The enlightened centrism is strong in this one. No, the US don’t have a conflict of left vs. right. The conflict is between the right and everyone else. And most of the right are just rubes who think they being part of some kind of movement but in reality are just being fleeced by a bunch of grifters
I’d say the curve it’s much flatter on the left side. As in right side is shouting tankie, meanwhile there are like 2 tankies and the right wants to set the whole barn on fire to get them both.
Meanwhile thr Tankies are in the Right’s barn the entire time.
Not just the right vs. everyone else, the right vs. everyone. The right is also fighting itself.
The left is also fighting itself. Literally the comment chains in this post are prime examples.
People who probably align with the majority of the stances, tearing each other down with bad faith arguments, grandstanding over the remaining things they disagree on.
“Perfect is the enemy of good.”
I might not politically align with the average .ml user, but my views are a hell of a lot closer aligned with them than MAGAt views.
The left largely fights by arguing, which can lead to better ideas if people are open to listen. That isn’t always the case, but it’s a possibility. The right is fighting with homicide.
Liberals perceive criticism for enabling the right and opposing the left at every opportunity as left in-fighting.
The left identifies the liberals as part of the right.
Right of what?
Where is the left fighting itself? I only see leftists fighting liberals in the comments.
Same
Grifters? They’re hellbent on christofascism.
And if they suffer under that Christofacist regime they helped bring about? That is righteous and holy suffering, and their reward will be eternal in Heaven.
Voting against their interest? No, they are voting in their eternal interests, so what does it matter if they endure poverty, violence, sickness, famine and the destruction of our biome in this life? 'Tis but a moment before the beauty they have earned in the Here After brother!
also the usa has never had a true left to begin with, being the most right wing of the western countries should be telling.its most like right on right-lite violence/rhetoric
Perfect example of this was Jimmy Kimmel. He openly said that shooting a commentator was a horrible thing, and tried to call for moderation. MAGA declared that wasn’t enough, and ordered him fired.
They have specified that if you’re not with them, you’re against them.
Kimmel got fired for pointing the spotlight back at Trump and Epstein. Had nothing to do with Kirk.
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Doesn’t directly bringing up “enlightened centrism” (I assume sarcastically) from a non-right position indicate disdain for centrism? That would be a conflict between whatever you are and both centrists (for not being where you are - right of you, but to them, still left of the Right) and the Right.
Also, if you’re aware of the Three Percenters and their claim that only 3% of colonial America supported the revolution, it means that even if they’re off by a factor of 10, with 30% for the revolution, and 30% against, it leaves 40%, a plurality of people, who have the sentiment from this meme where they just want to be left alone and not forced against their will into a conflict that indroduces instability and violence to their lives.
“Enlightened centrism” is not the same as centrism and yes that label is meant to be sarcastic. There are basically two kinds of enlightened centrists. One are right-wingers who want to avoid the social stigma of being far right. The other one are people who close their eyes to the blatant attempt by the right wing to destroy democracy and pretend everything is normal. That’s what basically the corporate media are doing.
OK, so just to recap:
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You start off by deriding anyone that isn’t carrying the same label as you as either evil or stupid.
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Immediately and unironically say that it’s only the Right vs. everyone else after just saying that it’s the Left vs. everyone else because they’re either wearing your label or they’re Secret Hitler or an idiot.
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Double down and imagine that everyone actually has secret but strong political feelings and simply are confused or too chicken shit to reveal them, but that all the secret opinions of average people are not just mildly conservative, but actually full-on far-right?
My friend, I’m not sure you understand how many people don’t spend 18 hours a day online reading political news. Because that’s exactly how you end up alienating normal people who are all out of fucks to give about politics, and fracturing opposition to fascism like you’re doing here. You’re not helping anyone but the fascists by calling the people stuck in the middle fascists for just trying to live their lives.
Case in point, this is a shitpost comm and you’re too wrapped up in your self-labeling to read the room and the meme that most people don’t care about the things you care about. That’s the meme, and lesson, that you missed.
Polls are usually pretty consistent in that the majority of people (usually between about 65% to sometimes up to 80%): 1) Don’t actually care about politics at all, which is a big part of why we have a representative democracy in the first place, 2) Certainly don’t keep up with political news or even the actual news that much, 3) Are so self-absorbed and wrapped up in their own affairs that until the rapid disintegration of the nation and Constitution affects them specifically, they won’t even notice because they have a job and kids and a universe of other shit to be doing so they want the status quo always, whatever that was.
