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  • "Centrists" are those that oppose authoritarianism in all forms. The far left and and far right make rationalizations about why their preferred flavour of authoritarianism is good (it just gets a bad rap!) while pretending to vehemently oppose the other side's flavour of authoritarianism.

    But in the end, those who rationalize in favour of any kind of authoritarianism could easily be manipulated into supporting any other kind of authoritarianism. There's a reason the Nazis called themselves the Nationalist Socialist party, just a small amount branding can get a good number "leftists" to support fascism. Because few people actually think in ideological terms, they just go along with the group and repeat whatever ideological bullshit they've heard to conform with the group. It's easier to turn a socialist into a fascist (and vice versa) since it's mostly just about branding.

    Socialists and Fascists love the concept of political spectrum they can put themselves on opposite ends of, but that's all an artificial construct to allow for fear of the other to rationalize the need for a strongman to protect them from the other side that supposedly has completely different values than them. But the "far right" and "far left" have both been conned into being willing to give up their rights in fear of the other. Fascism is a convenient rationalization for communism and communism is a convenient rationalization for fascism. These "ideologies" has a symbiotic relationship with each other.

    Those who fall for these grifts believe the verbal diarrhea of demagogues that use a lot of words and say little other than give a vague feeling of "trust me, give me power, I will make you stronger / more equal". The stupid see someone using a lot of words and don't notice there isn't any real explanation of how the demagogue will deliver on their vague promises. They just need to hate the same people their audience hates and use a lot of words, and the stupid will eat whatever bullshit is thrown at them.

    Internet podcasting has allowed people to have an endless selection of small time demagogues to choose from. The flavour of authoritarianism the stupid will fall prey to is entirely dependent on which content an algorithm selects for them. And that is based on content they may consumed before puberty. These grifters need to get them while they're young, someone with more life experience will be more likely to say "yeah sure that's a lot of fancy words, but how does any of that help me right now?" which they don't have an answer for.

    • Right now we live in a dictatorship of the wealthy. The capitalists control productive forces, decide how the majority of us spend our time, and lobby governments in their own interests. On the other hand, the workers, the people that labored to create everything we need, are given a fraction of the value of what they produce in the form of wages. In other words, every person that survives on their wages is exploited by necessity. We are institutionally coerced to sell our labor (i.e., make money for the capitalist) or fall into abject destitution.

      Centrists obviously don't see the dictatorship. We live in a time where the rule of the wealthy is as normal as the divine right of kings once was. Accordingly, centrists may be sensible enough to see the following trends as problems, but they tend to think of them as entirely disconnected:

      • Stagnating wages (despite rising productivity)
      • The wealth gap
      • Corporate offshoring
      • Periodic recessions
      • Perpetual aggressive wars
      • Millions around the globe living in abject poverty
      • Literal slavery abroad to produce cheaper consumer goods
      • Literal slavery domestically in prisons
      • Skyrocketing cost of living (food, shelter, gas, education, healthcare, childcare, etc)
      • Functional monopolies (despite anti-monopoly laws)
      • Politicians in the pockets of billionaires
      • Climate change (despite decades of warning from scientists)

      Marxist theory can explain all of these problems, and in many cases predicted them before they happened. But if the billionaires can convince people like you that a better economic system is synonymous with authoritarianism, and that continuing capitalist wealth extraction is the reasonable "center" position, then they can prevent the workers from banding together against the ruling class.

  • EDIT: after thinking about it for a couple of hours, my take was really bad, and i'm gonna clarify:

    There is significant difference between the republicans and the non-republicans in the US, which is that the republicans are extremely racist. And that's not just a "little bit of racist", but a "fucking huge bit of racist", on top of that. So there's a clear distinction.

    As a side fact, i'd still like to point out that "fascism" as a term is surprisingly difficult to define. Everybody likes to be "against" fascism, but it's an emotional catch-phrase without a cut-and-dry definition. That's why i tend to avoid it in discussion, or if i do use it, i give it the following meaning: "Fascism is an illegal way of seizing power in order to do something that you want." Note that illegal does not inherently imply immoral. There can be moral causes for why somebody does something illegal, such as with slave uprisings as happened around 1800 in northern america. That, according to my definition, is illegal (in the sense that the law said it's illegal), but not immoral, but since the definition of "fascism", according to me, concerns whether it's illegal to do something, not immoral, it would have been fascist too, by that definition. That's to show that fascism is not inherently good or evil, but it depends on what you do with it.

    the original comment is below for historical purposes

    I used to think that "left" and "right" were diametrically opposed terms, but i don't see it that way anymore:

    • imperialism: Imperialism means to conquer other countries for the sake of imposing your own norms and values on them. That's actually what the northern states of the US did to the southern states of the US before they became the US. sure, lots of people argue that the values were worthwhile (being against slavery), but it's still imposing your values on somebody else.
    • fascism: at this point, i'm not sure what "fascism" even means anymore. isn't it just to do something illegal to get what you want? isn't every change in human history illegal, before it becomes the new norm? wasn't it illegal for gay people to stand for their rights in the 20th century?
    • because it's a recent topic, i'd like to give another neat example: liberals from the coastline will loudly proclaim that the conservative "child marriage" (starting at age 14) laws are a monstrosity (because that's, idk, child abuse or sth), but at the same time, you will find in many schools in the coastside a subject called "sex education" where people learn to use condoms and such. such classes are typically held at about age 13 or sth (well, it was for me). guess why they do it? because they recognize that teenagers do in fact have desires to experiment with sexuality, and offering the courses is simply recognizing that and making the best out of it. [EDIT - ok nvm this point, i don't actually know exactly what the "child marriage" laws say precisely, and i'm not aware how they're actually interpreted in practice, so i guess this point is void.]
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