Current Events > In broad terms, it could be said there are only three political positions.

(+) Yeah! (+)

• Reactionary: Those who want to turn back the clock, and restore a previous stage of society.
• Conservative: Those who defend the current status quo and oppose any change, be it proressive or reactionary.
• Progressive: Those who want to move society forward to new stage.

Conservatives might make alliance with either of the other two to stop the third, i.e. ally with progressives to stop reactionaries sometimes, and then ally with reactionaries to stop progressives some other times.

Which do you consider yourself to be?

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In this framework:

Reactionaries - MAGA, Tea Party, Neonazis, etc.
Conservatives - Mainstream Republicans and Mainstream Democrats
Progressives - Progressive Dems, Socialists, Anarchists, Communists, etc.

This is happening right now, the mainstream dems and reps (aka conservatives in this framework) are in line with the progressives in opposing MAGA, but once that stops being a threat, they'll turn against progressives.

So I dont necessarily disagree with your premise, but I dont find that those terms really have much use in discussing political beliefs, due to the fact that they are all relative terms, and change over time, or even from issue to issue. My views on most issues would make me a rabid, radical progressive in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, yet Id be considered a near Luddite-level reactionary over my opposition to the eugenics movement of that same period. In 50 years from now the views I hold might be considered conservative or even reactionary despite being progressive these days. The whole reason that modern day reactionaries often refer to themselves as conservative (see: the modern day US Republican Party) is because they did hold conservative views, prior to society changing and those same views becomingby definitionreactionary.

So yeah, I feel like these types of relative categorizations are pretty much useless in terms of meaningful discussion.

BlackOmnimon posted...

In this framework:

Reactionaries - MAGA, Tea Party, Neonazis, etc.
Conservatives - Mainstream Republicans and Mainstream Democrats
Progressives - Progressive Dems, Socialists, Anarchists, Communists, etc.

God I hate being lumped in with progressive dems.

Respect broads terms