Seems like the left don’t approve of common sense.
I’d rather have a politician who does absolutely nothing than a fascist.
Yes, this is how the two-pronged strategy works to ensure the working class never improves its standing.
Fascism only improves the standing of those on top.
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But unfortunately not one that my fellow Americans seem to have appreciated.
They’re not political, they just wantt to see common sense policies on immigration (for brown people) and crime (for brown people).
Which is a shame because immigration can be one of the greatest boons to rural America.
Here “common sense” means incredibly harsh.
I mean, a lot of them are tankies.
them: “both sides bad” me: “republicans are bad indeed” them: 😠
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It’s common sense from an outsider perspective that any organization that expects children to pledge allegiance to it 3000 times before adulthood is loaded with propaganda and the kids that graduate from that aren’t going to have proper common sense.
And just because other countries aren’t as obviously villainous about it doesn’t make their standardized textbooks and their corporate media (much of it imported from the propaganda empire above) that much less propagandistic.
So it’s common sense that common sense is tainted by decades of propaganda, and actually understanding something means unlearning what they taught you and looking with fresher eyes.
So you’re right, common sense is for chumps, and that’s just common sense.
Not anymore, no.
Both parties are banking on the hysteria of their constituencies to stay in power.
It works.
Seems like the right is retarded.
It’s not the 80s anymore. The correct term is that they are Ignorant, racist, bigots.
Yeah and it’s always the others who are toxic and populist, right?
I may be toxic and populist, depending on who you ask, but I’m not a right-winger hiding behind a thin curtain of ‘centrism’.
Social centrism ≠ traditional centrism
They aren’t that either.
I run into this on dating apps. “Centrist” and “apolitical” are both code for “conservative.”
I’ve heard that many men do this because they’ve realized, in some capacity, that outright admitting they’re right-wing limits their opportunities. In my circles, I’ve noticed this “I’m actually a centrist/apolitical” trend is also found among popular developers and tech influencers.
Saying you’re anti-woke gets you shunned and surrounded by horrible people, but saying you’re just apolitical gets you the blessing and protection of self-proclaimed centrists. When you, for example, marginalize LGBT folks and get called out, countless will gather to complain about people “dragging politics into tech.” Bryan Lunduke will come out of his cave and write a piece about how the trans fetish is trying to kill open source.
I’m talking about women, but I e heard the same things you have about men.
It’s not really a gendered thing to publicly distance yourself from personally held beliefs if those beliefs are unpopular.
“I believe women have the right. The right to be a trad wife.”
Right probably think apoliticals are secret leftist too no?
I don’t know many leftists who keep that secret. “Apolitical” is typically indicative that someone is more or less fine with the status quo, which is an inherently conservative position.
An older acronym for the same thing, BSABSVR
Both Sides Are Bad So Vote Republican.
Both Sides Are Bad So Vote Republican.
God, growing up, I heard the equivalent of that so often from the less-lead-poisoned of my conservative community.
“Well, you don’t really know what’s true, and both sides lie. Really, both parties are just out for themselves. There’s no difference between them.”
“So you aren’t voting?”
“Oh no, I’m definitely voting Republican.”
Oh yeah, “The Smaller Of Two Evils” - they said in 2016. A few years later I asked: “how did that work out for you?” - embarrassed silence. One of the best I-told-you-so-moments I ever had.
It will work in 2028, trust me, just keep rich Neoliberals in power please god please.
> there being a vote in 2028
good one
We found one!
asking Democrats to stop campaign like Bush-era neo-cons is now apparently a right wing position
That may be the worst acronym I’ve ever seen.
The late 90’s to early 2000s were a terrible time on the internet in many ways and yet in may others it was the best of times.
It was the worst of times, it was the L33t of times.
*holds up spork*
I prefer BEATSABERVR
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Representative democracy is a lie, but if they let you vote you can still use that vote to help choose your adversary. Better a genocidal ‘centrist’ than a genocidal fascist, at least until the left is strong enough that they could take the right in a fight credibly enough for the ‘centrists’ to pick the left.
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Same. There are some views that should disqualify one from holding public office, and supporting genocide is one of them.
While you are correct, voting for democrats is not because we love them and love everything they do. We vote democrat because we need to keep the batshit insane far right out of power.
If we don’t or if we vote far right, a lot MORE people will suffer and die. That does not mean we agree or like or approve that people suffer and die under democrat rule.
Under biden people were deported and put in camps. But under trump they are put in concentration camps in a foreign country where they will most likely not leave alive.
Either we get shot in the leg (democrats) and we fight and do everything we can to help others. or we get shot in the head (republican/far right) and we can’t do anything to help others because we are either dead or in a concentration camp in el salvador.
