Nah right wingers don’t give a shit about purity testing. Evangelicals don’t give a shit that Trump isn’t a Christian nor do Nazis care that Cruz is a mexican-Canadian. If you’re pushing in their direction thats all they care about.
Purity testing is a uniquely leftist problem and it’s part of why it’s so damn hard for the left to organise and accomplish anything ourselves much less appeal to the broader public.
The FBI has literally exploited this to destabilize activist orgs since the 50s with COINTELPRO and likely long before that.
If you go far enough right, you will find it. Trump once gave one little nod to encourage his supporters to get the covid vaccine, and they turned against him. He quickly let the news cycle pass and everyone forgot about it, but apparently that is the line they won’t cross with him.
I should have clarified, but yeah I’m not discussing US right wingers, they are in wacko mode and follow no logic. The comment I replied to was about the left and I was discussing the center to left spectrum
I disagree wholeheartedly with this statement. The “center”? Of what? Between what?
You can’t have a “center” without first defining what those boundaries are. A major part of “leftist” belief is that those boundaries are in fact false and that rather than the political world being divided by left and right, it is divided up and down, that the rich govern everyone else.
Most centrists lack clear definitions of what it is, as you highlighted. That is my point. Western centrists are just like, a train station lobby of people milling about without clear platform or opinion. As you get further away, people have increasingly clear definitions. Your idealized leftist is hardly common. Most vigorously review their neighbor’s qualifications and are quick to purity test and reject those remotely to the right of them. At the furthest extremes, all pretense of the current world are effectively evil and should all be scoured away
Now, we are discussing political opinion and discourse. To your other point, I agree completely that the true divides are those of class/wealth.
A more modern take in Political Science is to consider which groups will work with what other groups. Democrats generally don’t work with anarchists, but they will work with democratic socialists (to some extent, anyway), and DemSocs might work with anarchists. Republicans won’t work with democratic socialists, but will work with free market libertarians.
Notably, Horseshoe Theory doesn’t fit into this model. Free market libertarians won’t work with democratic socialists, either. So one way to define the center is to find the centerpoint between all these group connections.
However, another way to look at it is a graph rather than a line. Free market libertarians may not work with Christian nationalists, but both will work with the Republican party (not a perfect example, I admit, but that’s the gist). That graph might not have anything that can be properly called the center.
The further you get from center, the more caustic the purity tests get
Nah right wingers don’t give a shit about purity testing. Evangelicals don’t give a shit that Trump isn’t a Christian nor do Nazis care that Cruz is a mexican-Canadian. If you’re pushing in their direction thats all they care about.
Purity testing is a uniquely leftist problem and it’s part of why it’s so damn hard for the left to organise and accomplish anything ourselves much less appeal to the broader public.
The FBI has literally exploited this to destabilize activist orgs since the 50s with COINTELPRO and likely long before that.
If you go far enough right, you will find it. Trump once gave one little nod to encourage his supporters to get the covid vaccine, and they turned against him. He quickly let the news cycle pass and everyone forgot about it, but apparently that is the line they won’t cross with him.
I remember. A few voices amongst the cacophony whined but we both know they all fell in line and voted for him in 2020 and then again in 2024.
I should have clarified, but yeah I’m not discussing US right wingers, they are in wacko mode and follow no logic. The comment I replied to was about the left and I was discussing the center to left spectrum
Ah ok yeah I can see that now!
I disagree wholeheartedly with this statement. The “center”? Of what? Between what?
You can’t have a “center” without first defining what those boundaries are. A major part of “leftist” belief is that those boundaries are in fact false and that rather than the political world being divided by left and right, it is divided up and down, that the rich govern everyone else.
Most centrists lack clear definitions of what it is, as you highlighted. That is my point. Western centrists are just like, a train station lobby of people milling about without clear platform or opinion. As you get further away, people have increasingly clear definitions. Your idealized leftist is hardly common. Most vigorously review their neighbor’s qualifications and are quick to purity test and reject those remotely to the right of them. At the furthest extremes, all pretense of the current world are effectively evil and should all be scoured away
Now, we are discussing political opinion and discourse. To your other point, I agree completely that the true divides are those of class/wealth.
I think i see what you’re sayin. Certainly there’s a hard divide between peeps that think “capitalism can or even should exist” for a prime example.
A more modern take in Political Science is to consider which groups will work with what other groups. Democrats generally don’t work with anarchists, but they will work with democratic socialists (to some extent, anyway), and DemSocs might work with anarchists. Republicans won’t work with democratic socialists, but will work with free market libertarians.
Notably, Horseshoe Theory doesn’t fit into this model. Free market libertarians won’t work with democratic socialists, either. So one way to define the center is to find the centerpoint between all these group connections.
However, another way to look at it is a graph rather than a line. Free market libertarians may not work with Christian nationalists, but both will work with the Republican party (not a perfect example, I admit, but that’s the gist). That graph might not have anything that can be properly called the center.
Nice discussion. I agree.
I’d clarify the distinction between work, and association/discussion. Especially here in online platforms