In a sane country, centrism means you still support universal healthcare. Obviously not in the US and overtime less and less in other countries.
this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2026
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Centrism is a myth, it's right wing for people too afraid to call themselves as such. You can't sit in the middle of capitalism. You are either for or against it.
Let's look at French centrism, the proposed 2026 budget included funding cuts for healthcare. It was only after protest and having to negotiate with left parties that they saw an increase. If left to their own devices, centrists would eventually and slowly kill of healthcare through a million tiny cuts. Centrists don't support it, it's just bad optics for them to be visibly against it.
I'm tired of playing nice with people who are okay with a system that outright kills people and needs them to die to be the lubricant in its gears.
Hey now, I'm a centrist!
I'm just the center of the left. You know, where respect for humanity exists.
(i couldn't resist, sorry)
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This is a "don't look at what the right's doing!" kind of post.
This is looking at the right.
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They're worse than conservatives. At least with conservatives you know they're assholes. Centrists are also assholes but they waste so much time trying to convince people that they're not.
Something something "white moderate".
This is such a wild statement. Conservatives are way bigger assholes, but that's overshadowed by the fact that they're more obvious? Centrists are at least trying to be reasonable.
The entire reason that ICE is in the streets is because Trump wants to beat Obama and Biden's deportation numbers. He is just too stupid to do it in a way that isn't stupid.
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Centrists are at least trying to be reasonable.
Not in my experience. They don't want to appear to be what they are, assholes. Therefore they will nod and agree with progressive policies but when push comes to shove then they unleash the usual bullshit, "now is not the time", "you're asking for too much", "how can we afford it?", "baby steps", and so on.
Take universal health care. I'd rather not have my time wasted by a conservative simply saying, "lol, hell no, you commie" than deal with the bullshit hand wringing of a centrist where they expend so much energy trying to convince themselves they're not the bad guys.
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Trying to sound reasonable is far from the same as trying to be reasonable.
If they were trying to be reasonable they wouldn't be centrists, they'd be as far away as possible from conservative, corporatist parasites, fascits, and similar critters, instead of trying to appease them.
But of course “centrists” aren't trying to be reasonable. “Centrist” is just the label those parasites use when trying to disguise their nature from their victims.
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The problem with Centrists is that they have similar sensibilities as the Left but not the convictions. Neither wants to see homeless people suffer on the streets but Centrists are content with blowing smoke up their own ass (out of sight out of mind) while the Left will insist on providing housing.
Some centrists are, frankly, low information voters. They don't really have a conviction or do their research well. I love my friend and I owe him a lot, but he supported Trump because of the initial anti-war and immigration rhetoric. He's not far right, he supports Palestine and he's a Pole who despise the far right party that ruled his country for eight years; but he is one of the many single and lonely men who feels lost and doesn't have a direction. His background and profile are those preyed upon by the right, even if the person is of varying flavour of centrist.
The right don't really need to convince people to join them, they just have to sow enough doubt to prevent the left from being a coherent movement.
I kinda feel like "low information voters" and "morons" would be synonyms here.
“Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”
MLK
Guys, just don't be poor and it's not an issue!
spoiler
/s, if not obvious
the number of times someone has said to me "you're just mad because you're poor"
and it's like… obviously i'm mad because i'm poor! i'm mad we live in a system that denies people their basic dignities by creating a possibility for people to be this thing called poor. but they think they have money based on virtue, and i don't based on some sort of failing
Don't forget that the same system teaches all the regular people that wealth is a sign of virtue. That silly thought is not limited to the people who have the wealth. Much the opposite, in fact.
They also like to pretend that luck is minor part of it or even a non-issue. It's crazy to imagine how much good could result from eliminating the concept that people are where they are solely because they "deserve" it and they "worked" for it.
I worked for the stuff I have too. That doesn't mean I am not incredibly lucky.
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There's no such thing as a centrist.
“Centrist” is just what conservatives, corporatist parasites, and / or fascists call themselves when they don't want their victims to realise they're conservatives, corporatist parasites, and / or fascists.
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I don’t think they’re necessarily “bad people”, but leftists can be really annoying when they argue using straw men, like OP.
