I’ve noticed that a lot of US polisci studies conflate being “far left” or “far right” with extremism, but when we talk about extremism, people are usually thinking about things like
-willingness to use violence
-militancy
-willingness to go outside existing processes
-intemsity of conviction
And so there are dudes like Bush Jr. Who would be moderate on the scale of US politics, but who its also reasonable to call an extremist. I think LBJ would fall into that camp too.
It just feels like unnecessary conflation which ends up serving liberal “common sense” that far left and far right wingers are “extremists.”
Correct, it’s literally just fucking horseshoe theory being laundered through academia so they can gesture vaguely in the direction of “studies” about “extremism” in liu of ever having to actually defend/justify that conflation
Belatedly, I’ve met a lot of guys in DSA who are revolutionaries after the Bernie rat-fuck but would likely be reformists in more democratic countries. Like they’re not inherently extremists, they’ve just been denied legitimate avenues for their politics.
