This question is both for left leaning people and right leaning people. I can’t objectively define ultras, but they are commonly referred to in media with adjectives such as ultra, extreme, hardcore, etc.
What percent (rough numbers) of left feel so compared to right ?
What percent of right and left are actually “ultra” by any measure ?
Well, just to play havoc with your premise, I think that I’d be rated moderate-left but I feel my principles are often hijacked by the milquetoast unimaginative moderates who have no vision. It’s not that I prefer the extreme-left (or god forbid the extreme-right) agenda, either. I think there’s plenty of room for a visionary moderate agenda and it seldom gets enunciated.
As a moderate liberal, I don’t feel my principles are currently being hijacked by ultras. There is a potential there, though, because there are quite a few people increasingly active in the democratic party trying to move it away from the focus I would like it to have but they are not in enough numbers yet to take it over.
I want leaders who will fight their hardest for moderate and attainable goals. Not leaders who will try to “work with the other side” when that hasn’t worked for close to 30 years; not leaders who will tilt at unattainable windmills; and not leaders who will thwart the legislature to attain their goals by any means necessary.
On the right, it seems the extremists are firmly in control. They’re actively waging war on democracy as we speak.
on the left, they seem to be a small group. Maybe 30-50% of democrats are progressives. of them, a minority of progressives are ‘ultras’. So they are really not the backbone of the party.
Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am - an extreme centrist.
I wouldn’t say that my views are hijacked by ultras as it is that some people in my camp are just flat out…wrong. I generally identify as conservative but this year conservatives are (mostly) the ones defying masks, lockdown, science on Covid, etc. That’s not so much hijacking as just flat out wrong.
I don’t feel the left is being hijacked by ultras because the left isn’t actively promoting the ultra-progressives by electing them and letting them set the national agenda. Even Sanders and AOC, while definitely “progressive”, aren’t part of the ultra-fringe, who are largely a noisy but ineffective bunch. Sure, bits and pieces of progressivism get discussed but even BLM and the protests haven’t forced a massive shift in party policy. And I think the estimate of 30-50% of Democrats being progressive is on the optimistic side - closer to 30% than 50%.
I do think the right has been increasingly hijacked by its ultra fringe, most notably during the Tea Party push in 2010 and continuing rightwards since then. The far-far-right are the ones getting elected in droves, driven by a right-wing narrative that now considers FoxNews to be too moderate for its tastes (I mean, a decade ago the thought that the right could keep seriously moving that far past FoxNews would have been laughable). And the party members who weren’t previously that extreme have suddenly found themselves astride a tiger, realizing that their only option is to hang on and keep riding ,or get off and get eaten. It’s kind of scary.