Woah there buddy, I'm personally a big fan of vaccines, I believe climate change is real, and we probably agree about more things than you expect.
If you're interested, I'm also not talking about who passed what laws, I'm talking about average people, and what they say about what they want, and what they say their reasons are. If you don't see hypocrisy in that all the time, then either you're not talking to very many people, or you're so deeply into groupthink that you're just not capable of making any honest appraisal at this point. If you want to start calling a dislike of hypocrisy and a desire for more integrity in more people "bothsideism" and spewing all this vitriol then I guess you can do that, but I'm not sure it will have any positive effects.
My vitriol wasn't directed towards you, I just don't understand why you (as in, liberals) need to put "both sides" on equal footings every time you criticize the republicans. In our current landscape, the right (as in, "average people" on the right) is guilty of far more hypocrisy than the left, and that is an objective fact.
Again, I don't hold the democrats in my hearts, but this kind of "enlightened centrism" is useless and in very poor taste in our current state of affairs. Also, please refrain from accusing anyone daring to express their opinions clearly that they are under the influence of "groupthink" or imply they are socially defective.
Sorry but I reject being labeled as a liberal, I'm not interested in bothsideism or whataboutism, and I don't much like groups, teams, or cliques of any kind. I tend to hold everyone to same high standards of integrity because I just don't like lies, hypocrisy, hidden motives, self-interest masquerading as ethical behaviour, etc.
I do have some advice though. If you want a stronger left, then you should probably stop using a label like "enlightened centrists", because this is just one of the ways that the left alienates their own allies for not being orthodox enough. Similar to what the right calls RINOs. It's not productive, it's immature playground politics, like when middle-schoolers get mad at their friends for not hating their enemies "enough" to be real friends. Instead of thrashing around trying to work out whether someone is on your "side".. maybe just listen to what they are saying and evaluate it on those terms
Advice noted and rejected. Appealing to "centrists" leads nowhere. The political landscape shifted so far right, it's a wonder anyone can still call themselves "centrist" seriously. We now have "centrist" thought-leaders being openly bigoted towards LGBT people, questioning vaccine efficacy and the existence of climate change.
"Thrashing the other side" is exactly how the right got elected, so I wouldn't call it unproductive. If the left is to win anything ever again, it's by having its own tea party and throwing out all the ineffective old guys of the establishment, not by appealing to that fabled "moderate" who has "reasonable demands" the left is supposedly not addressing.
Socialized healthcare, redistributibe taxation, aggressive anti-monopoly actions... All things that poll incredibly well and that could be exploited to win, but that current democrats are too afraid to campaign on for fear of alienating their wealthy donors.
If you're interested, I'm also not talking about who passed what laws, I'm talking about average people, and what they say about what they want, and what they say their reasons are. If you don't see hypocrisy in that all the time, then either you're not talking to very many people, or you're so deeply into groupthink that you're just not capable of making any honest appraisal at this point. If you want to start calling a dislike of hypocrisy and a desire for more integrity in more people "bothsideism" and spewing all this vitriol then I guess you can do that, but I'm not sure it will have any positive effects.