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I might be misreading you, but while I think you nailed most of this post chum, here you are wrong - there is, it's called the maga movement. Also I think actual moderate centrist liberals are definitely nationalist, it's the natural cultural foundation.
I agree that within the american political system, MAGA is more centrist than liberals and neocons. But not sure that it is a centrist liberal movement. And in practice it doesn't seem to be a break from neocons sufficiently. For one, it is willing to champion foreign policy moves and rhetoric that does not fit into that. Like Trump's rhetoric about annexing Canada.
I don't think liberalism is a good thing and a centrist movement would not be liberal but not totally exclusionary of liberal notions. It would be a synthesis of some liberal notions, with conservative and nationalist, with even some dose of internationalist. Like I am a family first type of person but try to treat people outside my family with honor, provided they do the same.
Liberalism in practice is the purity spiral dogmatism. Historically there have been some people more in line with what I favor that might have called themselves liberals as within the national liberalism ideology but they lost and have been overwhelmed by the new left type which is the dominant and representative of the historical trajectory of liberalism. This includes the people who call themselves classical liberals. What they want is new left liberalism with its dogmas and consensuses.
And so I am against it. Only in lower amounts and on specific issues is it valuable. To go with zero liberalism and adopt a purity spiral as liberals do towards conservatism and nationalism (for their white ethnic outgroup, they are more supportive of nationalism for ingroup), would lead to abandoning good things. I like liberal opposition to war crimes for example but then there is a liberal tribe that is also for war crimes. While liberals fail to do this as a tribe, liberalism is to an extend related with concept of political impartiality which is valuable again to an extend. Liberalism in practice fails to even follow its supposed virtues but while I would abandon liberalism, I wouldn't abandon anything related to it. Trying to avoid the same folly that liberals war on "fascism" that leads them to support the extinction and second class status of white people and to aggressively hate those who think otherwise.
The purity spiral to be part of the dna of liberalism and how it developed, but within the views, principles that are associated with liberalism there is some value to be extracted. But to be a liberal is to adopt a framework that will lead you adopt dogmatically too much the new left agenda.
To give it as an exercise: Homosexuality is not illegal but society promotes heteronormativity and champions nuclear families and tries to promote more pro natal monogamous ideology and social mores which is reflected in the media. Promotes its historical reBecause the current situation is actually too unbalanced against heteronormativism and healthy social mores and fertility.
Such society, does not present homosexuality as equal to heterosexuality since the later is both more normal and useful for society, and less related % with other even nastier sexual behavior that to an extend appears as more prevalent with LGBT groups. And there is a patronage network to promote this. It bans surgeries that mutiliate people and doesn't accept trans ideology. But it also doesn't try to aggressively humiliate homosexuals for example.
It is nationalist and pursues its own interests, obviously tries to maintain its ethnic community and promotes some level of pride and self confidence but is honorable in its dealings with other nations. It would never side, support or allow its people to act like some other groups that engage in rape gangs and then close the wagons, or try to convince ethnic groups that they should have no national identity, self hate, and go extinct and be replaced by them and would never tolerate people doing this to them. So this is a synthesis but of course fits well outside what liberals would accept.
Seems to me that decentralizing liberalism from the way we identify is important to having a vision that manages to synthesize important things that both liberals and liberalism are found in opposition to. Since liberalism fails to be a synthesizing reasonable vision, why treat it as a category that we, or the MAGA movement must fit into?
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The MAGA platform is bog-standard populism: pro-government-intervention for their side of social issues. That’s not centrist. Especially not given the OP’s argument that the mainstream left can’t be centrist because it gives too much time to the extremists!
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MAGA is an archetypal national-liberal political movement. Down to even the McKinleyite foreign policy. It's made up of a lot of people who don't like or care about liberalism, but there's the irony of our current situation for ya.
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What would you say is a natural right-wing movement, if MAGA isn't it? Religious fundamentalism? Ethno-nationalism? But then what would be left to count as far right? (This is a genuine question, not an attempted gotcha.)
The original right wing, per the defining of "left" and "right" in the seating organization of the French National Assembly during the revolution: Throne-and-Altar Monarchy and hereditary aristocracy.
As far as I know, I am the only De Maistre-ian social conservative(you know this is a different thing from nrx, right?) on the motte. If even on the motte you can only find one of us then there are not enough to occupy a meaningful part of the political spectrum.
Absolutely; there's a reason I break with most of the NRX guys when they go from diagnosis to providing solutions (because Yarvin's CEO "king" is absolutely nothing of the sort, and as a "De Maistre–ian," you should understand why).
Yes and? Just because a space is (presently) mostly unoccupied, doesn't mean it's not part of the political spectrum, particularly when you stop focusing on the present moment, and consider larger history. Why should our divisions of the political spectrum be constantly moving (this being an instantiation of left-wing ideas of "progress"), rather than fixed to long-term historical standards (in keeping with the right's focus on eternal verities and principles handed down from time immemorial)?
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Outside of Moldbug's wildest dreams, this is not a position that meaningfully exists in America, nor is it likely to within our lifetimes, or our children's, or our children's children. I don't see why we should skew our common-sense political terminology just to leave a whole quadrant permanently unoccupied.
And I don't see why we should shift our political terminology with the times, as opposed to maintaining a fixed position, even if that means portions are left mostly empty due to centuries of drift in one direction (see my reply to /u/hydroxyacetylene above). I'm fine with saying there's no "far right" in America, or even much of a right wing — America is a fundamentally left-wing country, because the Founding Fathers were a bunch of left-wingers who inscribed their (18th century) leftism into the country's founding documents.
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It's a tough subject to tackle, because as the battlefield currently lies yeah, it's right wing. But if there is any objective basis to the political axis at all (a big if) I think it's hard to call the party that unites the likes of Rubio, Vance and Gabbard anything other than centrist. And like Igi says it's goals are the archetype of the national-liberal. I don't know what a natural right wing party looks like to be honest, I only know there hasn't been one since I became politically active.
This is not a "no one is right wing enough for me" argument btw, I am on the Trump train precisely because of this. Like @aquota mentions elsewhere, I also want an equilibrium between the right and the left. Further though I believe the most stable equilibrium puts the right in charge with the left as counterbalance, due to the personality types each side attracts.
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