There are many "centers". Politics uses the tugs of each to tie down any movement along the spectrum around any one of them.
Lets just start with one of the biggest - economic inequality. If we can move the center on that it will effect others. Recently more attention has come to eliminating the favored tax treatment of long term (one year or longer) gains on the sale of assets such as stocks. This favored treatment is the basis of the fast growth and concentration of wealth at the top 10% of the income spectrum. A dollar profit in the stock market is taxed less than human wages. That is grossly unfair. The investment requires no physical effort beyond clicking "buy or sell" on my computer from the comfort of my couch. If the profit of an investment were taxed equally with wages our government would not need to threaten Social Security or Medicare. The center of the income spectrum would be shifted down perhaps not hugely but at least "fairness" would get closer to the center of the population.
1
Let's stop trying to understand the world through the lens of simplistic political philosophies. There are no consistent answers to all questions. A glance at history confirms this. The major parties have dismembered and recombined their philosophies, making clear that no one set of beliefs makes immutable sense. Republicans once advocated more government spending than Democrats. And Democrats thought it best to focus on local level. Along the way those views switched, each party beginning, with equal erroneous passion, to espouse the previous views of the other. This could happen because no one political philosophy makes consistent sense. It’s all interchangeable because reality demands flexibility, even if we resist it with all of our might.
I propose the following: Let's construct a museum commemorating the role parties once played. And let's create an organization that has no philosophy except the broad ideas such as liberty and justice for all etc. The organization will merely work with communities everywhere to identify people of good will, knowledge and maturity who can deliberate in a balanced and effective way. Collaboratively. The organization would seek to convince these individuals to run for office. Without affiliation of any kind. We’d need to adjust a few things like congressional committee assignments, etc. All for the good.
Once no one thought flying machines or TV possible. Farfetched ideas today will be commonplace tomorrow. Count on it.
2
An sub-theme of the article is the dichotomy reasonableness vs. emotion. For example, where it cites Schlesinger in recognizing "that pluralism and compromise lacked some of the 'passion' of more self-confident ideologies," and where it says that "in can be hard to rally the people behind a message of pragmatism, compromise and limits."
I can imagine a Centrist Manifesto that could get very passionate about the importance of education in making people more reasonable. The more educated people are, the more likely it is that they would be reasonable and less extreme about a larger number of issues. With fewer people taking extreme positions, the desired center would grow.
To accomplish this though, the quality of primary and secondary public education would have to be both raised and spread evenly to an unprecedented degree. And it might take as long as a generation. An analogy might be the electric power grid. We expect electricity to be available on demand without compromising reliability anywhere we go in the country. Likewise, there should be a schooling grid
such that a kid from, say, Greenwich Connecticut could be deposited in rural Mississippi without loss in the quality of his schooling.
1
I wonder if the vaunted centrist '50's could have been so without the 90% income tax bracket that guaranteed income equality. That, IMO, more than the deservedly celebrated social progress, was what the conservative movement rebelled against starting in the '60's through Citizens United and the repellant recent tax reform. Our current political polarization seems to parallel our current financial polarization.
3
Graphic examples of dynamic human behavior have their imitations.
Instead of a straight line, use a circle. Extreme movement in either direction will wind up on the opposite side of where you started—an extreme right push eventually winds up on the left and vice versa. The “center” is first pushed in the direction of the opposite; squeezed if both left and right push to extremes but the center remains the center.
1
The left is actually the "center." Everything left of center is a struggle for balance. Everything right of center is a duplicitous crusade for imbalance. No one from the right says, "look, we're going to deregulate everything, so that corporations can thrive, and of course that's going to mean destroying the environment, but some of you will get rich. And we're going to give tax breaks to these destructive corporations and to the wealthy that benefit from them, but it's okay, because some of you may win an enormous, historical lottery, and also be able to exploit these perks of wealth..." They just lie, and say what they think they need to, in order to win, like: "I'm pro-life." Look up George Bush's stand on abortion when he ran against Reagan in the Primary, and how he switched to pro-life after he became his running mate. Look up Mitt Romney's stance on abortion politics when he was governor of MA, and then his stance when he ran for president. YouTube his speech on why he was Pro-Choice before he ran for president, very moving. There is a valid debate on how we find balance. On how we try to achieve as close to a level playing field as possible for everyone, which of course, starts with public education and social programs to help poor people, but the right will twist this all into the idea that there are too many "takers" to worry about.
