "What’s labeled centrist in the US would be considered basically authoritarian fascism in most of Western Europe" and it'd still be right.
    - naniwaduni 6y ago
      You'd be more right, and also it'd sound notably less impressive than the expansive claim about the western world.
  - bawolff 6y ago
    The "western world" as a term is understood to mean Australia, Canada, Catholic and Protestant Europe, New Zealand, plus the United States [definition from wikipedia]. Not saying that isn't silly, but everyone understands that the western world does not include those other places.
    - naniwaduni 6y ago
      It's a rhetorical bait-and-switch. It is "understood" to mean (essentially) Protestant Europe when making strong claims, but gesturing at the broader notion of West to imply a scale larger than that at which the claim is credible. In any case, even "Australia, Canada, Catholic and Protestant Europe, New Zealand, plus the United States" is too broad of a definition to make GP's claim true.
GVIrish 6y ago
> As a South African all of this is fascinating. Especially the shift of where the "center" is. > It seemed every American not on the left is called "far right" from where I am sitting. What you are seeing is polarization. At the current moment, a lot of the Republican party has moved away from more moderate Republicanism and more towards Trumpism, which is a far right movement. Fact is that more Republican Congress members voted to punish a moderate Republican like Liz Cheney for voting to impeach Trump, than voted to remove Marjorie Greene from committee assignments for claiming school shootings and 9/11,were a hoax and that California wildfires were caused by a Jewish space laser. It's not that anyone who isn't left is now considered far right. It's that a lot of people who were more moderate Republicans in the past, have moved much farther to the right. There are more people on the left side of the political spectrum that moved father out too, but not enough to even nominate one of the far left candidates for president.
enko123 6y ago
Left has the reins of power, so they don't need to pretend they care about tolerance, freedom, or the rule of law anymore.
- rbanffy 6y ago
  And you say that after 4 years of a right-wing presidency and after at least 8 of right-wing legislative overstepping. We all know Merrick Garland should be on the SCOTUS. He isn't because a right-wing senate didn't allow a black president to nominate him.
Semaphor 6y ago
> It seemed every American not on the left is called "far right" from where I am sitting. From my perspective as a German, you have the centrist democrats that swing quite a bit in both directions, and the republicans who swing from center right to "makes our local right wing extremist party drool"-right.
- jonathanstrange 6y ago
  I can confirm that. The whole political landscape in the US is skewed to the right and has always been. So are their political positions, e.g. the word "social democracy" plays almost no role and "liberal" either means "extreme left" or, even worse and more incorrect, is used as a synonym to libertarianism by white supremacists and neo-Nazis who disguise themselves as "libertarians." I guess it's the result of having a two-party system.

cambalache 6y ago

Because the American mainstream left became bananas. The Democratic and Republican parties would still be right-wing/conservative all across the world except in America, but the woke/sjw/faang crowd is socially hard-left also all across the world (not in economics or international politics, they are very conservative there,even hawkish). So, for example, me, a very leftist third world person has now more in common with your average mid-westerner republican than with a coastal google employee.

