All the people I know who like to think about issues deeply generally hate to be described as left or right and much prefer to reject labels.
Sometimes I'm not sure they actually can't be labelled, and sometimes the difficulty in labelling them comes from an overall lack of coherency rather than a truly uncategorisable position, but, I don't know anyone who calls themselves a centrist and could talk about politics in any depth. Centrism seems mostly, at least where I live, to be what people call themselves when they just support the status quo and wish politics would go away.
Its not centrist position, unless "centrist" is so broad as to include every position not at the farthest extreme of either the left or right, as anyone not at a far polar extreme could agree with it.
I think you define "centrist" differently than I do.
Your definition seems to be "split the left-and-right down the middle." That's not the one I've heard or used.
That's okay; words are used differently in different places, but I'm not sure we're actually disagreeing as much as initial posts suggested. Most people I know who consider themselves "centrists" hold a mixture of left-wing and right-wing views. They don't just find the median opinions.
I think what you call "centrist," where I live would be called a "moderate."
I think you're more describing libertarian or apathetic than centrist.
I always think of centrists as just not towing the party line. Some ideas on some side, some on the other. At least, that's what I mean when I describe myself as a centrist.
Unfortunately, being a centrist gets you no friends. Both sides think you're an idiot for even entertaining the other side.
Centrism is inherently conservative, and will lean towards whatever the current system is. A “centrist” party in the Soviet Union would be just another communist party, and a centrist party in Australia is likewise just another capitalist party. Likewise a centrist party in the USA would be another run of the mill capitalist, pro-military, pro-police. pro-surveillance. It would basically just be the current Democratic party except it wouldn’t fight for immigration rights, abortion rights, nor gay rights. A lack of centrist parties is not what is wrong with American politics currently.
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