1
an intelligent discussion on what democratic socialism looks like in prosperous western welfare state countries should help people realize that there a lovely middle ground . Trump is already in the SOU trying to vilify the word socialism and the DNC are still running scared about Bernie
The discussion needs to start from grass roots
1
Fixating on a nebulous political center assumes compromise and bipartisanship produces solutions. Are the Republican centrists going to break with Trump? Are the Democratic centrists going to pass anything significant, even if they get a few Republican Senators to join them? The center was disappearing in 2016 when people who voted for Obama and even Sanders switched to Trump, and Clinton’s statement “America is already great” rang hollow with voters on both sides. 3/4th of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, stressed, often desperate or angry. Swing voters are not moderates but torn internally between Trump’s promise to protect whites anxious about their loss in income and status, and progressives calling for social programs. As the 2020 campaign proceeds the division between Trump’s wall, tariffs, and cuts in services vs. Medicare for all, Green New Deal, and taxing the rich will sharpen and further polarize voters, leaving Schultz, Biden, and other centrists with some unenthusiastic urban professionals and suburban soccer moms. The Kennedyesque centrist Lancelot who will rescue America is as gone. Which Democrat can engage and inspire minorities, Millennials, and women while peeling off some rural white working class voters?
1
This is a stark indication of how far to the right the political spectrum has moved. “One eye on social order and the other on modest self-improvement” is a page right out of Edmund Burke, the godfather of conservatism. Burke insisted that effective social order and politics depended on loyalty, even reverence to tradition and established institutions, on giving them precedence; change demanded prudence and gradual incrementalism. For Burke change must always be anchored in the old for continuity and social stability.
The new center is the old right. Although, as Gage points out, being in the center is a more of a no-man’s swamp of uncertainty rather than of terra firma principles. And for those oxymoronic fiscally-conservative but socially-liberal individuals to dwell in the center wanting their cake and to eat it too: it don’t work that way. The conservative fiscal policies they embrace greatly affect the social side of the equation and drive inequality. You have to have some skin in the game of democracy.
Finally, in this age of technology and break-neck speed change, with AI breathing down our necks, along with climate change and socially dysfunctional inequality – being in the middle (or the right) is going to be a drag on our ability to adapt to those challenges. The “center” is in crisis because it occupies a meaningless point on the spectrum. There is no there there.
3
@Michael the “social conservative, fiscally liberal” are probably more numerous, especially in communities of color.
1
Center, left, right are really media creations and mostly irrelevant. I would hazard a guess that most Americans belong to the practical party. Some form of universal healthcare, a strong defense, a less interventionist foreign policy, universal daycare, a strong environmental policy, a fair tax system where the rich pay their share, a regulatory environment that encourages business but reigns in rapacious capitalism; all these and more are practical concerns. The media wants simple but that’s not reality and articles like this bore me.
3
A helpful addition to this article would be a "poled" list of issues and position-options on those issues to measure where one stands AND tallied to see how many readers are really NOT in one camp or the other, but rather care about democracy and well-thought out planning ahead for effective law making and policy guidance in this complex over-populated planet and country.
1
The difference between a centrist and a conservative is that a conservative doesn't pretend to be reasonable.
Both a centrist and a conservative want nothing to change, but a conservative will use lies & violence to maintain the status quo, while a centrist will write self-righteous letters to the editor.
Anybody who believes freedom, equality & prosperity are expanded by centrists has never heard of Frederick Douglass, Ulysses Grant, Gandhi, David ben Gurion, Martin Luther King, Susan Anthony, Dorothy Day, Nelson Mandela, or Abraham Lincoln.
The name of the song is "Which Side Are You On?"
@camorrista Lincoln was not an extremist. He was nominated as a “centrist” compared to the radical Abolitionists.
1
For many important issues that will decide our future, there is only right or wrong, and no position in between. For example, finding the center between the Republican position that climate change is false and the Democratic position that climate change is real, is literally like trying to find the mid-ground between falsehood and truth, which is absurd. This is where Republicans and Trump have brought us to today. The concept of the center has become, for the most important issues, quite meaningless.
5
There is no way that our elites are going to allow a "political center" or any democratic majority that could threaten them to form again! Our 1% and their bought and paid for major media (like the NY Times etc) have with great calculation destroyed both the political center and the middle class. And they are now rapidly dividing our society into ever more warring race, ethnic, and invented gender groups in order to insure that not enough of a majority consensus can form to stop their open borders 'global economic integration' crusade to turn most of us in liberal democracies into serf-like, no rights 3rd world people.
3
The change was when Newt Gingrich became speaker of the house. He made the Dems's the enemy, not the adversary. Read Steve Kornacki's book :The Red and the Blue: The 1990s and the Birth of Political Tribalism. Add a dash of C-Span so that politicians are ALWAYS campaigning (can't be seen compromising) and that is where we are today.