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Did you not read what i said? I literally explained they are shit and don’t give a fuck… fucking hell…
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Wise take. We live in this world, we have to make the better choice, even if it’s still a bad one. Maybe later you can move from genocidal ‘centrist’ to a non genocidal one, but this is a full on accelerated descent into amorality, hatred and love of ignorance for the US.
Yeah but you hate democracy if you say that!
“Both sides bad, bit aT leAsT tRuMp iS hOnEst aBoUt iT!”
The Honesty:
“You won’t have to vote anymore”
“Dictator on day one”no one said that
or maybe centrists in the USA be like
I have never met a “centrist” on social media who wasn’t. Same with the horseshoe theory.
Let’s take America: are you for democracy or against it? - “I can see both sides” - wtf? Fascist enabler, at best.
I prefer stethoscope theory.
They did a U-turn!
You’re in the meme idiot
Bothsidists are right-wingers
3 posts later
No the horseshoe theory is real actually
Is this a psyop or are you dumb?
This stethoscope diagram just reeks of a rebranding attempt similar to how Libertarians were adamant that they were not just Republicans yet somehow still only voted Republican and would support Republicans in all things even if it explicitly went against libertarian doctrine.
Horseshoe theory is more accurate. Hard left is tankies. Tankies are hard left.
Horseshoe theory completely ignores the actual origins of the terms Left and Right in order to push a false narrative that they’re somehow the same.
It’s very simple. The terms Left and Right come from a vote held in the French Assembly just before the Revolution.
The vote was, “should the King have an absolute veto over laws passed by the Assembly?” Those sitting to the Left of the Speaker’s podium said No, those to the Right said Yes.
Knowing the true origin of the terms makes defining them easy, if you are in favor of more power to the people, then you are on the left, if you think power should be concentrated to the few, you’re on the right.
This can apply to social issues as well. If you think minorities deserve protection and representation then you are on the left, if not you’re a horrible person.
The economy, if you think everyone should have a truly fair shake, you’re on the left, if you think money makes some people better than others, you’re on the right.
See how easy that is? Which is why the right wing invented Horseshoe theory. To confuse people.
That and some dictators flat out lied about what they were doing and claimed to be Communist.
Because Lenin betrayed the Revolution after losing the only free and fair election that Russia has ever had.
Some people just cannot wrap their head around the difference between totalitarianism and socialism.
But I will say this: viewing political opinion on a straight line never really made much sense. At the very least one should think of it as a field (2 dimensions instead of 1). And of course this does NOT mean that I approve of the horseshit theory.
Every time I try to come up with a different metric, it usually boils down to, “where does the ultimate power lie”.
In an ideal democracy, that power comes from the consent of the governed, i.e. the people and their direct vote. But that’s usually untenable on larger scales, so thus power is concentrated. The how of that concentration can lead to all sorts of axis on a chart, but in the end, the other side of the chart is usually some form of direct democracy, i.e. returning power to the people.
The meaning of words change over time, that’s the same for “left” and “right”
You’re framing the “right” to rewrite the current meaning with the historical meaning, which just doesn’t work.
It scares me that there are so many upvotes on this. Misinformation is on both sides, and you’re comment is proof of that.
What are the current meanings of left and right?
Complicated question. There is no fixed definition, and this is multi factorial.
To put it simply, I’ll say
Left: equality (economical, social, no discrimination), more state centered, ecology, at the price of private property (specifically private property of companies, factories, means of production) and less freedom (individual rights and economical).
Right: more freedom (specifically economical), stronger (traditional) culture, patriotism/nationalism, less state centered at the price of less equality (limited help if you don’t succeed).
Overall that’s not strict, and there are a few examples of that: non-conservative right (doesn’t seem to exist in the USA).
It’s also important to say that people often have ideas that are a bit of both sides: ex: more economical freedom (right), but no patriotism/nationalism (less right), but more equality in terms of identity (gender, ethnicity…), democracy (can apply to both left and right)
Let’s break down your idea of the “right” because it does need to be analyzed.
You say “more freedom”, but you never actually specify who gets more freedom except in a backhanded way of contrasting your idea of the left, who limit the freedoms of companies.
This is an important point. The Right gives companies and the rich, more freedoms, which in historical context has always meant more freedoms to exploit, or even kill their workers in the name of profit. This conversely means less freedoms for actual people who don’t want to die or be poisoned by some rich asshole who wants to make a buck.
You also say Traditional culture, which has always meant more rights to rich white men and fewer rights to minorities and women. Or maybe you want to couch it by saying a push for more religion, which then means less protections for the people who practice the wrong religion.