Which is all supported in depth by game theory studies about what it takes to get people out in the streets. Which you clearly can’t be bothered to think about because we’re all secret nazis and idiots you wouldn’t associate with in the streets, right?
You’re taking the same bait that Mandella fought against people taking in South Africa. Apartheid specialized in turning everyone who wasn’t white against each other. Fracturing opposition was how a small minority stayed in power for generations.
Which is exactly how the GOP managed to work out Red Stating and Gerrymander me and my formerly solid blue district into a solid red district. That’s not on me. That’s on you for fracturing opposition to fascism, like you’re happily doing here, because all the rest of us aren’t “pure” enough - because most people are either secret Nazis or idiots, right? I get the same shit from the GOP, but they actually accomplish the shit they set out to do, so at least I have something to react against.
For the people who not only do care about politics, but also hate every bit of it and just want people to shut the fuck up and do rational policy stuff without egos like big boys and girls, it’s cringe to see shit like “Hur durr, all Centrists are just closeted Nazis!” because it undoes coalition; it accomplishes exactly what fascists love to see - infighting among their opposition. You give them power like this, with uninformed blanket statements that alienate people who actually ARE fighting these people and now know that you can’t be counted on as an ally. But that’s fine, I know for sure that I 100% can not count on the Left to accomplish a damn thing because y’all are too enthralled with the Old Money Traditional Branding BS the Dems offer you so they can once again use you up to trot out Candidate Dickbag and get you genuinely thinking “yeah, this time, they’re gonna win!” before they lose again and steal your money and time and energy.
But I expect you stopped reading 4 words in and said to yourself “yeah, secret Nazi I think. Or idiot. Either way, I have to hate that one, too” and turned away an ally once again.
Edit: Downvote all you want - look at exactly what the Democrats are doing to the Left right now. This is not an appeal to centrism - this is a party appeal to stay in power because they’ve fucked themselves.
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Letter from Birmingham Jail, MLK Jr.
Can I be a leftist without being a tankie then?
Yes? You do realize tankies are a minority group and that in many nations “leftist” is just a normal political position?
I’m honestly not sure what you’re trying to say here
I think they’re interpreting your response to the meme as “centrism bad” while the meme in question only offers Nazi, Tankie, or Centrist. These sort of mixups happen in these discussions where the implied context is just so massive.
The vast majority of communists globally are “tankies”. I know that Westerners don’t consider non-westerners to be “real” though
Define tankie? What is this based on?
Good thing the political spectrum left of center is far more nuanced than just being communism, then.
Also, not going to get into a debate about whether certain people should be considered people or whatever you’re baiting, sounds like fascism to me.
I disagree that left of center is more nuanced than communism. Most communists historically reject all forms of sectarianism, although we can fall into it anyway for a lot of reasons. I have love and admiration for many progressive liberals, and leftists that are not communists (commies are often not the most left faction, leninists tend to be more center left.) When you get to this level of analysis though, left right and center stop being useful and you have to dig into actual issues and political action.
But many progressive liberals are wrongheaded or idealist and dualist, which is not conducive to nuance. But also people are often much more deep and full of insight than their politics suggest
“thinking that non-westerners are people sounds like fascism to me. I’m a leftist by the way”
All people are people, regardless of where they live. Borders are just another way for capitalists to fuel the class war. Keep malding that I’m not a tankie 🤙
Incoherent.
To me it looks like you’re trying to paint everyone who’s not a Nazi or a tankie as an ‘enlightened centrist’.
🤷 try glasses
Try anarchism. Goes down smooth
i’ve known too many people who went anarchist > ancap > asshole > sovcit. I’m sure it works well for you, but i feel like it’s playing with
fireblack tar heroinSay what. No one I know has ever gone down that route. Anarchism is the furthest reach from ancap or sovcit.
I guess I and my friends have the antidote: read some actual theory. You couldn’t possibly agree with theory then go ancap. Sounds like you’re describing YouTube anarchists.
Yes, you can even be a communist without being a tankie.
tankie is, as i understand it, a combination of authoritarianism, leftism, and some weird nostalgia for the soviet union i’m not entirely sure i’ve just been casually trying to pick stuff up.
That’s more likely to be Nationalist Bolshevism. The correct term is should be ‘NazBol’ and they’re nationalistic right wingers.
Keep in mind some users on Lemmy use the term ‘tankie’ to include anyone with opposition to capitalism and will argue to include anyone who is pro-palestinian or even anti-war ironically.
