Quote:
Originally Posted by The Slim Reaper
Labour had a massive majority post election, and instead of using that majority to implement policies that the country was/is desperate for, they ran straight to the right. That is exactly what I've said about centrism from the off - political blank pages who only exist to pave the way for right wing politics. I also pointed out, that centrism is generally (but not completely) for folks who don't want to admit they are right wing themselves.
Everything I said is playing out right in front of our eyes, and even the reasoning (the bit in bold) you give, is the perfect encapsulation of my description of centrism.
For 5 years we've heard about the adults being back in charge, and how this is an end to student politics (because the politics that built this country post war can now be dismissed in such ridiculous fashion). Starmer, the lawyer, surgically cutting through the tory lies. It was blatantly obvious that the emperor was stark bollock naked.
We were told he was only acting a bit right wing to win power, and once the election was over he would moderate and move back to the left. Again, absolutely nothing about him or his cabinet is remotely left wing. Reeves was criticising the tories in 2014 for not going far enough with austerity, and yet the left was lectured constantly.
This is everything a centrist could have wanted - a centrist party with a massive majority, and well, here we are.
So it's not centrism, it's psychological manipulation, well that's the same psychological manipulation the left have been talking about for decades, and again, when push comes to shove - centrism goes right, not just occasionally, but pretty much exclusively.
Centrism votes the 2nd candidate, and that's just a fact we are witnessing in real time.
|
I maintain that we've never disagreed on any of this and what passes as the actual political centre is very different to individual supposed-centre vs. political nuance; you conflate the "center-ism" of supposedly trying to walk a tightrope on every issue vs simply not being swept into partisan politics on an individual level. You might be right about "most claiming the center" to be shy-righties but that's really no different to the rest of the political ignorance (blind right and blind left) - most people just don't HAVE their own informed or well rounded opinion, it's all different shades of the same thing, like I said democracy in the age of fast (dis)information and instant communication is fundamentally broken.
Where we've had a sticking point in the past is in when I point out the danger of blinkered left-wing stonewalling and ideologically driven anti-intellectualism and that it has been a key catalyst in sending a large chunk of "Well I Don't Really Know Much About That"s over to the right, or rather, into the arms of the propagandists claiming they're going to sort it all out.
Ultimately it doesn't really matter, I don't think you've tended to agree and seem to believe that if "centrists" had just hushed up and stopped pointing out the glaring inconsistencies (and frequent gaslighting) present in left-leaning rhetoric then somehow we wouldn't be here and the right wouldn't be rising... whereas (to put it briefly) I actually think left-wing propaganda has been used, deliberately, to galvanise the right and to great effect. And here we are. The trigger's been pulled.