I'd say a centralist is someone who wants things centralized.

But yes, some people describe themselves as centrist when they mean "I don't view my positions as extreme but neither do I care to justify them".

And some people describe themselves as centrist when they're politically apathetic.

And some people describe themselves as centrist when they have a grab bag of views and don't feel they fit neatly in the right or left wing.

And some people describe themselves as centrist because they're contrary and can't bring themselves to agree with anybody.

And, very rarely, there are people who describe themselves as centrist because they are in the process of changing their mind.

You're better off asking somewhere where actual centrists congregate, rather than Lemmy where there essentially only different flavours of left-wing.

But critical to any understanding of this topic is that the terms are all relative. There's no "true" centre just like there's no "true" left or right - these terms only make sense in relation to each other and to established norms. A centrist is therefore someone who has views that are somewhat in the middle of mainstream politics for their context.

Leftism has always suffered from a lot of internal division and purity testing, so when you ask in a very left-wing space like Lemmy, centrists will always be accused of being right-wing, but so will anyone who isn't a raging communist - they've failed the test so they're with the others - the right-wingers.

I think the reason "Centrists" usually align with the right, is because the left is geared toward giving more money and power to the people, and the right is trying to prevent the elite from losing that money and power.

The "Centrists" hear both sides, feel icky about letting "men" in women's restrooms, but also don't want slavery or racism, so they decide to keep things how they are (what they consider "normal" or "the center") which only benefits the people who currently have the power, which aligns with the goals of the right.

A centrist is someone who believes that there even is a such thing as a center. Everything is relative, and those who call themselves centrist are more often than not just pushing the Overton Window to the right.

A true centrist is someone who considers both left and right positions carefully, then sides with the right.

Centrism is rarely a coherent ideology and to most people it's seen as the "default" or "starting" position of politics. In reality, issue by issue, there is rarely a coherent 'in between' position. Centrists tend to be politically naive, and navigate the world by intuition (they call it common sense). The Right dominates people who think this way.

A lot of the centerists you call far right are also getting called far left by the right. Centrists tend to pick and choose left or right or neither on each issue individually and don't pick sides.

Believe it or not, there are right beliefs that are not far right Nazi beliefs, the mundane day to day stuff. Genuine belief in lower government control and lower taxes for example. Unfortunately we didn't see any of that come true with this presidency.

And to be clear, I am a leftist, but one who believes in human free will. As long as you genuinely believe in doing the right thing and not harming others, we can debate all day on what exactly that looks like, but the minute it turns into the usual grift, I'm out.

I don't even know. All I know is that leftists (which I'm not truly technically part of, because my beliefs in prosociality and social responsibility, and being against usury and greed, come from the Qur'an and applied ethics and not Marxist literature) are actual humans and everyone that considers themselves "on the right" are heartless sociopaths or amoral morons who care only about their material fulfilment and fuck everyone else, and the centrists are usually the latter as well (from their posts here, I've never met anyone IRL who's told me they're a centrist).

I consider myself left of center. Because the us is dominated by center (dems) and far right (rep). Our center appears to be in between the actual center and the far right. Or right of center. That makes me seem like some uber liberal by our media standards for wanting universal healthcare, progressive taxes, and regulation so that we live in a safe and pleasant environment. Now like news nation has tag lines like fox news used to. fair and balanced. news for all america. what they are talking about is the media center or basically giving both the center view and the ultra right view. So they call themselves a center viewpoint but its a right viewpoint.

centrist is fundamentally based on ignorance.

thinking the wealth of european countries comes from their own hard work, not colonialism and imperialism.

thinking we can maintain this wealth with our own "hard work".

then wondering why it doesnt work, and instead of questioning their underlying assumptions, they instead blame everyone else but them on why it doesnt work.

everyone else obv being immigrants, leftists, feminists, etc.

nourishing a far right mindset, not because they actually hate minorities and supporting the evil of empire, but simply bevause they don't know and dont want to learn.

that is centrism.

I'm probably further left leaning than the vast majority of people I know, but I'm for sure not as left as what it feels like your average person on Lemmy is.

Why I hate being left sometimes

I probably consider myself Center-Left but much more left than center