The only thing that centrists really stand for is decorum. Anything is permissible as long as it is done legally in “norm-respecting” ways within the framework of liberal democracy.
So when a centrist is rude to you, they are telegraphing the fact that they don’t see you as human. Humans deserve decorum, in fact it’s all they deserve in the establishment centrist view, so you can infer that a rude centrist has decided you are no longer human.
So frankly if I ever blow up at you on Lemmy, this is probably why, because I have less than zero patience for rudeness from people whose literally only virtue is decorum. If you treat me like a person, then we can get along. Posting this so I have something to link to next time if happens 😆
Edit: I tell people politely but explicitly when they’re being rude and give them a chance to correct their course…but if they double down on being rude, then I gotta quintuple down on being exponentially more rude because that’s the only language they’ll listen to.
Furthermore, this also doesn’t apply if you have literally any more principles than maintaining decorum.
Depending on the context, I can see that being true but otherwise, I usually find them just fence-sittting and them saying bunch of words which feels like a whole lot off nothing.
Maybe you’ve had better luck, but I’ve had a bunch of centrists just get really rude at me for no reason. Like not just fence sitting and leaving me alone but like “You sit on this fence and like it and you’re stupid for even thinking a better world is even possible”. And then when I ask “what did I do to deserve this?” they just double down on being condescending.