Horseshoes and Bedfellows
Sometimes their close enough a single grenade will take them both out.
For those unfamiliar with what I’m talking about here, see this.
Here is a partial list drawing from the recent news.
SJWs of the left labeling opponents on the right as "fascists" and "Nazis" including in some partially legitimate and occasionally quite legitimate cases to only take up the cause of actual antisemitism including to the extent of defending the murder of actual Jews and calling for genocide against Israel.
The extreme left worrying about climate change to the extent they want to do away with modern technological luxuries like washing machines aligned with the extreme right (cultural tradcons) who think that a woman's place is in the home.
Trump leading the Republican party and many conservatives to a position against free trade and very pro-labor including labor unions. Much of the rhetoric on the right is now remarkably close to socialist/Marxist/communist statements from the past.
The left’s embrace and the right's opposition to Bernie Sanders saying there are too many breakfast cereals and deodorants and then the right embracing and the left mocking Trump saying kids don't need so many dolls and we should make do with much less consumer products.
The right opposing Biden's forays into controlling drug pricing including Trump campaigning against Harris promising to have price controls on groceries and then when in office signing an executive order for widespread pharmaceutical price controls.
Left-wing NIMBYs demanding preservation of "neighborhood character" along with right-wing immigration restrictionists demanding preservation of "local culture". [HT to Chris Freiman]
Either party while in power bemoaning the debt ceiling limit claiming that to avert crisis we simply have to raise it while the out-of-power party claims it is an essential feature of limited government only to then reliably completely switch roles when presidential control switches party.
Republicans decrying government involvement in private corporations from Obama's governmental ownership stake of GM in the auto bailout to Biden's interference into U.S. Steel's future (blocking Nippon Steel's acquisition) and then when in power striking a socialistic (technically more accurately termed fascist) ownership/control deal with the Nippon takeover of U.S. Steel that includes the sitting president to have a final say in corporate decisions.
Thinking about this topic, this post from Steve Stewart-Williams caught my eye:
A recent paper by Jan-Willem van Prooijen and André Krouwel explores the psychology of political extremists on both ends of the spectrum. It identifies four key traits that both tend to have in common, and which distinguish them from moderates:
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Psychological distress
First up: psychological distress - a gnawing sense of meaninglessness born of anxious uncertainty.
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Cognitive simplicity
Next, we have cognitive simplicity: the tendency to view the world in stark black-and-white terms.
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Overconfidence
This one follows logically from the last: If you see the world in simple terms, you're more likely to think that you’re right about it. This opens the door to an unwelcome guest: overconfidence.
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Intolerance
Finally, we come to intolerance - perhaps the most obvious and most worrying of all four traits.
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What does it all mean?
It means that although left-wing and right-wing extremists might seem like polar opposites, they’re more like estranged siblings. They’re shaped by similar psychological forces, just channeled in different ideological directions.