@kino While I would agree that the extremes of the spectrum (basically anyone in the USA who considers themselves repulican or democrat) are more similar than those in the middle (this is called horseshoe theory), that isnt the same as saying they cant be distinguished.

Their policies are very much distinguishable even if both are oppressive.

One obvious examples is guns, you can distinguish between the groups with pretty good accuracy just by asking their stance on guns.

@freemo @kino

pretty sure he wasn't referring to horseshoe theory but rather the idea that democrats and republicans are both inside the incredibly small overton window, with extreme left and right wing people on both sides being so incredibly divorced from liberal and conservative policies as to be basically completely unrepresented by the 'left' and 'right' wing parties in power.

that being said, I find the notion that which party you vote for actually has no impact on anything meaningful to be pretty gross. like, yes we need to do things besides voting, but whether there's republicans or democrats in power does make a difference.

@Zest

What you just described is also horseshoe theory, the idea that extreme left and right are more similar to eachother than they are to moderate left and right as well.

@kino

@freemo @kino

the only similarity I mentioned is that they both think the normal range of political ideas are more centrist than anything. that doesn't speak to their broader political ideas, only their relationship to mainstream political ideas.

@Zest

I disagree on that point. extreme left and right (which is most of the left and right) tend to view anything that isnt in line with their views as the extreme on the other side. Most extreme left and extreme right dont even think moderate views exist.

@kino

@freemo @kino

I don't talk with a lot of extreme right wing people, but most of my friends seem to be pretty far left, like, anything from 'abolish the commodity form' to 'mao zedong and stalin did nothing wrong' (unfortunately) and it seems to me that most of them view democrats as centrist to moderate in either direction. (granted most of them also hate liberals, sometimes, stupidly, more than fascists) but you are definitely right that their view of republicans is often heavily skewed in the fascist direction.

though there have been some steaming hot takes about obama being worse than bush XD