To wonder where the normal people are?

[wherearemypeople]

I went to a broadly leftwing but not political event the other day. At one point an anti racist man shouted out "never mourn a Tory", which struck me as pretty pro-violence in the month that Ann Widdecombe was murdered. Then a trans performance poet had trans flag painted bricks to remind people of the stonewall riots and said that sometimes people needed more persuasion, and mentioned Wes Streetings constituency office being damaged.

I used to be solidly left wing but would never condone violence. I'm just wondering where normal people are who are neither like the ones just mentioned or Tommy Robinson fans.

Name changed just in case the woman who runs the event comes on here.

Don't know what I am expecting from this thread, just frustrated. Am just about to meet friends so won't be back till later.

I'm normal!

Wind 'em up and watch them go.

Not at the event, probably. You will always get more extreme people at events like that.

I have always considered myself left wing, the problem is the extremes have shifted so much that I now find myself slightly right of centre even though my political views haven’t really changed!

I suppose I meet your “normal”.

I cannot stand Tommy Robinson, Katie Hopkins, Rupert Lowe etc. I would never ever vote Reform UK, Restore Britain and those type of parties.

I probably swing more towards the left. However I don’t believe trans women are women. I do not want to be called a “Cis woman”, I’m just a woman. People celebrating the death of Anne Widdecombe are abhorrent (I’ve seen them on twitter/X).

I hate the whole far left vs far right tit for tat, it isn’t productive. Hopefully most sensible people do too.

Politics has always attracted its fair share of fringe types who are drawn as much to the opportunity for exhibitionism as they are to the actual cause.

Historically there were enough people who were centrist and pragmatic to keep a lid on this. Our hyper polarised political climate has forced a lot of these “normal” people out or to the extremes. People are far more tolerant of this extremism than they were 20 odd years ago.

I don’t think the left has a monopoly on extreme politics though. There are plenty of extreme views on the left and the right.

I'm a normal left winger. I'm not what people would call an extreme lefty, I'm not sure how those who are could even fall in to the category of left. For me, it means being tolerant and respectful of others views and being anti-violence and terror. That's not what I see with those being labelled extreme left, those align more with the extreme right in my eyes.

We're over in Feminism: Sex and gender discussions - come on in.

I’m with you, OP. Could blather on for paragraphs but will just say that it’s horrible when people seem to lose their basic humanity over political issues.

Vicious, cruel, angry, vengeful people are terrifying and unfortunately social media now gives them a powerful platform to.

The normal people are struggling to pay their bills and raise their kids whilst politicians pander to the weird ideologies of fringe groups. Normal people are so disillusioned that you only really hear from them around election time, when pundits are 'surprised' by voting trends.

I think they’re not getting involved in politics because they come up against this kind of crap and can’t be bothered with it.

You want to discuss education, housing, healthcare etc - but it’s going to be #freepalestine, trans rights and boat people.

Most people are 'normal'.
Ime, extreme right wing and extreme left wing are exactly the same type of people, its only their target groups that are different.

The silent majority

Yeah this is me.

generally believe in being nice to people, try to make the world a better place etc.

can’t stand either right wing hate the immigrants or left wing hate the tories any more.

One million per cent, THIS.

I’m so tired of having Gaza, trans rights etc shoved to the fore when they are far from priorities for most people. Such issues just cause division and distract from the matters you mention, which is what most people would like politicians to focus on.

I’m with this. I actually voted for my local MP who is labour and I’m been impressed with him. I’ve become very disappointed with mainstream politics- 10 years plus of labour 10 years plus of Tory and it doesn’t really matter nothing seems to change.

Im passionate about the environment but I don’t agree with many of the Green policies.

The vast majority of people fall into this category. But unfortunately political activism nowadays seems to cater only to the extremes.

And tiny but extremely vociferous minorities.

The be kind brigade who are anything but. We are mainly a centre right country and most people I know fit into that category as well as a handful of leftists I know and we are all normal centre right or left. Reasonable people.

I work with a couple of youngsters who go on Gaza marches and fill their social media with memes spouting hate but talk to them and they don't even know where Gaza is!! Plus they are so intolerant. Maybe it is their age.

I'm left wing and at home rather than out paricipating in extremist nonsense. Just as I assume normal Tories avoid Tommy Robinson right wing crap.

Spot on. An issue has to be of the kind that attracts the rent-a-mob lot for demos and marches, not to mention the desecration of art galleries and so on.
Pin one of that omni-activism crowd down on the foreign aid budget, or the mechanism of devolved government, and they’ll remember a subsequent engagement pretty sharpish.

(It’s enough to make one miss the sight of bearded Trotskyites flogging Militant outside Littlewoods!)

But would you celebrate Tommy Robinson being shot? No because you are a decent human being. The trouble is that we have bread a population that thinks life is a Warner brothers cartoon and the coyote came back to life after running off a cliff so it doesn't matter who you hurt.

At home.

I used to be active in one of the major political parties about 20 years ago. I’m still a member but I’m not active and haven’t been since the Brexit vote really; the whole political landscape became toxic, aggressive, and frankly quite scary. Fewer and fewer, normal reasonable people, and a rise in people who are incapable of respectfully disagreeing on an issue.

Absolutely. I think of myself as centre (but then I guess lots of people do!) and in the past there really wasn’t this vicious hatred between the main parties, or the designation of Tories as ‘scum’ - they were just people with a different approach to economics in the 60s and 70s. It wasn’t all so personal, divisive and nasty.