7 ms·
Is it me or would shitload of issues just go away if there was a viable centrist party?
by qaq 5y ago
Is it me or would shitload of issues just go away if there was a viable centrist party?
- root_axis 5y agoThere is no agreed upon definition of centrist.
- ethbr0 5y ago"Whatever makes all other sides equally angry, or at least disappointed."
- x86_64Ubuntu 5y agoThat's what centrist would mean in a vacuum, but in the US it generally means concern-trolling the Left while being a full-time apologist for the Right. I have yet to meet a "centrist" who is more concerned about what the Right is doing than they are about how the Left speaks about what the Right is doing (tone-policing and such).
- ethbr0 5y agoDoes it? I've met a ton of self-described centrists that think people being unreasonable is unreasonable.
- ceejayoz 5y agoThat's the Democratic Party. What we don't have is a viable leftist party.
- space_fountain 5y agoHow do you define leftist? I think I hear this complaint online about nearly every country. I think something about the population’s opinion would be how I would define it
- bitwize 5y agoLeftists favor emancipation of the people from the capitalist system. There is no significant anticapitalist party in the USA. A Democrat who is narratized as "left-wing" in the USA for supporting universal health care, trans rights, etc. would be considered centrist anywhere else in the developed world.
- space_fountain 5y agoWell first no, the democrats position on trans rights for example is more left than lots of places just look at the UK. Even some position on healthcare don’t universally line up as centrist. But more importantly shouldn’t we define these terms by the political situation on the ground? The dems are at very least on the left wing of American politics
- nebula8804 5y agoDon't forget that what is considered centrist has shifted over time. Hell even giving fair and equal civil rights to all peoples was a radical leftist idea not too long ago. Before the civil rights act passed the country was very much in favor of a lot of the "far left" ideas being proposed today.
- space_fountain 5y agoTotally, my point is less about what's right. Honestly the trans stuff is a big reason I can't see myself living in the UK right now, but about where the parties exist in the range of public opinion and the US democratic party is a left of center party by most definitions I can come up with
- efdee 5y agoLooking in from the outside, it looks like the Democrats are 50% centric and 50% leftist. Not sure where else you would put Bernie and friends if not "leftist".
- ceejayoz 5y agoThere's a somewhat leftist portion of the Democrats, but Bernie's signature positions - a public option for healthcare, parental leave, free college, etc. - are the sort of stuff that are table stakes in Europe, even for the center-right parties.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- nebula8804 5y agoIf the Democrats were 50% Left then Bernie would be president right now. I would count less than 10 people as real Left wing in the party. The qualifier should be do they actively push for progressive values? Because if they just join the progressive caucus that does not mean anything if they don't actually do anything to promote progressive causes. Speaking as someone who volunteered for multiple real progressive candidates across the country: The Democratic party leadership absolutely despises the real Left wing of their party. They don't want them but need their votes. They will continue to do everything to undermine them. There is no left party, just a far right corporatist party and a centrist corporatist party. Thats all.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ohCh6zos 5y agoI would argue we have two leftist parties and no conservative parties, but I suspect I lean to the right of US mean and you lean to the left of the US mean?
- ceejayoz 5y agoIf you think the Republicans are leftist, I suspect lean is a misnomer.
- jandrese 5y agoI'm slightly scared to ask what a right wing party would look like if the current Republican party is considered leftist.
- CRConrad 5y agoThe answer to that wouldn't even invoke Godwin's Law, because you'd be too far right for thst to apply.
- nebula8804 5y agoIt would look like complete loss of credibility for the US as a country to look up to(and the consequences that go with that). Our hero is in another castle.
- disgruntledphd2 5y agoThat's a really interesting perspective to me, as I feel the opposite (I'm not a US citizen or resident though). Can you clarify what a US conservative party would look like?
- ohCh6zos 5y agoI feel like a conservative party would abolish whole classes of social programs and remove the complexity of taxation instead of a constant debate over what percentages were correct while the national debt shoots out of control on their watch. They would be isolationist instead of different flavors of world police. They would be incredibly self-limiting constitutionalists which would dramatically limit their own power, instead of the constant fascistic expansions of power.
- dghughes 5y agoA parliamentary system of government with multiple political parties may do well in the US. Here in Canada we have at least four parties; Liberal, Conservatives, NDP, Green. It is more than likely each election will result in a minority government which means the popular parties 2nd place maybe even 3rd have a say as well. The problem is the US would also have to allow elections at any time with a parliamentary system. The leader of the party in power is the Prime Minister and if he or his party screw up a non-confidence vote can be cast. Then we go to the polls again. It has to be elections anytime, multiple parties, possible minority governments they all go together.
- halpert 5y agoI don't think so. The first thing to understand about US politics is that almost 40% of the population is evangelical. There can be no constructive political discourse with that type of demographic skew. In addition to the generally irrational beliefs held by evangelicals (e.g. the earth being 6000 years old), they tend to vote as a unified block. The remaining 60% of the population generally has disparate interests and doesn't have a strongly unified vote.
- ameister14 5y agoIf accurate, that would mean that there was no constructive political discourse in Europe period prior to the 20th century and certainly never has been any in the US, South or Central America. I disagree, so I think that's probably not the first thing to understand about US politics. Oh, also, you're incorrect - according to Pew it's closer to 25%.
- halpert 5y agohttps://news.gallup.com/poll/1690/religion.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/1690/religion.aspx As of 2020, the number was 34% responding yes to "Would you describe yourself as a "born-again" or evangelical Christian?". In 2019, it was 37%, and 42% in 2017. Pre-20th century Europe is not a great example of constructive political discourse btw: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_wars_of_religion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_wars_of_religion
- ameister14 5y agohttps://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/ https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/ "born-again" and "evangelical" are not interchangeable terms, though there is significant cross-over. That's why you'll get a higher number if you ask if someone is either born again or evangelical than if you ask if they are evangelical alone.
- dfxm12 5y agoAre you mistaking Catholicism for Evangelicalism?
- ethbr0 5y agoThey would. But a viable centrist party in the US would require an electoral college allocation system that rewards centrality, instead of 50%+1.
- unethical_ban 5y agoWork on bringing more parties into the fold isn't just for the presidency. It is for statehouses and Congress, as well.
- lostlogin 5y agoTwo party systems have really done their dash. But how would anyone change the US system?
- ako 5y agoSeeing that both US parties are right wing according to most definitions in the world, a new US center party would be nice to the left of the democrats. Might not be a bad idea, as it might make the democrats more acceptable to republicans?
- unethical_ban 5y agoIt would absolutely help. We humans divide ourselves politically into groups. Washington's lament of the rise of factions was noble but naive. We need a voting system that enables political parties in the United States to rise and fall. People need more than two choices. I believe changing our electoral systems for all levels of government to something like Ranked Choice or Approval (or multi-member systems) is the defining institutional change needed of our time. It won't directly solve every first-order issue directly (taxation, spending, social safety nets, military, scope of government, etc). It will, however, allow us to break ourselves out into more representative groups of ideas. It will force politicians and parties to compete on the merits of their own ideas rather than "not the other party". It will allow voters to vote for ideas rather than against others. The concept of "lesser evil" will be weakened if not broken. I believe it is critical for the culture and political survival of the United States to move away from first-past-the-post voting.
- stefan_ 5y agoThe US political system guarantees exactly 2 parties, who predictably waste most of their time on "enemy of my enemy".
- x86_64Ubuntu 5y agoSo what would the centrist viewpoint be in this scenario?