CMV: You should believe that the modern mainstream right is more horrible than the modern mainstream left if you don't already

Welcome to the first post in the **Change Healthy Opinions** series of posts. We've been posting these over the past three months at /r/ChangeOurPerspective, and we've decided to make this project a cross subreddit effort, so we'll now be making these kinds of posts here too. These posts are going to be very similar to the normal "Change My View" posts you see here, except in this case, rather than seeking to change an opinion through discussion, we're going to seek to change an opinion through helping you see the best arguments for a certain position. Healthy politics and issues based discussion is incredibly important in this time of division, so it's good to be able to see the best arguments for a political position you're not sure about, or haven't considered. It's also not about convincing you that one side is better or worse than the other. It's just about giving you the best possible view of a political position you may not be that familiar with so you can make a more educated decision. I'll be arguing in favour of the motion, and I'll keep the post updated with the best arguments that are posted in the comments.<br><br>If you want to participate, write a comment with a good argument for why you believe the modern mainstream right is either just as horrible as, less horrible than, or better than the modern mainstream left. If you see an argument that you believe you can respond to, respond to it. If you believe someone has responded to one of your arguments successfully, upvote that comment so I can see it. I'll then respond to the highest voted comments, and I'll keep the post updated periodically with the best arguments posted against the motion.<br><br>This is going to be a very long post, so if you're looking for the list of the best arguments, it can be found [here](#best_arguments).<br><br>A lot of people in the modern day fear for the future. It's a good time to be afraid, with a world that seems to be constantly moving in the wrong direction politically, financially, environmentally, and culturally. One of the biggest things fueling this dystopian future is political division and tribalism, with both the left and the right pushing further towards extremism. This division makes politics incredibly divisive, which stops people being able to consider if the other side might be at least partially right in a given scenario. If you're a centrist, you'll often be attacked by both sides for taking a fairly neutral stance.<br><br>This division is getting worse. Many people point out similarities between the world today and the world pre-WWII. Many believe a global conflict is coming, many believe the world will head towards a global right-wing dictatorship, and many believe either the left or the right will win out over the other and create a less free society as a result. Whether you agree with any of this or not, when you take a closer look at the data and the news and the history and other relevant sources of information, you should come out of it believing that the modern mainstream right is more horrible than the modern mainstream left.<br><br>The first thing that you should consider is what "mainstream right and left" means. There's a lot of confusion over what the modern left is, particularly in the United States. Many people who are a part of the modern American left believe that Biden is a right-wing populist. They also believe that the Democratic Party is a center right neo-liberal party. So when we talk about the modern mainstream left, we're referring to the left-wing end of the mainstream left-right spectrum, which would be the left-wing faction of the Democratic Party in the US. The modern left is fairly mainstream, and has been gaining popularity over the past decade or so. Whether you believe Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders is a part of the modern mainstream left is up to you to decide for yourself, but the principles of the left that are outlined below should be represented in one of those two groups of people at least.<br><br>The next thing that you should consider is how you should differentiate "horrible behavior" when it comes to politics, considering the vast array of modern political issues. When we talk about which side is more horrible, we're talking about which mainstream side has proposed policies that are more horrible and promotes a political culture that is more horrible. By horrible policy culture, we mean whether the general behavior around a certain policy is horrible. Republicans saying "If you're calling me a racist, you're the racist" when someone points out that one of their policies may disproportionately hurt a certain racial or ethnic group is a horrible culture that allows horrible policy to thrive without proper criticism. Democrats saying "Americans who earn a million dollars or more a year should be taxed more" is not a horrible culture. You can use your own judgement on what is horrible and what is not, but it's an important thing to consider.