SrslyJosh 6y ago
Ah yes, the old "you made me become a neonazi" trope.
- cambalache 6y ago
  That is not a trope, much less an old one. The "I am ideologically pure and anyone against me must be censured, silenced or even more" is an old trope. You a white guy, are calling a POC a neonazi because I dont buy your discourse of being an enlightened superior being. Get lost.
  - Igelau 6y ago
    How do you know they're a white guy?
PpEY4fu85hkQpn 6y ago
Maybe you can refresh my memory, was it the "American mainstream left" that just sieged the Capitol in a murderous attempt to overthrow democracy?
- cambalache 6y ago
  The looneys in the right also are plentiful. the "American mainstream left" has been: Silent on their idol Biden bombing a middle east country. Hawkish on having a confrontation with China. Even a military one. Calling for any people with real or perceived criticism of them to be cancelled. Organized the BLM protests which caused 100X more economic damages than the crazies in the Capitol. They are in bed with the mainstream media, the technology oligopolies and the entertainment industry where their worldview is relentlessly pushed and any dissenting opinion is squashed. They still call themselves victims.(Victims who act like executioners) They are silent on their hero Biden expanding jail facilities for latino children. Total silence and the few mentions are just euphemism= "expanding facilities"
  - saila 6y ago
    Everyone I know (personally or otherwise) who is an actual leftist is very vocally unhappy with the bombing of Syria, the lack of stimulus checks, ICE's policies, and Biden generally. He's most certainly not a leftist hero/idol.
    - cambalache 6y ago
      A beautiful not-true-Scotman in the wild. AOC -> Silent Bernie -> Silent Krugman -> Silent Reich -> Silent Faang Employees -> Silent Ilham Omar -> To her credit, she spoke out. If by "actual leftist" you mean people like Rania Khalek, I would agree, but unfortunately people like her are a tiny minority and constantly belittled, ignored or called tankies or something along those lines. The mainstream left is dominated by the tech companies, by the mainstream press, by the universities and by the entertainment industry, all coastal highly privileged, 2% of income elites. Those are the people dominating the discourse and as Chomsky said they are "Manufacturing Consent". That includes a big portion of the "commentariat" here too.
saila 6y ago
Your average Republican is going to be more authoritarian-leaning and hawkish than the not-actually-left FAANG caricature you're describing. Republicans are pretty unlikely to support such leftist notions as democratizing the means of production, whereas your average FAANG employee just might.

TylerE 6y ago

What’s labeled centrist in the US would be considered basically authoritarian fascism in most of the rest of the western world.

naniwaduni 6y ago
Not as much as you'd like to think of the "western world" is northern and western Europe. The "rest" of it includes, among other things, most of eastern Europe and pretty much all of South America.
- rbanffy 6y ago
  I can say that "What’s labeled centrist in the US would be considered basically authoritarian fascism in most of Western Europe" and it'd still be right.
  - naniwaduni 6y ago
    You'd be more right, and also it'd sound notably less impressive than the expansive claim about the western world.
- bawolff 6y ago
  The "western world" as a term is understood to mean Australia, Canada, Catholic and Protestant Europe, New Zealand, plus the United States [definition from wikipedia]. Not saying that isn't silly, but everyone understands that the western world does not include those other places.
  - naniwaduni 6y ago
    It's a rhetorical bait-and-switch. It is "understood" to mean (essentially) Protestant Europe when making strong claims, but gesturing at the broader notion of West to imply a scale larger than that at which the claim is credible. In any case, even "Australia, Canada, Catholic and Protestant Europe, New Zealand, plus the United States" is too broad of a definition to make GP's claim true.

GVIrish 6y ago

> As a South African all of this is fascinating. Especially the shift of where the "center" is. > It seemed every American not on the left is called "far right" from where I am sitting. What you are seeing is polarization. At the current moment, a lot of the Republican party has moved away from more moderate Republicanism and more towards Trumpism, which is a far right movement. Fact is that more Republican Congress members voted to punish a moderate Republican like Liz Cheney for voting to impeach Trump, than voted to remove Marjorie Greene from committee assignments for claiming school shootings and 9/11,were a hoax and that California wildfires were caused by a Jewish space laser. It's not that anyone who isn't left is now considered far right. It's that a lot of people who were more moderate Republicans in the past, have moved much farther to the right. There are more people on the left side of the political spectrum that moved father out too, but not enough to even nominate one of the far left candidates for president.

enko123 6y ago

Left has the reins of power, so they don't need to pretend they care about tolerance, freedom, or the rule of law anymore.

rbanffy 6y ago
And you say that after 4 years of a right-wing presidency and after at least 8 of right-wing legislative overstepping. We all know Merrick Garland should be on the SCOTUS. He isn't because a right-wing senate didn't allow a black president to nominate him.

Semaphor 6y ago

> It seemed every American not on the left is called "far right" from where I am sitting. From my perspective as a German, you have the centrist democrats that swing quite a bit in both directions, and the republicans who swing from center right to "makes our local right wing extremist party drool"-right.

jonathanstrange 6y ago
I can confirm that. The whole political landscape in the US is skewed to the right and has always been. So are their political positions, e.g. the word "social democracy" plays almost no role and "liberal" either means "extreme left" or, even worse and more incorrect, is used as a synonym to libertarianism by white supremacists and neo-Nazis who disguise themselves as "libertarians." I guess it's the result of having a two-party system.