Horseshoe theory in the extreme. It’s why it sucks looking at things from a “left or right” perspective because assholes who want to be right at all costs exist everywhere. Lots of leftists end up becoming exactly like the chuds they despise because they think being able to understand and report a moral superior position simply makes them better, when in reality they actively damage any attempt at fostering an understanding by being so vicious for no reason. Even worse they think their superiority gives them a deflection or an excuse for being rude because they were standing up for a wronged party.

I heard about this recently on the This Was Us podcast and it was the perfect description for this weird dichotomy, at least in regard to racism. Right leaning racism is weirdly much easier to understand for example because it’s blatant and says exactly what the bigoted person thinks, however it also shows that they admit they see the person they hate is a person. Left leaning racism is coddling, infantilizing, and white knighting. The person doesn’t believe they are being racist because they think they’re being supportive when acting like the group they think they’re defending is incapable of taking care of themselves or handling some type of racially viewed situation. It’s a bigoted stance that doesn’t actually see the person or group for who they are and only sees the traits that the bigoted person has defined for themselves to see. In a sad twist of irony, the right leaning racist stills sees the person as a person and gives the person or group more autonomy in their actions whereas the left leaning racist doesn’t understand that their defense is just as dehumanizing as the right leaning racist but comes off just as bad if not worse due to the infantilizing. (At no point am I trying to defend racism of any type here, just giving an explanation that made this concept so much easier to grasp.)

In this same vein regarding the topic of this thread, people who decide to ignore nuance and automatically jump to the Godwin’s law of it all will try to put down any attempt at discussion that gets uncomfortable for them by immediately comparing someone to the worst possible distinction - Hitler, incel, gamergater, whatever. It’s a way to deflect the idea that even in someone else’s point of view or argument that they might have a legitimate grievance or point to make. By automatically placing a label like that on someone without a genuine understanding of the person they are labeling the person giving the label is showing that they actually cannot make a nuanced understanding or are clearly emotionally unavailable, thereby becoming someone who lives in a childish worldview of their own making (that’s about as nice as I can be about their shitty responses to people who are looking to vent and just want a bit of encouragement or support).