But you see how every single point goes back to more power for some people at the expense of everyone else.
This is not a bug, this is a feature. Edmund Burke and Joseph de Maistre both wrote about how this was the desired outcome, and how democracy was a threat to “traditional values” and how the idea of equality was, in their words, repugnant.
There is a direct through-line from those two bastards to every single conservative thought leader of today, and many of them use the exact same talking points.
So you go into a conversation about a modern topic where the modern definition of terms is a particular thing, and then you said “well ackshually the definition of this in 1780 was this so you’re wrong”.
I don’t think anyone cares what the definition of left and right are in 1780s France and it has no bearing on a modern discussion of these terms.
The point I’m making is that the trough line has always been, Right-wing concentrated power, Left-wing distributed power.
The fact that certain dictators have pretended to be left-wing, and right-wing jackasses have gone along with it, is where the deliberate confusion was introduced.
Communism as proposed by Marx is a true leftwing ideology, the Totalitarian dictatorship created by Lenin was communist in name only, it had more in common with Feudalism than communism. Mao was just as bad. An out of touch dictator who told farmers to plant their seeds several feet underground, and when that obviously failed, feasted while they starved.
That doesn’t seem anything like what Marx wrote about, or rather it was disturbingly similar to what Marx wrote about capitalism.
But again, right-wingers love to confuse the issue, because it turns out kings are not popular, so you have to lie to get people to bow before one.
The left is more than just socialism and communism.
And the right is more than just conservatism and facism
And all of it is utter shit.
The world is shit
Let’s burn it all! 🔥
We’ve learned by this point fascism is an inherently right wing ideology.
If you seriously think the Nazis were socialists or Stalin was a communist then you should just accept you like fascism.
That image isn’t saying that they aren’t hard right. It’s saying the standard spectrum of left right doesn’t account for how practically similar the two extremes actually are in how they operate.
Bear in mind that we are actually talking about extremes at those ends of the shoe. Genocidal dictators. Trump is not Hitler or Stalin. He’s not that far around the horseshoe, yet.
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I have never read a more nonsensical piece of logic in my life.
Ok Ms. Rand
😘
Anarchists are far left. Tankies are far right. Hope this helps.
This is why I fucking hate the political spectrum.
The left wing is for state managed finances, and putting the collective ahead of the individual. The right is for completely unrestricted economic freedom, and putting the individuals desires far ahead of any collective need. Meanwhile, we also tend to associate social freedom with the left, and conservative tradition with the right. So which of these systems defines anarchists?
It’s just a false dichotomy, and we need to stop simplifying everything to a binary. The 4-point grid is “better,” but it’s honestly just time we stop reducing complicated and nuanced ideologies into “this or that.”
You need at least two axes (plural of “axis”) to describe political ideologies.
Trying to describe politicial idiologies on a graph is just a pointless endeavor.
I mean, its possible.
For example, fascism is described as 38.8974,-77.0374 (2025-01-20T12:00:00-05:00 — Present)
We need a political tesseract with 4 axes
And my axes! (as in 2 “ax”, not plural of axis)
Tankies are far left. You can go wrong on both sides. You could also technically go far right without being a complete dictature
Left and right isn’t as simple as “good” and “bad”
How does making a false statement help?
So the diagram is saying Socialism and Conservatism are the same?
I’m guessing it was made by someone who identifies as a Liberal, seeing as according to the diagram it’s the only correct choice, as everything else is closer to Fascism.
Also note: while a diagram can help explain an argument, it is not an argument by itself, as there is no reason for someone to believe it is true by default.
I’m guessing it was made by someone who identifies as a Liberal, seeing as according to the diagram it’s the only correct choice, as everything else is closer to Fascism.
Yep. Some people really think lack of opinion is some form of enlightenment, that they stand above things because they say “I can see both sides” to everything.
That’s not what’s meant at all. The real thing is this one:
It just means that far left and far right are closer to each other than one can think, in the fact that they both lead to an authoritarian or totalitarian system.
It is obviously an over-simplification and inaccurate, but is mainly a way to criticize both extremes
I’m guessing it was made by someone who identifies as a Liberal, seeing as according to the diagram it’s the only correct choice
Probably. Being in the center doesn’t mean you’re correct, but yea, it seems pretty biased
Where do you consider anarchist philosophy to be on that graph? That is an idiology that is both far left (collectivist by nature) and libertarian (no central authority).
I don’t know enough about anarchism but it seems indeed that it doesn’t nicely fit into the “left, right” classification.
