I am a proud middle of the roader and damn proud of it

Politics & Elections
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I am a proud middle of the roader.

I am sick and tired of **ideological purity. I hate it. **
Since the post-2014 US midterm elections and the rise of the **ascendant American left **with Bernie Sanders’ insurgent 2016 primary bid against the Democratic establishment favorite Hillary Clinton, who lost to Donald Trump, leftists online, especially the activist leftist Twitter, demonizes those in the center. Those with a center view on taxation, crime, etc. are threatened and called names online. You are a “bootlicker”, “racist”, “fascist”. And they wonder why people in general despise the far left.

The right, the Trumpian right specifically, calls you a** “communist”, “traitor”** if you don’t align politically with the Dear Leader. You are a pawn for “Hillary/Obama/Holder”.

I am sick of it.

I hate purity.

Let me tell you about centrism.

Let me tell you about middle of the roadism.

I have conservative and liberal views on certain issues.

I believe that federal and state income taxes should be raised higher on the wealthy.

I believe in funding schools and transportation.

I believe in a national defense that is not the world’s police, but strong, equipped and agile to deal with the challenges facing America.

I believe that America has race and social problems that requires reparations for slavery through a system conducted by the IRS to invest money in black ancestors of slavery and into communities that truly will make an impact, not throwing money at the problem.

I believe that they are good police officers overall. The bad and corrupt police officers that kill unarmed people or are poorly trained, or have racial bias should be jailed and fired. I believe that community-police relations and fostering mutual respect between the two is better than people saying “Shoot the cops, kill the cops, punch the cops”.

I believe that people should marry who they love and leave it to that.

I am a middle of the roader. I am not a communist. I am not a fascist.

Most Americans of all races are middle of the road.

We are the exhausted majority and we are tired of being bullied by the extremes that get a larger voice than all the others.

We are tired of Vox, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Breitbart and Jim Jordan dictating what politics is and isn’t.

The left and right does not have all the answers to everything.

**Don’t tell me that I have no conviction.

I have the conviction of realism and reason. I know what I know in my heart. **

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Meh. If you’re too fragile to cope with radicals of whatever political stripe insulting you for holding more moderate views, then maybe stay off the internet?

“Centrism” and bothsidesism are often a figleaf used by people with some genuinely despicable views who are miffed at being criticized for those views. Most of the rest of us manage to disagree on reasonable positions with other reasonable people and ignore the unreasonable types without whining about how we’re being “bullied”.

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And BTW, that cite of yours doesn’t actually agree with your position:

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Its still a cite, it doesn’t matter. The far left is not the majority of America. The far right is not the majority of America. I am a middle of the roader. I have different views on certain issues.

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Well, nobody’s denying that it’s a cite. What I’m wondering is what point you thought you were making by citing it. After all, it explicitly disagrees with the fundamental claim of your OP that there’s an “exhausted majority” in America that is opposed to political partisanship.

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Cites are provided for the purpose of supporting one’s argument. Providing a cite that disproves your own argument is an own goal. Shouting loudly about your unsupported personal beliefs is the part that doesn’t matter.

Have you considered LiveJournal?

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I consider myself a “radical centrist” and agree with much of OP’s sentiments.

But it should be noted that today’s fight is often less about Left vs Right than about Truth vs Lies. About Science, Human Values and Rational Thought vs Fears and Hatreds fomented deliberately by Kleptocrats like Charles Koch.

Sorry. If “middle of the road” means steering a path halfway between Truth and Lies, then count me out. Lumping AOC’s flaws with Brietbart’s already seems strange. And where does Vox fit in? Here’s a famous opinion piece by a Vox founder. If you can find something as intelligent on Breitbart please link to it.

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Its funny because the far left has completely taken over the Democrat party and far left politics & woke liberal/communist ideology is madly unpopular.

Trump may be a dick but his politics is bog standard republican/conservative.

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Vox is the liberal/woke/leftwing version of Fox New and by most online bias sites has them equally left or farther to the left than Fox News is to the right.

Something I’ve noticed a lot by posters on this board is that they cry like mad about Fox News but barf up Vox (or similar) hard left rags as proof of their outlandish claims.

The fringe of the Democrat Party has completely taken over the moderate “party of the working man” Democrats.

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“Petty, disrespectful namecallers have taken over the Republican party”, he mentioned without a hint of irony in his voice. He said nothing of nazi’s, by the way.

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To the OP: Your positions sound like straight-up Democratic Party positions, except for the reparations part – that’s still considered pretty radical, even within the party. What are you middle-of-the-road about? I can’t tell from your OP. Abortions for some, tiny American flags for others? Is it your position on the police? That doesn’t sound conservative to me. I’m pretty baffled by your OP.

Nitpick: “It[']s funny…” and “…Democrat[ic] [P]arty…”

Anyway, please cite in the Democratic Party platform where the far left has taken over. What has changed from, say, four years ago? Eight years ago? Thanks.

I agree that most of Trump’s positions (with the exception of his border policies) are straight up Republican positions, but unfortunately, he says the quiet Southern Strategy part out loud and that makes other Republicans tut-tut before agreeing with him.

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Most of the views you described are some form of what people would call leftist and reflect what you’d read on Vox and elsewhere. It seems like you’re citing these things but accepting right-wing characterizations instead of thinking them through for yourself.

I mean, being pro-reparations - I agree it’s an admirable in principle but I don’t think it’s politically or practically achievable. I’m decidedly leftist and you’re farther left than I am on that particular score. You’re definitely not centrist on that.

It seems to me like you are a common-sense leftist who has bought the right-wing propagandizing that the center is much closer to them than everyone else. Or else there’s some specific wedge issue that’s sticking in your craw. Is it the guns, or same-sex bathrooms, or is it those awful PC people who won’t let you tell fun jokes?

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I used to write “Democrat Party” until I was told that it was wrong, and a device used by Limbaugh and his ilk to attempt an insult.

Now, I have two teeny-weeny brain cells that got the message and add the “ic” automatically.

But omitting the “ic” has become a meme for a certain nasty mentality. (Of course I would NEVER suggest that this might apply to the Doper you’re quoting). They can shrug their shoulders and say “Democrat Party – what’s the big deal?” and go back to their little meme, deriving nasty satisfaction from the hope it needles their opponents. It will be interesting to see if this Doper can stop his bad habit, knowing now how petty it seems.

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Sorry to quote myself, but I’m more awake now.

Trump actually has several major policies that differ sharply from traditional Republican stances. His tariffs and trade war, his cutting and running in Syria, and his embrace of Russia come to mind.

His willingness to blow up the deficit for unfunded tax cuts is pretty standard and his bribing of farmers is bipartisan.

septimus, I’m sure it was just a mistake on that poster’s part, like his/her misuse of “its”. No doubt it won’t happen again.

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Who has time to worry about communism when we’ve the Kaiser to defeat!
Whoops, sorry, thought it was 1917 for a minute and got all confused.

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I’m wondering how anyone who comes across as racist as the OP can consider themself a centrist?

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I wish you were able to take pride in not being redundant in your thread titles.

I don’t have any use for the MAGAbots or Berniebots either. Both sets take their Dear Leader as being infallible. But at least Berniebots still nominally believe in democracy.

I dislike the purity police as well. I think there is room in the Democratic Party for anti-abortion voters, gun nuts, and fiscal conservatives. We can’t be saying that if you don’t subscribe to 100% of our beliefs, you can’t be one of us. We’ve become tribal, and that’s unfortunate.

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Well, it bothers somebody.

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My sig file remains relevant.

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Cite for Trump having politics?