But those users just so happen to be critics of the Nuremburg Trial verdicts, so their opinions matter less than the NazBols to begin with.
i remember talking about the nuremburg trials with some… now that i think about of it most of them were lawyer friends, and i only have basic education about the nuremburg trials. a few of them have studied them in depth, and now that i think about it the only criticism i ever heard about the verdict was, if you’ll allow me to paraphrase, “you’re going to spend your whole life disappointed if you keep expecting everything to be perfect”.
Here I distinctly recall a user calling the execution of Julius Streicher an inhumane act and that we lost our humanity executing unrepentant Nazis.
So that’s fun.
so i’m very much not a fan of the death penalty as i’ve seen the criminal punishment system fuck up. a lot. they’ve gotta be above reproach if we can trust them with literal power over life and death.
at the same time, unrepentant Nazi. if it had been up to me, I’d’ve wanted to give him the ol’ Robert-François Damiens. first: people are allowed contradictions. second: sometimes the brutality is part of the point. hold the unrepentant nazis up for generations as villains. don’t allow them to be buried in normal cemeteries. Take their ashes and spread them around the country to be on permanent display in each and every post office as an example of why you don’t fuck with the postmaster. teach your kids “you end up being one of those damn nazis i’ll put you in the community ash jar myself”. we really could have done better.
Not now that the term has expanded to mean everything to the left of Kamala Harris.
Absolutely. There are numerous strains of leftist philosophy that are anti-authoritarian.
I’m too uneducated on politics (read: stupid) to even know what left and right means. Where do I land
Well they are slightly vague terms, so please don’t feel stupid. A shocking amount of people who think they know, don’t know.
Left wing politics are generally about a rejection of hierarchy of people. Consequently, they tend to be interested in an international community because we are all the same and deserve the same. As freedom is something that everyone wants for themselves, the left tend to be in favor of an equally free community, e.g. freedom to love.
Right wing politica are generally about hierarchy of people. But not because the hierarchy is necessarily the point, but it tend to be in favor of maintaining the current state, Which just happens to be hierarchical. And usually everything get viewed from a hierarchical pov. E.g. nationalism is a hierarchical view of country and people, your country and its people above other country and their people.
Obviously you could point at the historical stance of us republicans that they want a small government and argue that a small government creates less of 2 class citizens, the law markers and the citizens. But the left would point out that a small government just enables the powerful people to exploit the weak people and create more 2 class citizens.
On the left: The strong hierarchy in the previous attempts of “communism” is the reason why some people will say that true communism was never tried. Other will argue that you need a little bit of authority to run a communustic state.
So the whole thing is a little more complex than “freedom” and “restrictions” and who supports what “restrictions” when.
Most people have confused politics. If you want to land somewhere you need to educate yourself and develop principles so that instead of not knowing where you’ll land, you’ll know exactly where you stand
Right: in favor of privately owned means of production.
Left: in favor of publicly owned means of production.might need to back up a little. personal, private, and public ownership are different things in one of the areas i worked in. same distinction? personal property is still legal, just privately held businesses not so much. brain’s fuzzy, am i remembering right?
Firstly, this concept only applies to means of production, as in the stuff that is used to produce stuff which could be sold. So e. g. a sewing machine.
Without getting into the weeds:
a. Personal: You own and operate the sewing machine, you pay for the resources consumed and own the item produced. (Good)
b. Private: You own the sewing machine but someone else operates it. You pay the resources consumed, the laborer a previously agreed upon amount and own the item they produced. (bad)
c. Public: the public owns the sewing machine and pays for the resources consumed. The laborer is paid the value of their work. That is, the value of the item produced minus the value of the resources consumed. (Very good)
How “the public” and “the value” are determined is the source of leftist infighting (anarchists vs marxist-leninist). But since both agree that private ownership needs to be abolished the call is for leftist unity to stand together against the people that currently own the means of production privately (the bourgeoisie) and exploit those that have to sell their laborforce in order to survive (the proletariat).
thanks for the refresher! i have worked in too many similar fields with bullshit jargon where they have basically made homophones antonyms just to fuck with anyone who decides to get uppity and do anything cross-discipline so now my brain is:
it’s one of those “i know i learned this somewhere, and i’ll remember in 3 days i’m sure!” things so thanks for helping a fellow out.No issue, here is a good intro to Marxism if you want it https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/index.htm
Six strawmen in a single post! Well done, that must be some kind of record!
Reeeeeeeeeee I spouted centrist nonsense in a leftist space and I’m getting ratio’d reeeeeee
The ratio is not enough.