<br><br>There's a whole host of horrible policy pushes, policy cultures, horrible action pushes, and horrible action cultures from the modern mainstream right, and only a fraction of that from the modern mainstream left. Many people who are right-wing believe that something is horrible if it has any horribleness to it. For example, they'll see a news headline that says "Portland driver accelerates into protesters, injuring two", and say that the whole BLM movement and the whole Democratic Party is horrible because of the violence of a few protestors. This is a horrible mentality which leads to the mainstream right ignoring the much more horrible policies and culture that they themselves have.<br><br>Let's start with the horrible end goal implied by the modern mainstream right's behavior and culture. There is a huge culture of right-wing populism sweeping across the Western world. Populism is a horrible methodology that gives horrible results, and is an enormous threat to democracy. Right-wing populism is exactly what it says on the tin, and has a long history of horrible authoritarian dictatorships as a result. Whether you look to modern day India, modern day Brazil, modern day Hungary, modern day Poland, or modern day USA, you can see that right-wing populism leads to horrible results. Right-wing populism leads to horrible majoritarian rule where the minority are oppressed, horrible hate speech is normalized, horrible policy is made, and horrible politicians are empowered. Right-wing populism is much worse than left-wing populism, so if we look at modern left-wing populists like Hugo Chavez, we can see that left-wing populism has a history of horrible authoritarian dictatorships too, but not as bad as the horrible history implied by right-wing populism. The mainstream modern right, whether you look to Trump, Modi, Bolsonaro, Orban, or Duda, is right-wing populist. The mainstream modern left, whether you look to Biden, Corbyn, Saunders, or Warren, is not nearly as populist. If you believe that Biden or Bernie is a horrible authoritarian populist who wants to oppress people who are right-wing, I encourage you to find a less echo-y chamber.<br><br>The right-wing populists of today are horrible majoritarians who believe that their opinions should reign supreme just because they are the majority. Populists believe that the most popular opinion is always right, and that the majority knows best. This leads to many horrible things. Opinions that the majority holds which aren't based on facts but rather on feelings should not be given much weight, because the majority believe them. Healthy democracy requires discussion and compromise. Right-wing populists are horrible because they do not see the value in working out what the best policy is through discussion or compromise, because they believe that policy which is popular with the most people must be the best policy. Right-wing populists are also horrible because they do not see the value in protecting the rights of minorities if the majority believe their rights should be curtailed.<br><br>These horrible principles that underpin right-wing populism mean that right-wing populists are horrible when it comes to policy. Healthy democracy requires that policy is made in a nuanced, evidence-based, rational, pragmatic, empathetic, and scientific way. Right-wing populists are horrible because they don't see the value in making policy that is nuanced, evidence-based, rational, pragmatic, empathic, or scientific. Right-wing populists are horrible because they are willing to push policy that is not in the best interests of the nation or the world. Healthy democracy requires that policy is made for the good of the nation, rather than for the good of the politician making the policy. Right-wing populists are horrible because they are willing to push horrible policy that helps them politically but is not beneficial to the nation or the world, such as horrible climate policy. Right-wing populists are horrible because they're willing to push horrible policy that is not beneficial to the nation or the world, but does benefit them personally, such as horrible regulatory policy. Right-wing populists are horrible because they're willing to push horrible policy that is not beneficial to the nation or the world, but is beneficial to people who support them politically, such as horrible policy which disproportionately benefits the wealthy, policy which disproportionately hurts a certain racial or ethnic group, or horrible immigration policy.<br><br>These horrible principles that underpin right-wing populism mean that right-wing populists are horrible when it comes to culture. These horrible principles mean that right-wing populists are horrible because they're willing to push horrible ideas that are not in the best interests of the nation or the world. They're horrible because they're willing to normalize horrible pushing of horrible ideas that are not in the best interests of the nation or the world. Right-wing populists are horrible because they are willing to normalize horrible policy discussion through horrible means such as normalized hate speech, horrible disinformation, lying, horrible nationalism, and other horrible means of discussion. Right-wing populists are horrible because they normalize horrible action discussion through horrible means such as normalized hate speech, horrible nationalism, horrible disinformation, horrible normalization of violence, and other horrible means of discussion. Right-wing populists are horrible because they