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PaperclipPerfector  9d ago (text post)   32401 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 24, 2025

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Trace also would never survive a DNC primary or a week as a host on CNN. So he is not a good example of the mainstream left.

The problem is that the people who are extreme are uniformly Democrats, and that gets projected on to the rest of the party. It doesn't help that these people tend to, by their nature, be the most motivated, loudest, and most likely to get signal-boosted by their political opponents.

Trace isn't on the left at all. He is a dissident conservative who is trying to build bridges to the centre-left because the centre-right in the US appears to no longer exist.

If the center right no longer exists (not true IMO) the center left hasn't for decades. So, I don't see the point of trying to make that point.

Oh please. Yeah, I heard his origin story of being a Mitt Romney republican, but there's nothing conservative about him. His entire posting history here indicates his goal boils down to 'tard-wrangling the hardcore progressives so they stop scaring away the hoes normies.

I'm also struggling to charitably respond to the assertion that a center-right no longer exists. The neocons don't get to define the center-right, and disagreeing with them doesn't mean you're "far-right".

I'm also struggling to charitably respond to the assertion that a center-right no longer exists. The neocons don't get to define the center-right, and disagreeing with them doesn't mean you're "far-right".

Common usage of the term "centre-right" is shorthand for "pro-establishment right". We all know what it is, and I think we both agree that it is currently politically irrelevant in the USA. I agree with you that "far-right" is an unhelpful term, but claiming that Trump is "centre-right" is obfuscatory linguistic prescriptivism. This is particularly obvious in countries with more than two political parties - we can argue about what to call parties like Reform UK/Rassemblement Nationale/AfD (I prefer "right-wing populist") but - again, as a matter of common usage - "centre-right" clearly refers to parties like Conservatives/les Republicains/CDU-CSU.

Common usage of the term "centre-right" is shorthand for "pro-establishment right".

I'd say it's a shorthand for "moderate right", but if that's how you're using the term, no further objections I guess. But in that case, what do you think is the point of Trace's project of building bridges with Bill Kristol and Liz Chaney, or whatever? I figured this sort bridge-building is due to ideological closeness, not for the purpose preserving the power of specific elites.

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