It is clever, you see, that any disagreement must be done online, therefore reinforcing the premise of the meme.
This is bullshit
Trying to pretend that there’s a concerted far-left effort to create civil war in 'Murica is patently absurd
Sure, there may be a handful of nutters, but they pale in comparison to the number of far-right who are actively lusting for the blood of the people they hate and fear
It also tries to downplay political division “in real life”. In real life, the American president is a fascist serial-rapist pedophile directing a masked police force to deport legal residents without due process, illegally deploying the national guard against citizens, and grifting shitcoins and accepting bribes in plain sight.
Yeah fuck this post. The only ones driving it are the far-right. You’d have to be ignorant to be blaming liberals for the crap going on today.
I think that the Tankies are not left, like at all, but there is absolutely a concerted and even state funded operation to create any and all destruction and violence that they’re capable of causing.
Wasn’t there a movement to have the western states cecede after the last 2 Trump wins?
Trying to pretend that there’s a concerted far-left effort to create civil war in 'Murica is patently absurd
Idk man, I spent altogether too much time over in .ml, and now my view on what is “far left” has changed quite drastically. And that group certainly seems hell bent on starting a civil war.
There are absolutely far more MAGAs, but the tankies are, unfortunately, still far left.
If you think lemmy is immune to outside agitators, then you’re kidding yourself
I’m certain that there are interested groups trying to whip up a few lunatics so that “the left” can be pitted against the right, and blamed for violence, but there’s no doubt that there’s a far larger audience of people in the US who are eager to lean into fascism and spill blood when they are encouraged
Bruh there’s like a triple-digit number of tankies in all of North America lmao. Meanwhile half of the USA is MAGA. If you need to visualize this, go look for literally any act of violence motivated by far-left beliefs. There’s what, like two in the last 30 years? Claiming any sort of equivalence between MAGA and the left is just false.
Who over at .ml is trying to start a civil war?
Uh… fucking cope hard. The Nazis won’t care about your enlightened centrism when they arrest you for being brown and/or the wrong kind of white.
“I think we need a mixture of both!”, he shouts while be loaded into a cattle car.
Anyone who stands against genocide and opposes war has been lumped in with “tankie” for a long while now. That centrist is empowering the Nazis.
Thank you.
Because being a passive centrist while the world slides towards authoritarianism, global conflict, and environmental holocaust is not morally acceptable.
You don’t have to be a Tankie to want to fight these fascist fucks and their suicidal agenda.
Well if you say anything like ‘we shouldn’t give weapons to Nazis,’ you’re going to be labeled a tankie, too.
I mean a lot of people don’t want to have their way of life userped by these radical idiots. One side is calling for a civil war and the other side is effectively campaigning for concentration camps. Normal people don’t want to engage with either brand of insanity. They just want to go to work and go home, spend time with their family.
The left is not calling for a Civil War. They’re demanding basic human rights for everyone, and the capitalists have made it clear they’d rather kill everyone.
If you feel equally threatened by the left and the right, it’s because you support fascism. You just prefer a lighter flavor of it that you benefit from.
“Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
But sometimes history comes along and says “too bad.” There is no historical precedent for fascism or extreme wealth inequality being corrected by electoral politics.
If you’re able to comfortably sit on the fence, recognize two facts: One, that’s a position of entitlement (Plenty of people are already having their lives destroyed by what’s happening). Two, being passive is choosing to allow authoritarianism to win.
To reiterate, I’m not a Tankie. I don’t whitewash the heinous history of revolutions, upheaval, and failed government systems. And I am positive that I’m screaming into the void. In every historical example I’ve studied, the comfortable middle class eventually sides with elite authority and not the peasants. And the peasants always lose. But the alternative is too awful to surrender to. Centralized techno-fascism and eventual catastrophic conflict with China are what’s in-store.
I don’t believe that’s true. I’m not aware of any revolution the peasants lost.
Someone misinterpreted the post.
Another centrist who thinks the left just doesn’t get it.
if you were a centrist before 2020, and you still are in 2025, then you’ve moved Right, since the Overton window shifted Right.
if you kept your principles you’re now Left. that’s how the window works.
tankies are such a small niche group, i dont think theres enough of them to have a significant on policy, unlike right wingers have real numbers on thier hands.
They run TikTok among many other CCP funded operations, I wouldn’t disregard them personally.
