Perhaps I was too hasty in my comment. I am not partisan. The right has its own problems, obviously. I recently moved from deep red Georgia to deep blue Maryland, and the polarization is demoralizing. Even though the political climate is so caustic these days, there are reasoned arguments on both sides of issues that are worth listening to. Unfortunately, these voices are being drowned out by extreme views. Our democracy is being eroded by gerrymandering, 24 hour news and social media. Unfortunately, these sources of extremism and authoritarianism are extremely profitable for a very select few. I wish the bright minds that visit this site would work to create products that foster democracy rather than erode it.
To expound on my previous comment, those on the left calling for ‘equity’ should be viewed critically. The calls for ‘removing barriers’ should alarm everyone, because ultimately it only serves to control and dumb everyone down. The alternative is to encourage public policies that seek the empowerment of all individuals and groups. One concrete example is the debate in NYC schools that math and honors courses are ‘inequitable’ and racist. Voices on the left are calling for the abolishment of such classes, thereby denying students the opportunity to be challenged according to their ability. The other undiscussed side of this issue is that such calls for ‘equity’ result in basically giving up on poorer students who won’t be given the support they need to meet the higher standards. In short, anything involving ‘equity’ should be viewed as a race to the bottom for everyone.
You would lose nothing by omitting terms like "the Left" and "the Right" and gain not immediately baiting people into partisan flame wars. I find it baffling that so many Americans have an inability to discuss politics without invoking either of those terms, especially when your "Left" and "Right" are practically leanings of Centrism to most of the rest of the world.
But really, it does nothing to enforce your argument. You complain about 24 hour news and social media eroding Democracy (and presumably discussions about the politics of Democracy), yet you use these terms so loosely and end up reducing anyone Left of you to some or other policy you deem to be essential to that position.
I completely agree that adding these polarizing terms is not helpful in persuading anybody, however I think it's an extreme simplification to say the American Left and Right are leanings of centrism from the view outside the US.
This is kind of an outside perspective - America as seen through the news - but I would say that a lot of the stuff I see espoused by the Left and Right in the US is much more extreme than in Germany for example. Germany has laws that allow for positive discrimination, but I can't think of any such extreme measures as in the US here, where chances are diminished for one race by a factor of 10. Even having race on the application form would be unthinkable here.
On the other hand we have many more social programs that would be unthinkable in the US. We have 4+ (usually 5-6) weeks vacation per year, etc.
The American Right on the other hand is also in many ways more extreme than in Germany, nobody would consider Republicans as right-leaning centrists here, e.g. building a wall would be a bit taboo, although maybe more due to historical reasons. Denying people health-care, because they're poor would also probably not count as centrist here.
I guess Germany itself is kind of exceptional, given its past, but maybe I'm just moving the goalposts now, so let me try to substantiate.
I don't think positive discrimination laws in the US has as much to do with an embrace of Leftist ideology as it does with an attempt at attracting previously disenfranchised voters. I realise this seems very cynical, but my argument is that having a few policies that seem Leftist doesn't mean that the underlying ideology behind those policies is; correlation does not imply causation etc. So I'd argue those laws are reactionary, much in the same way they are in Germany and also in places like South Africa, to varying degrees of course. They're exactly the kind of toe-dipping you'd expect of parties who are more driven by quests for power than ideology. That's why, even with several Democratic presidents, for instance, the US still doesn't have proper vacation and parental leave: it's bad for business.
If I had to plot it, I'd say Germany's political landscape is also quite huddled up around the Center, but slightly Left (with more outliers than the US), where the US is huddled around the Center and slightly Right. This would explain why the Right in the US feels further Right than in Germany. These configurations are probably not even that strange for developed and developing Western nations, though most have more outlier parties than the US even if they're not generally in contention during elections.
I just feel that the binary-narrative - even though the spectrum is quite large and nuanced - is something that has spread from US political commentators to other nations and is watering down the discourse.
Is it just me or has the quality of commentry on political topics gone substantially downhill on HN in the last five years?