Some might say it’s their defining characteristic.

I’ll bite. Most of what I see here in this thread against Centrism or Independents is bad strawman arguments consisting of: “There are three types of people: reasonable people who agree with me, crazy fascists, and lily-livered wimps who can’t pick a side (and are also fascists)!”

If someone says that they are “centrist” they are not telling you that they base all of their opinions on being dead center in the middle of any two positions. That would be stupid.

They are telling you that they agree with neither major party on everything, and find that both parties have views that they don’t agree with. It’s pretty easy to come to that conclusion because the US two-party system packs in an almost incoherent mishmash of beliefs into exactly two sides.

There is absolutely no contradiction in being for police reform, and against riots lasting for days. There is no contradiction in being for gun rights, while also wanting massive limits on them. There is no contradiction in wanting functional government services and universal healthcare, and thinking that free markets are effective to an extent. There is no contradiction in wanting a more balanced budget, and government services to be funded properly.

The idea that there are only two (or maybe 2.5 depending on where you live) sides in politics is a strange delusion created by your two party system.

The reason the meme creator is running into situations like this is because they don’t witness the Centrist also vehemently argue with right-wing policies frequently.

They only see them argue with them and therefore have a skewed view of Centrists / Independents and their politics. If you are left wing, and argue for left-wing policies in every case, that means you will also be argued with by somebody who believes political nuance and not just waving a party flag.

Remember, the right wing also shits on centrists because they think they are secretly left-wing since they argue with their stupider points as well.

So no, these people are not secretly right-wing and just don’t have the balls to say it. That is a horrendous take no matter where you fall on the political spectrum and only serves to limit conversation.

Now you go.

Well left/right isn’t authoritarian/libertarian, it’s collectivist economics/individualist economics.

Authoritarians with collectivist ideals are authoritarian leftists, i.e tankies,

Libertarians with collectivist ideals are libertarian leftists i.e anarchocommunists,

Authoritarians with individualist ideals are authoritarian right, i.e monarchism,

Libertarians with individualist ideals are libertarian right, i.e anarchocapitalism.

Of course there are more examples of ideologies for each quadrant with varying levels of “auth-lib” or “left-right,” but just to give you some idea of the differences. There’s also auth-lib centers, like National Socialists on the auth side and agorists or anarchoprimativists on the lib side.

Of course judge all of the above groups to your own accord, but it isn’t as simple as “left means libertarian” unless you think anarchocapitalism is a leftist ideal, which it by definition isn’t.

that has nothing to do with the ideology of centrism itself and would be ridiculous to even pretend so.

it has to do with the complexity of the situation, and more specifically for everyone supporting Israel, having to do with maintaining country relations moreso than the edit: humanist ideals unfortunately.