alt Hacker NewsThat's definitely going on. There's also something that I've heard called "reactionary centrism:" a feedback loop of people who think that truth lies in the middle between the two extremes, and also that assumes that no mainstream position in a political faction can itself be the "extreme." And that if they find that one political faction is doing something that seems extreme to them, that in the interests of fairness and centrism, they must start considering something that the other political faction does as equally extreme.
A lot of pundits that were center-left in past years fall into this trap, and normalize extremely right-wing positions these days because of it. They are stuck in an media and information environment of politics and, lacking many core values to guide them, they navigate to the middle of the media that they consume, assuming that the truth will be there in the middle just like it was in the past.
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That's a very astute observation, thank you.
Right vs left makes the assumption there are two sides / options. I have long thought that the 'left' was too extreem socialist - that doesn't mean I think current 'right' is any better.
> lacking many core values to guide them
This is a fundamental problem and one reason we're mired in this culture war. Social friction is caused by jostling based on group membership, and there's no common values-based scaffolding we can use to collaborate in building a better way.
I used to scoff when told to say the pledge of allegiance as a young person. Now, the closing words "liberty and justice for all" sound quite aspirational.