You can make this argument about the extremists on either side.
There should be no doubt as to what is real and what isn't, independent of political ideology.
God damn Southpark Politics
The problem is people choosing emotions over rational discourse and establishing footing and common ground. A lot of commenting is in the vein of “I am right and you are going to hear me out (or else)!”
Tell me, which of our major modern divides can be solved by "rational discourse?"
Consider something like the coronavirus pandemic. Studying the virus itself is a monumental undertaking requiring the funding of states or large corporations. Laypeople must simply "choose sides" and pick the sources they like best. Suppose that you tell me the virus is killing X people a day and I claim it is only killing Y. How do we settle that via "rational discourse?"
We can't discover the truth by talking amongst ourselves like a couple of Greek philosophers using inductive or deductive reasoning.
Our choices are either to perform our own primary research (again, wildly impractical for an individual) or to point to sources we feel are credible.
So I would envision that it would mean people talking and finding out validity of statements made. If you come with a Mirror tabloid article that says that Coronavirus turned people into vampire zombies, that would be a much different discussion than discussing the minutiae of a topic.
The problem is “side thinking” and not enough “gradient thinking”
We might not know some of the finer details, but by inquisitive discourse we can come to a ballpark for your example, or identity problems with each method.
That's a really different concept. Either you have a strange definition of extremists, or you have a strange definition of "the middle".
On the one hand, in context, it makes a little sense; you can understand it as saying that objective reality is an orthogonal concept to political extremism.
On the other, it's hard to imagine an "extremist" who's "in the middle".
I suppose you can picture a few things though:
1. A "delusional centrist". Here you get the severed connection to reality, but also the political moderation. Some "End of History" person with 90s-era thinking might be like this -- maybe what you think of when you hear "Krugman" or "Fukuyama" (though I think both have been shaken, actually).
2. A "radical moderate". Here, "moderate" is a little different from "centrist". I hear "centrist" and I think a Clintonian foreign policy hawk with liberal social policy; I hear "moderate" and I think more of a cultural stance. Nowadays "moderate" might connote breaking cultural taboos. It seems like male comedians end up in this category a lot. I don't think he'd use this description for himself, but I once heard someone describe Slavoj that way. "Radical" somehow connotes a connection to academia and to certain philosophers more than it does any specific conclusions (which may not be extreme at all).
Overall this maybe just what you get when you play with two words neither of which means a ton.
Yes, extremism to me does feel orthogonal to political orientation. "Delusional centrist" is closer to what I had in mind.
Here's the thing that I think is important: you can't talk to extremists rationally. Their mental world model doesn't match reality in big chunks, so there's no shared world view to agree on.
Perhaps I am redefining "extremist" but that's just my mental model.
This is my exact point.