I’d argue it should be classed to the left
I would personally put it under the “far left” category, since anarchists strive for drastic, radical change, completely demolishing capitalism, whereas more moderate social democrats, for example, want to maintain our capitalist economic system, but with tweaks around the edges.
At the same time, anarchism is just about the furthest idiology from authoritarianism that exists in the context of modern society.
Liberalism is enlightenment?
Nah centrism is also bad. There’s really only one good small wedge of the horseshoe.
Congrats on becoming a parody of yourself. “Here’s a diagram made in MS paint that shows how stupid all this ideology stuff is. Anyway, only my tiny sliver of the graph is good and the rest of you are all doo doo brains. I’m so very smart and enlightened.” Please touch grass, I promise it will improve your mental health.
You sound like an idiot.
You are in the meme lmao
Proponents of horseshoe theory argue that the far-left and the far-right are closer to each other than either is to the political center. Seems like a theory a right-winger would create to save face.
I will say, some far leftists have ideas that seem more libertarian on a surface level, like dismantling the state, but it’s for different reasons, and generally far-lefts aren’t common. What Americans consider “far left” is just advocating for common decency
Thr horshoe no longer exists today in any meaningful way, but it did for a brief moment pre tea party. There used to be a group of people that believed in both universal health care and understood risk pools, and would not directly vote to restrict personal rights. Pretty small group now.
There used to be a group of people that believed in both universal health care and understood risk pools, and would not directly vote to restrict personal rights.
You mean social democrats (or just slightly left leaning Democrats for USians)? TIL they are a mixture of extreme right and extreme left.
Thr horshoe no longer exists today in any meaningful way
Never did. Because it’s a theory.
I can only tell from down votes that people are either young, or grew up on the coast.
What does any coast have to do with this topic? Is this some sort of US-defaultism?
Or age, for that matter?
I note that you did not address my argument btw.
Another one I noticed is they say shit like “well they’re saying two opposite things, so you cannot know the truth”. Mother fucker, if you dig a tiny bit the truth is out there, waiting for you, but they cannot accept one side is lying (it’s theirs)
Even if they’re not a right-winger and don’t claim to be a centrist, "both-sides"ing things is a waste of time, at best.
Like, when Jon Stewart came back to the Daily Show. I think it was his first show back, but it might have been his second… And his main talking point was about how both Biden and Trump were old. I know he’s just a comedian on a comedy show, but it still felt like a betrayal. At the very best, it was a waste of a chance to say something that could have actually made a difference.
He pointed out that they are the oldest candidates ever to run, beating the previous record of…the same two old white guys 4 years prior. Seemed pretty germane to mention that we have a serious lack of younger and diverse representation
I agree 100% with everything you said. Just like you said, it was a good point and definitely worth a mention. My problem is that it was the main segment of his first show back. Just like I said, a waste of time when there were much more important things to talk about.
I mean, they are both old, I don’t think that’s a perspective that should be discounted. That’s not a discussion on policy or who one should vote for as much as it is the understandable concern about whether either of them would still be alive for their entire second term.
I like Jon, but TDS has done more harm than good for the left.
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It just normalized the Republican CRIMINAL behaviour by making fun of it and laughing, like it was no big deal
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It made an entire generation complacent becuase people though watching TDS and jucking along was actually doing fuck all to actually fight Republicans or help Democrats.
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And finally, like you said they’d frequently have both sides segments that the right loved to echo on their propaganda networks
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Tbf, you shouldn’t take news from a comedian.
They are meant to entertain, not inform. If they side with one party too much, they lose viewers.
They need views from “both sides” which is the precise reason why they have to “both sides” everything.
Comedians and court jesters have always been some of the most honest and straight forward. They don’t bite their tongue or fret over access. You shouldn’t discount them. Entertainment is one of the best methods of informing. You will spend infinitely time more learning in an entertaining way. Then beating your head against a dry impenetrable text that you struggle to comprehend.
The comedian in question is Jon Stewart, though. Do you really think that Jon Stewart has to “both sides” everything so that he doesn’t alienate his conservative audience? I doubt that you’re saying that. I don’t think he has ever done that.
It doesn’t make sense to try to generalize how comedians act when we’re talking about how one specific comedian acts, and it’s already clear that he doesn’t act like the generalization presented.
I have no doubt that Jon Stewart simply did the segment because he thought it was funny, and he didn’t care about alienating people.
The reason I’m so sure is that he predictably alienated a lot of left leaning people with his “both sides are old” segment. I say “predictably” because there’s simply no way that somebody didn’t talk to him before air and say something like, “You know, this is going to irritate the people who like you the most.”
