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I've heard different reasonings.
One is that the baddies don't call themselves the baddies. Apparently, there's some right-wingers who refer to themselves as "centrists", because they pretend that their position is entirely normal.
The other reasoning is that the leftists perceive right-wing rhethoric as so objectively bad that someone saying they have a political opinion and that opinion is in the middle, because both sides are valid, to them just means that person is being ridiculous.
Mind that the meanings of "left" and "right" and even "center" varies a lot between countries, so it depends a lot on the context.
This is what always confuses me from my UK perspective - the idea that the Dems are on the 'objective' (for want of a better term) left seems pretty problematic, so I would tend to think of them as being towards the centre ground, or even slightly to the right of it.
It doesn't appear that the US has any politically influential or significantly consequential left wing party at all, unfortunately (and the UK is only marginally better to be fair).
As a result when it comes to determining which American party gets to sneeze for the next 4 years, the Dems are the only palatable or at least sane option I can see, if the rest of us are to avoid a really nasty cold. If nothing else, they seem like functioning adults.
I can see why many people would want to throw up their hands and reject both major parties, but I can't really see it as a 'centrist' position, only as one to take if you are either further to the left or right of the Dems/GOP respectively.
Not really sure where I'm going with this tbh, just a brain dump.
I certainly agree with those in this thread who are giving examples of clear binary moral choices like civil rights, abortion rights and so on. There isn't really any middle ground to take on them and anyone claiming to do so just seems disingenuous to me.
That said, I do still think compromise is an worthy aim in some areas - but only on issues which are not so clearly divided.
Anyway, please don't elect Trump again. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.