I mean...these labels are generalizations of the positions these people take on issues.
Generalizations are, almost always, useless. For example, I would probably be considered a moderate, and yet I am further left philosophically than most "progressives". What makes me a moderate is I consider real world realities when arriving at my policy positions. So for example, socialized medicine would be great, but politically the US is not ready to fully go there, there are practical issues with paying for such a program and making it work. Therefore I support making smaller changes to improve the system in place. I am not a gun nut. I do not have a small penis, nor do I live in fear, so I do not understand why people feel they need guns and would be perfectly happy to see all guns confiscated. However, the second amendment exists and is pretty broadly interpreted by the courts currently, so any limits on guns would have to be made with that in mind. So I end up being seen as a moderate, despite philosophically and ideologically being pretty far left.
You sound like a pragmatist.
I tend to think that you can be pragmatic and reasonable about getting done what can be done, while also wanting socialized medicine.
Not really. I have lofty goals, but I recognize that getting there is a process. Too many people do not want to go through the process.
I fail to see your point. We all want utopia, right?
Utopia does not exist. We can make things better, but we cannot make things perfect.
The oligarchy invented the problem of tribalism. Makes them look invisible.
"The oligarchy" is incredibly vague. Been no shortage of those. And it does not matter who started it, what matters is that we all work to get past it.
No. The people who have power love to propagate the idea of tribalism and people being divided. Grrrrr, me no like rightie, me no like leftie.
That's a totally obsolete and false paradigm. It's like saying robbers and victims are both extremists, a moderate who compromises between is the way to get things done.
true----no one is happy.
Well, when Progressives are happy, we get Social Security, Medicare, ACA, civil rights, infrastructure, higher growth, environmental protection, among other things.
I mean, you roundly despise progressives to the point you were on record as vowing to stay home in the event Sanders (whom you have nothing but near manic vitriol and contempt for as post after post clearly demonstrates) won the Dem primary just prior to ST before the moderates desperately circled the wagons around Biden at the very last minute, so it's kind of rich and ironic to blast the OP with accusations of tribalism when you clearly engage in it yourself, and with a level of toxicity which surpasses that exhibited by a majority of progressives I'm familiar with on these forums. This is especially true when one considers that the OP has committed the apparently unforgivable sin of merely daring to elucidate what should be obvious per an abundance of evidence: that the staggering majority of self-professed American moderates, Democrats included, are by any real objective and holistic measure with respect to their policy positions and the standards of the developed world as a whole, unambiguously of the right; that any of their claims to centrism are and can only be specific solely and exclusively to American politics only. It is not a smear or slander to recognize that and state as much.
Threats to privatize everything thus as I see it Fascism.