The fact that you think it's a straw man and not the thing that's literally happening every day is why I think you're a bad person.
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Scratch a liberal...
The left-right spectrum is a bit of a capitalist sham anyways. class noises
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Realists (who sometimes appear to be centrists) wish many leftists would value actual harm reduction over purity.
Leftists wish many centrists (who always appear to be right-wingers) would value human life over 'harm reduction' a.k.a. perpetuating a system that causes widespread harm, death, and suffering.
Imagine how much better the world could be if we didn't have to constantly fight with 'centrists' to do the right thing instead of them trying to meet the far-right in a compromise.
Let's do a thought experiment.
You have a group of people who grumble about the status quo but are fed information that any change to the status quo is bad for them.
There's a filthy rich dude who controls the information they are being fed.
You have two options:
- Campaign for the removal of the filthy rich dude, redistribution of wealth, hard left turn, and - essentially - a revolution.
- Campaign to get them slightly better protection, and a bit more money. Get them comfortable with that, and then campaign for more changes.
Number 1 has around 0,00001% of succeeding.
Number 2 has around 30% of succeeding.
Which do you choose?
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"Come on, guys, sacrificing some people in our society so we can have rich people is better than sacrificing alot of people in our society so we can have filthy stinking rich people!"
“Come on, guys, sacrificing some people in our society so we can have rich people is better than sacrificing alot of people in our society so we can have filthy stinking rich people!”
You got it backwards.
It's: "come on, guys, people are afraid of big sweeping changes, so - since filthy stinking rich people control the narrative - it's better to make changes where some people will be sacrificed for the rich, than sacrificing all people for the rich".
And your reply is the perfect example of a leftists who values purity over harm reduction.
You're NOT reducing harm, you're steadily increasing harm when most of our problems could be easily solved by ending harm.
by ending harm
That's the issue, really. People won't get behind anything new or radical etc., so the options usually are "getting worse slowly" or "getting even worse right now", and picking that latter is not better than the first one. What's the solution? Fuck if I know, but allowing the latter to happen cannot be it
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Exactly. By assuming the harm will carry on, these people consent to it
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I would call myself a (left) centrist, but I guess in has a different meaning where you live. In the Netherlands not even a right party is about letting people die without insurance.
The VVD, D66, SGP, CU and JA21 have all said they want a freeze on adding new treatments to the basic healthcare package, which is determined by the government. Critics say this would lead to patients being denied new treatments which could, for example, cure their cancer or other chronic illnesses.
https://www.dutchnews.nl/2025/10/the-big-election-issues-healthcare-and-health-insurance/
Kinda sounds like they are about letting people die without insurance, and given enough time in power would build further on these policies. Your baseline intolerance for healthcare cuts may be higher, but make no mistake they want to take it away from you.
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Look, all the differences between any form of right wing and left wing come down to one single difference in thougt: right wingers think people are livestock that must be corralled and controlled in order to maximise the profit that can be extracted from them; left wingers think that people are... well, you know, people.
That's a binary choice. There's no middle ground between considering people people and considering them product. Don't come at me with “but some people”, you monstrous bastards. Any so called centrist saying otherwise is either a right winger trying to control you and extract profit from you, or an idiot scammed by one into promoting their bullshit.
People are people. All of us. And if you want them to treat you like you'd want them to treat you, you'd better do the same back, not because of some religious nonsense, but because otherwise society collapses into a brutal free for all, and your chance of coming on top is infinitesimally small, no matter how loaded a hand you were born with. And even if win the bastard lottery and end up on top, so what? You'll die soon enough like any other of us, shitting and pissing yourself as you go, and you can't take any of your stolen wealth with you. You'll just be remembered as that monstrous bastard who took everything and gave back nothing and made life worse for everyone else, may you rest in piss. Might as well use that wealth to help people and make the world better for everyone, but of course you wouldn't have been able to amass all that stolen wealth to start with if you had even a shade of humanity in your rotten mind.
When the choice is treating people as people, or not, there's no middle ground, there's no appeasement, there's no compromise.
You're either for humanity, or against it.
Muh civility 😭
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