Political Centrism Debate

The cluster focuses on debates about centrism being perceived as right-wing bias, the limitations of the left-right political spectrum, shifts in the Overton window, and Hacker News' audience leaning towards centrism or center-right views.

➡️ Stable 0.7x Politics & Society
2,906
Comments
20
Years Active
5
Top Authors
#1240
Topic ID

Activity Over Time

2007
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2011
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2012
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2013
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2014
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2015
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2016
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2017
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2018
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2020
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2022
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2023
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Keywords

IT US HN MAGA PL U.S left center wing political right wing left right far right far left right left extreme

Sample Comments

hitarpetar Oct 23, 2025 View on HN

sounds like you just have a bias for centrism

lucian1900 Mar 8, 2021 View on HN

That post is describing a dichotomy between far-right and centrist politics. How exactly is that not a massive right-wing bias?

djanogo Apr 18, 2021 View on HN

May be you are too far left where "middle" seems like far right?

gordon_freeman Jun 7, 2018 View on HN

what about right-center or left-center? ;)

BeefWellington Nov 16, 2024 View on HN

I think what you're noticing is that a simple left/right along a line is a poor way to express someone's political views.I suspect that because a huge portion of the HN crowd are educated IT workers / would-be founders, overall there's both a strong support for capitalism mixed with progressive social views. That doesn't really connect well with the political landscape in most of the western world and typically gets you labeled a centrist, regardless of how impor

Avicebron May 29, 2020 View on HN

Irrespective of political ideology? So not center right

tyri_kai_psomi Dec 15, 2019 View on HN

There's no room for moderates in today's political climate. "You are either completely on board or you are against me" so the current zeitgeist goes. Essentially you have to align your beliefs and talking points with /r/politics and /r/enlightenedcentrism, or you are just closeted alt right.

epistasis Jan 20, 2026 View on HN

That's definitely going on. There's also something that I've heard called "reactionary centrism:" a feedback loop of people who think that truth lies in the middle between the two extremes, and also that assumes that no mainstream position in a political faction can itself be the "extreme." And that if they find that one political faction is doing something that seems extreme to them, that in the interests of fairness and centrism, they must start considering s

mhh__ Feb 17, 2021 View on HN

Most people aren't particularly left or right wing!

p1necone May 28, 2019 View on HN

Far-left of center, or far-left of you?