I find it pretty liberal. But we still have a few conservative posters. I think the polarization of American politics has been bad for moderate discourse.
People who are willing to read and write pages and pages of posts on forums are generally not all that moderate.
It might be that /r/ENLIGHTENEDCENTRISM is a good fit for the OP.
After that suggestion, I’m a little less cringeing about offering up
It still has all the memes, the Biden hate and the disdain, but it does have some decent discussion now and again. I was following it for a while to see what the other side was saying.
That sounds unusually familiar…
In terms of the political spectrum, the actual middle is probably somewhere around the right side of the Democratic party, instead of being somewhere right around the area between the parties.
The problem is that in today’s climate, there’s no room for being in the middle; it’s a “you’re with us or you’re against us” situation with both parties, and there’s not much room in between for moderates/centrists on either side of the aisle to collaborate.
This one doesn’t do it, for sure.
I’m somewhat in the same boat as the OP. I consider myself a moderate/centrist overall but I definitely have views on certain topics that would be considered more extremist. I am a pretty hard-core environmentalist (liberal) and I think almost all rent control hurts more than it helps (conservative).
For me a good discussion would have lots of people on both sides who can debate without finally resorting to “you disagree with me so you’re evil/stupid/Nazi”. I want to hear the extremist views because sometimes they are right.
Right on my target!
Ah, then/r/PoliticalCompassMemes is for you.
You may be interested in the Braver Angels group, although they don’t actually hold that much discussion. They describe themselves as a group that tries to make America bipartisan again and get the blues and reds to talk cordially.
You want more force and conviction from centrists?
“Centrist” doesn’t necessarily mean “waffling and indecisive or weak-willed,” as some people on the left or right would have it. Someone can fully, forcefully, sincerely hold centrist or moderate views the same forceful way someone can hold hardcore liberal or hardcore conservative views.
Depends on the type of Centrist. I’m trying to think of a good example today, it was a lot easier 20 years ago.
In 2000 if you felt very strongly about Green issues and as it was best known as then Global Warming but at the same time were a Hawk that believed in a strong military and acting as the World Policemen.
You would be forceful on those two subjects that are pretty opposite today. But might not be strong on others. Today if you’re against the Electoral College you’re pretty much aligned with the left. That wasn’t so true in 2000 and especially earlier.
The problem is that half the country went over a cliff, so the “center” is now dangling off a branch on the side of the cliff. It seems irrational to determine your political sensibility relative to others in that way.
My perception is that most people who call themselves ‘centrists’ really want to be philosophical rationalists but aren’t sufficiently acquainted with it. Perhaps look into rationalism and you might find what you’re looking for. They’re every bit as annoying as centrists, but with better philosophical and intellectual grounding.
If you look at polling for Biden’s initiatives, they’re very high among Democrats, and I think some even poll above 50% among Republicans (early child care, higher taxes on the wealthy, to name two), so it seems like Biden is pretty moderate.
My point is, since we’re certainly welcome to discuss Biden’s plans here, and there would likely be a lively discussion with lots of good back and forth among the posters, I would say that you can find centrist discussion right here in the Politics and Elections forum.
I get the impression the OP was looking for a discussion community where most of the people are centrists.
Sure, there are centrists here on the Dope. But in the past, we’ve done many surveys/polls and typically around 70-80 percent of Dopers self-identified as liberals.
I guess you’d have to ask the OP. I should correct my previous statements – only 30-40% of Republicans support Biden’s infrastructure and taxing plans, from what I can tell. But, 60-70% of independents and like 90% of Dems. I would still argue that a discussion of Biden’s various proposals in P&E would be pretty centrist.
I think the problem is that you might want to discuss policies, but one party has only one policy and that is to win elections (cf. the Republican 2020 platform).
Just to mention one point raised above, I think you could get a good debate going here on rent control. Or on high tax v. low tax. Or a number of policy questions. But too many people think the only question is hate Trump/Biden v. Love Trump/Biden.
So raise a real policy question and I think you could get a good debate going even on these boards. There is a good debate going in GD (or maybe in P&E) over the firing of that Tenn football asst. coach.
I think there’s a fair amount of ideological room for people whose views are somewhere in the literal middle.
For example, I’m not a gun-grabber/banner at all. I’m generally pro 2nd Amendment. But I also have no issue with licensing or competency requirements either, and don’t hold to the notion that doing so constitutes infringement of anyone’s rights. That’s a fairly center position, when the Republicans are pushing the idea (almost) that there should be Paw Patrol branded children’s guns and that guns should be ubiquitous and as common as cell phones, while the Democratic party thinks that the actions of a very tiny few should be enough to prohibit literally millions of law-abiding citizens from doing something. I fall somewhere in the middle.
Similarly, there should be a space for people whose views aren’t wholly aligned with either party- someone who say… is anti-abortion, but pro LGBTQ rights. Or who’s generally conservative or liberal without being all-in. There are plenty of people who are mildly liberal, but who aren’t SJWs, woke, environmentally concerned, etc… And there are lots of otherwise conservative people who DO believe in climate change, racial equity, immigrant rights, etc…
But the problem is that anyone who occupies those spaces politically is sort of in no-man’s-land - look at the degree of harassment Obama caught from the right AND the further left parts of his own party or how not on board the GOP was with George W. Bush’s ideas on immigration.
Essentially I’m getting awfully tired of being told I’m wrong from both sides, because I don’t adhere to either side’s ideas fully.
I’ve been banned from a liberal board before and suspended from 2 conservative boards. Evidently the fact that I agreed with half (and only half) of their views wasn’t good enough for them.