I have some thoughts on the usage of rhetoric and “othering” from both the left and the right and the resulting disengagement of the non-radicalized and how this disproportionately benefits one party.

Online, at least, in leftist circles, the word “centrist” has become an insult. You are either with them, or you’re against them, and you’re every name in the book. Same on the right - you’re godless, etc. This is a problem more for the left than it is for the right.

The right has always used hyperbolic destructive language, and it’s not surprising why - there’s a religious contingent of people who will always be conservative, all fire and brimstone. You have to do or defend certain things, or you go to hell. Same with their politics.

The right is perfectly content - happy even - with traditionalism, and the status quo. They are defending the way things have been done, lest their country be “destroyed” by leftists. I’m making some generalizations, but stay with me.

The left doesn’t have this same blind support from religion. Generally, the people who vote D are seeking progress/change. They may have some extremists, all parties do, but in order to change something you have to get people on your side. Not push the mythical swing vote away.

With the way the left has co-opted the right’s inflammatory and hyperbolic speech, you’re left with two options as a centrist, or as somebody who doesn’t know very much: either you become radicalized, or you become disengaged. This is the misstep, I think.

When those are your two options, you will have people who disengage. How many people do you know who are over politics? How many people just don’t feel like their voice makes a difference? This is by design. The less people engage, the easier it is to keep things as they are.

And thus, the left, by becoming this sort of “entirely with us or entirely against us” logic, has played into exactly what the right wants: people who no longer care. Yes, terrible things are happening. Insulting people with hyperbolic language shuts them down. The support wanes.

It isn’t even necessarily out of anything beyond ignorance. We’ve all heard “it isn’t my job to educate you”, but that’s hardly fostering the progressive spirit of learning and empowerment. All this does is insult those who don’t know much, and at least *wanted to* briefly. Why?

I understand fully the anger, hate, and genuine despair you and the people around you are feeling. Yes, it seems that one party wants to help and the other party does not. When you frame it like that, you lose anyone who doesn’t see the world through the exact lens you do.

I don’t have an answer or honestly any deeper insight, I just think the willingness to lean into the “radicalization or nothing” dichotomy is playing exactly into the hands of those that would benefit from maintaining the status quo in this country. It isn’t working. Nothing is.