You’re not wrong. Many of them are exposed to propaganda on TikTok and it is a growing issue. Espionage is being done to divide the left and consolidate the right. Just because it’s not as noticeable as the propaganda from the right doesn’t mean that it’s not having subtle effects. If it gets people to disengage or not look out for their best interests then it is effective. All this to say, there is a way to bring about positive change and that has to do with being involved locally.
Lol
The tankies engaged in hypercapitalism
Unironically yes, to a Tankie the word Capitalism doesn’t mean Capitalism, it means western nation adversarial to China and their military allies.
Isn’t there a difference between the right and the far right though
I wouldn’t say so, I’m a consequentialist so when I see a pedophile felon in the white house removing the 14th amendment while not a single GOP congressman opposes him, I feel like the entirety of the US right is effectively gone and only the far right remains.
The right is sill around. They just have a ‘D’ next to their name.
Ah yeah sure, taxing the rich, removing money from politics, making healthcare and bodily autonomy a human right, all such right ideals. /sarcasm
I don’t think any of this happened last time the democrats were in charge? Or any other time before that. Seen from Europe, democrats are definitely right of center, just less so than republicans.
The DNC haven’t had more than 48 senate seats in over ten years, and just before that they expanded medicaid to tens of millions of americans.
Taxing the Rich was the Harris Campaign, with promise of a unrealized capital gains tax for earners over $1M USD, and enshrining Roe V. Wade as well as many other things in the list require defeating fillibuster, but even if the senate had changed the rules to bypass fillibuster: only 48 seats.
Quality of life has declined in the USA and progress has stagnated. And I know why. Only 48 seats.
All I’m saying is everything is further to the right in the US. These things you listed aren’t even partisan issues here, they’re just normal things. But I see you’re just downvoting and arguing so I’ll be on way cheers.
That’s what the democratic socialists and social democrats want, sure.
The rest of the Democrats call them radicals and Hakeem Jeffries just told them to leave the party.
It’s core DNC policy stance. Even Hillary Clinton campaigned against Citizens United, even Harris proposed unrealized gains taxes over $1M, every DNC supports Medicaid expansion.
We’ll leave aside that those policies don’t line up as well with your initial statement as we’re pretending because that still leaves us at Jeffries telling everyone not a neoliberal to fuck off.
Him and the other 94 Democratic reps that voted to honor a Nazi propagandist don’t seem to have received the memo that’s there’s plenty of general policy to align on.
the one’s who do the bad shit and the one’s who support it. sure if thats enough difference for you ig
In many cases, I think so. People everywhere get their morality from culture. Since many people are raised conservative, and risk damaging their social connection in their community by straying from conservative values, people can be very protective of certain social conventions and perspectives, out of fear of social isolation or even alienating themselves from their actual nature in order to adhere to social convention.
Its an understatement to say that the far right/fascism weaponizes this fact. But many many conservatives are workers which means that they share lived exploitation with the rest of us. Capitalism is the force that divides the working class, and when we participate in divisive/sectarian tendencies then whatever ideology we claim, leftist or whatever, then we are carrying water for the billionaire class.
Its not always that simple though. Many people experience real trauma by having conservative values thrust upon them. Objective morality is a plague, but so is dualism. We need to think completely differently and work with others to navigate these dynamics
Thanks for the grasroots money, this small group is actually very loud. The loudest of them all. They maintain the illusion that communism is when you like Russia, and that’s their entire purpose
The fuck are you babbling
.ml
You know exactly what I’m talking about, don’t be all shy about it now
I just joined the devs’ instance for technical support reasons, not ideological ones. I’m certainly not a tankie, gross.
So no, I still don’t know what you mean with that “money”.
For examle, Russia spends enormous amount of money on foreign propaganda, both internaly and externally. That money.
Imagine looking at the current state of the USA and saying “communists are the problem!”
If you think the next US civil war will be fought between Nazis and Marxist-Leninists, you don’t understand American politics very well. The US in 2025 isn’t Stalingrad in 1942.
Nitpick: They’re Marxist-Leninists, not Marxism-Leninists.
The very model of the modern major liberal.
This can be attributed to a method of gaining and maintaining political power called divide and conquer. Poisoning the discourse with targeted manipulation in (social) media, while treating politics as kind of bizarre and grievous reality TV show, where everyone is trying to throw the biggest pile of verbal shit on the other.
It’s not a bell curve. It’s a trumpet headed to the right.
Wait does bellend mean at the end of a bell curve?
Bellend means penis tip cos it looks kind of like a bell
I would have never guessed
Double entendre.
No its what german dogs do.
