Are you a leftist or a rightist?

[Singu]

I think in theory that is the ideal situation, but like I mentioned in my post, it's entirely possible to get stuck into either counter productive extremism or establishment centrism, which can happen with either political party or any candidate that causes more harm than good. Tribalism is a major issue in politics because it results in each side expending more effort in criticizing the opposing side rather than promoting good ideas or preventing bad ones from being implemented.

I don't necessarily think that you'd have to be "nice" and stop criticizing, but you will need to come up with alternative ideas. So even if you're critical of the majority party, if you don't have any alternatives then they can just say "Yeah well what are you going to do about it? You have no alternative" (that's why merely criticizing Trump doesn't work). "There Is No Alternative" is a dangerous phrase in a democracy. It makes it no different than dictatorship.

So for example things have been stagnating in economics, because economists have been pretending that neoliberalism is the only way, and that "there is no alternative". Well it turns out there are, and things like MMT are one of them and that's why people are finally starting to flock to alternative economic theories. So people will flock to alternatives, if the current one isn't working and if there is one. People knew that there is something wrong with the economy, but they had no alternative to turn to. Now they do.

So basically, liberals, conservatives, centrists, etc, are all potentially good, as long as they can criticize and produce new ideas. What's "evil" is if they don't accept any criticisms and won't let any new ideas to emerge.

[Raver]

I don't necessarily think that you'd have to be "nice" and stop criticizing, but you will need to come up with alternative ideas. So even if you're critical of the majority party, if you don't have any alternatives then they can just say "Yeah well what are you going to do about it? You have no alternative". "There Is No Alternative" is a dangerous phrase in a democracy. It makes it no different than dictatorship.

So for example things have been stagnating in economics, because economists have been pretending that neoliberalism is the only way, and that "there is no alternative". Well it turns out there are, and things like MMT are one of them and that's why people are finally starting to flock to alternative economic theories. So people will flock to alternatives, if the current one isn't working and if there is one. People knew that there is something wrong with the economy, but they had no alternative to turn to. Now they do.

So basically, liberals, conservatives, centrists, etc, are all potentially good, as long as they can criticize and produce new ideas. What's "evil" is if they don't accept any criticisms and won't let any new ideas to emerge.

Well, I'm not trying to advocate for everyone to hold hands and sing kumbaya with each other as that would be counter productive However, I'm advocating for each side to listen to the other a bit more instead of being stuck in tribalistic competition and warfare, which is also counter productive. I like that you mentioned neo-liberalism economics because that's one way how centrism can be bad in that it is about seeking to maintain the status quo rather than introduce new ideas economically.

So in a sense you're touching into one aspect of how I find politics can be detrimental with establishment centrism where we are basically in agreement. However, you are ignoring how extremism in either the left or the right can be detrimental at introducing new ideas that can be potentially harmful. I agree that criticism and producing new ideas is good as long as the criticism is productive and actually based on concrete evidence and the new ideas are actually going to be beneficial instead of detrimental.