Rollo

Modern-day political discussions have been getting pretty silly in my opinion. I think we've lost the whole concept of political debate in favor of falsely painting some other person or group as xyz. Especially in the United States. Debates have become less about opinions and more about labels. And that sounds really broad and vague but let me elaborate.

Instead of listening to, well, your opinion, people will usually immediately link you up with a label such as conservative, feminist, fascist, alt-right, some more extreme than others. That's not how arguments are fought. Because if you disagree with a liberal in terms of immigration, you're a MAGA hat-wearing racist/fascist. If you believe in women's rights, you're a feminist. If you're not a feminist, you're sexist. If you don't like the idea of women with bionic arms in Battlefield 5, you're an alt-right troll. Oh yeah, and you're sexist too.

Why do we do that? Like I said, it defeats the whole purpose. Because from that point on, you're not arguing against the same points. You're arguing with the most exaggerated personification of the "opposite side" of the spectrum. By the way, on the topic of "opposite side", there is none. The problem I've been talking about got so out of hand that people don't even consider you to be anywhere on the political spectrum except left or right. Politics is such a wide concept, why tell someone (and yourself) that you have to be on one "side?" If I wanted stronger gun control, that doesn't give you the right to tell me I'm a liberal. If I like what president Trump is doing, that doesn't give you the right to tell me I'm conservative. I believe whatever I want, I don't need a bandwagon to get me moving. And you don't either. If you believe in women's rights but don't like other things some extreme feminists do, you're not obligated to call yourself a feminist. If someone tells you that if you believe in equal rights you're a feminist, they can screw right off. You know that's not what feminism really means, they know it too. You don't need a label for your complicated soup of opinions.

The political spectrum is much wider than left and right. You have your very own spectrum, and you don't need this garbage to tell you what you believe. I saw an article the other day titled "Donald Trump’s Message Resonates With White Supremacists". Basically it talked about how something he said on Twitter was an opinion also shared by white supremacists. If I understand correctly (because news outlets like this tend to dodge the point and sources to further push their agenda), he tweeted a quote from Mussolini saying “It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep”. And then some actual white supremacists were like "yeah I like his opinion, good quote". And then suddenly Donald Trump is a white supremacist as well? That's such an outlandish and out-of-the-blue thing to say. Yeah, people are allowed to agree with what someone says, just as much as you are to disagree. If you don't like that he quoted Mussolini, or the quote itself, that's alright. But I don't think anyone has the right to tell you you're a white supremacist, especially from something as stupid as a quote.

Going back to the point, we've gotten so used to this that it's customary. This is why liberal media is so often called "fake news", and why I even have to call it liberal media. Because it's not news at all. It's not. It is completely opinionated, biased, exaggerated and sometimes fabricated in favor of their opinion. Of course liberals aren't the only ones guilty of this, it's just the most prominent recent example. And that's just how media works. It's kinda sickening that literally nobody can talk about these things without associating the person they're talking to with an overarching demographic, and by extension mistake what they say and to put words in their mouths.

TL;DR: Political discussions are really painful when the person you're talking to thinks you're an extremist for disagreeing with them. We do things like this and then wonder why the other person just doesn't get it. Why we're constantly left with "Why is this person so dense? Why can't they just agree with me?" It's because no one's actually arguing at that point. At least not to each other, and not about their actual opinions. It baffles me how we let ourselves dig this whole so deep. What I want you to take away is that your opinion is your own. You are not this or that because you believe xyz. Labels should never tell you or anyone else what you actually believe. You don't have to call yourself a liberal or a conservative, or even a moderate. You don't have to say that you're just in the middle. Because there is no middle. There is no right, there is no left. There is no spectrum. It's a scam. It's fake. It is actually nonexistent. Your opinion is your opinion, and it always will be.