And if you've seen my tweet on this subject, you will already know that is the mild version.
Full disclosure: until 2017 I thought of myself as a 'liberal', so a 'centrist', albeit left-of-centre, given I was 'woke' on social issues before white liberals co-opted the word (and before conservatives weaponised it and removed all meaning), although had some cringe economic takes (like 'everything has to be paid for'). Since its rejection at consecutive elections and in a referendum, I realised my 'values' weren't actually wanted. Those 'values' as a centrist are to sit around and love the status quo as the best thing possible. And especially 2020, my economic and socioeconomic understanding has been enlightened so I'm at worst a 'progressive', or at best a 'Leftist'. I let my followers decide which from what I post.
So today (Thursday 9th February) one of my Twitter followers replied to someone I never knew existed, and will be glad I won't know of them in future, but the post triggered my inner hatred of 'centrists', and especially 'centrists for aesthetics', that I had to make this quick rant. If you're a "true" centrist or especially one for aesthetics, this is not the blog for you.
Because of the fact I'll never see this guy's tweets again, I won't bother posting the image of the tweet (you can find it on my Twitter account if you care), and given everything Musk has 'turned off' to fuck up Twitter, searching the words of the tweet probably won't find it either.
So this 'LGB' guy (you know it's just going to be a banger of a tweet already) from Texas writes the following - "I'm done. We need to go our separate ways." Underneath this is an image with the following - "No Pride - in sexualising children, usurping women's rights and betraying the LGB community". Below this in the image is a pair of scissors cutting the T from the LGB on a Pride flag (the OG version - not the Progress one because conservatives despise that one. Dunno why they're all so upset by the Black and Brown LGBTQ+ people though.)
And of course the dude's bio is a classic - it has 'LGB', 'Queer is a slur', and the chef's kiss 'Centrist'. His feed somehow for a 'centrist' is him just agreeing with and retweeting either liberal-turned-conservative 'centrists' like Bill Maher (because this conversion over being anti-woke is a lucrative business model) or outright right-wing reactionaries.
And that is the proof anyone needs to never trust someone who calls themselves a 'centrist' if you're a minority community. They will never support you when the chips are really on the table. Because either they're a centrist as they're (and want to be) apathetic about everything in the world - often because their identity is part of the majority - and don't want to ever be forced to pick a side; they believe the ruling class's propaganda that the systems are either already the best and so anything outside of it must be wrong, and nothing of any real substance should be done to it, or that the systems will protect the minority communities from being attacked by the 'extremes' - even if, as in this example, they're actively going along with the Right's 'talking points' - as 'just by ignoring them it will go away and fix itself'; or because they use the term as an aesthetic, either because they're doing it deliberately to make it seem like what they're saying is "normal", "rational", "logical" and so "must be centrism", when it's actually conservativism, and often deeply conservative, to surreptitiously move more people even further Right than many 'Western societies' are, or because they're too scared to admit to people - whether online, or family and friends in the 'real' world - that they actually are just a conservative.
The fact that this guy, like so many other 'centrists', think that shitting on trans people's existence and their deserving of humanity and equal rights will somehow protect 'LGB' people from those who are using the exact same rhetoric and language that they did about gay people in the past (and are already doing so again today), is incredibly disconnected to reality (which anti-trans people love to say they're arguing for).
And that they think advocating for trans people is the reason that the Right are now back calling gay people "groomers", "paedophiles", and 'a threat to children'. No, these people are using trans people as a diversion from the fact conservatism and capitalism are fucking over the masses' lives and future right now, and they use scapegoats to stop people ever working that out, so those at the top - who are, surprisingly, also the ones promoting it - keep their money, power and influence intact, despite everyone getting poorer, unhealthier and more oppressed.
That fact isn't going to change in the late-stage capitalism we're in - we're hurtling towards full-blown fascism right now from the rhetoric being pushed by politicians and media especially, and online 'influencers' additionally, in many 'Western' countries, and once they're done putting trans people out of existence (at the least from viewable 'society'), they will (have to) move on to the next group. And who will that be? Oh yes, it's the 'LGBs'. They're already using the exact same language from the past, repurposed for the modern concocted moral panic - because it's meant as a gateway to removing us all. And the fact that 'centrists' don't understand it, or want to understand it because they cannot let go of the systems in the status quo, show you can never rely on these to come to your aid.
Indeed, they'll more likely support the right-wingers, because at least their future upholds all the structures that 'centrists' love to hold as 'pure' and 'just', against the 'scary' thought of ending capitalism that Leftists propose (rightly). They would rather see their life get worse, because if other people are having theirs made even worse - or erased completely - they can, and will, console themselves that at least there is someone worse off than they are. The hierarchy is 'safe', therefore human existence is too.
Now without even looking, I have no doubt this guy also loves the "Don't Say Gay" law in Florida (especially when a large amount of the famously 'radical Marxist Democrats' in FL also agree with it existing). And as the Left (the actual one, not the mythical version the right-wing ecosystem say most legacy media is, and the 'left-ist' major political parties - Labour in the UK and the Democrats in the US, are) not in a place either to overcome the inherent bias in the democratic systems in the UK or in the USA, or to actually push for the ultimate in overthrowing the economic systems with a mass collective understanding right now, to get anything we need 'centrists' on-side.
But what 'centrists' want in return, because they have the inherent support of those systems as they don't want to change them, is the demand to give in both our soul and our values, to both what they want and by extension from them, conservative framing, on social issues. 'The status quo is both good and the only way for humanity to exist as we do, don't you know?' And even then, they're just as likely to come along and stab you in the eyes, and laugh and spit at your feet as you bleed to death.
So for those who read my tweets, toots or on this blog who wonder why I am so derisive and sarcastic about 'centrists', when I "need" them, this tweet exemplified the reasons why. They fucking suck.
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