2
@Bruce Maier, very true. It's also important to remember what radicalized Newt Gingrich himself. Watching the treatment of Robert Bork's Supreme Court nomination. It was so bad, it became a verb: "borking" someone. Gingrich reportedly felt after seeing that experience that the GOP could no longer bring a knife to a gun fight. Personally, Bork would not have been my nominee (nor Kavanaugh this past summer) and I strongly disagree with how Gingrich radicalized things a few years later. But Gingrich did not sprout from nowhere. The treatment of the other side as the enemy may have begun during the Bork nomination.
2
The center lies within the Democratic party. Obama was the center. Mitch McConnell, buried the center a long time ago. Blocking and stealing judgehips, endless ginourmous tax cuts for the wealthy and McConnell's refusal to stand with Obama and the FBI when they were finding Russian interference in the election was when Susan Collins should have been standing up. Any Democrat looking for middle ground with these republicans is a fool.
The implosion of the republican party began a long time ago. All the adults in that party were run out of it a long time ago and what they have left is McConnell and the man-baby Trump.
6
The center lies between the Republicans and Democrats. To say otherwise is silly. Democrats like being silly.
The Democrats have one house of Congress, the Republicans the other, plus the President. The Rebublicans dominate in the state Legislatures.
And of course its the Democrats that try to deny our Democracy: they want to change the basic system of election to give more power to the big states they control. To do this they need the votes of those states to pass Constitutional amendments, and don't have those votes. Hence, they want to pack the Supreme Court so they will act as dictators and override the Consitution. In other words, they want a Communist or banana republic coup.
Republicans want to preserve our present Democratic system.
Our current position is in fact pointing to the center.
1
The center doesn’t exist? Really?
I take the opposite approach. Not only does the center exist but is exactly where most people’s views lie if you take the time to ask and LISTEN.
I am proud to be a centrist, not following the dogma of either party and formulating my own decisions and opinions. Most people I encounter do not like my politics because I think about each issue separately and am not a lemming for either party. They label me a liberal when I agree with progressives and then a conservative when I don’t follow the party line. Assumptions are made about what I stand for and arguments can ensue when I don’t follow the accepted norm. We, as a society, love to label and pigeonhole. Centrists don’t easily allow for that to occur.
That does not mean centrists have no stand on issues, in fact we are more opinionated than many because we consider issues and solutions differently. The problem, as I see it, is we are drowned out by the hard left and right. Centrists can be right, middle and left of center.
The two party system fails us and fails our country, which it does on a regular basis because the system does not want people who think for themselves.
6
"But what happens if that center ceases to exist — or if few people want to stand on it?"
I couldn't disagree more The two political extremes in this country - the Teatards and the Sandernistas - naturally think that they are the center of the universe and that the manjority agrees with them (and conversely, that only a small minority disagrees with them). The reality is that, with the death of the fairness doctrine and the 800 TV channels we have, the extreme minorities are projected the loudest. How many times have you been talking - actually talking, crazy notion! - to someone supposedly if the opposites political extreme, and you realize that you agree on many, many things? It happens to me all the time.
It's the 10% on either extreme that are always on TV, all over the internet, dominating the news. The 80% of people who aren't completely nuts don't make good television. But we haven't gone anywhere.
4
"... seeing merit on both sides.".
So are you suggesting Trump's statement in connection with Charlottesville is correct?
If so you are in need of some educating, because there is no merit whatsoever in racism, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia, and baseless hate of all stripes. Thus, when conservatives predicate their "policies" on any of these anathemas, as is their wont, the end result is pernicious.
3
In the left v right spectrum where is the anarchist?
What has also been lost has been this counsel:
“The spirit of Liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right.” Judge Learned Hand
1
The problem is the steady march to the right. By dragging us steadily towards a fascist state, then lamenting that there is no political center, the GOP has created this problem.
The fact of the matter remains. You can’t find common ground with White Supremacy, and unrestricted corruption that hands our society to wealthy criminals.
Perhaps if the Republicans adopted some of the party platforms of Eisenhower on taxes, and the Democrats FDR-style public works and social programs we could find a common ground.
Negotiations with Fascists never works because they can never be appeased.
3
"You can’t find common ground with ... unrestricted corruption that hands our society to wealthy criminals."
BUT ... I can't find common ground with unrestricted corruption that hands our society to poor criminals ... that is, the over 10 million people who are criminals because they came here illegally. The Democrats are
unrestricted corruption, loving those criminals in the hope of giving them the vote ... and getting those votes.
3
@Doug McDonald, there are no hard statistics on how many people are in the United States illegally. Pew says around 10 million. The joint Yale/MIT study released last fall says somewhere between 16.9 million up to 28 million, for an estimated average of 22 million. Hopefully, the two parties can finally stop letting the Koch Brothers dictate immigration policy and finally update things for the 21st Century. African-American, Democratic Congresswoman and civil rights icon Barbara Jordan, from border-state Texas, knew full well that the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 was badly outdated in the early 1990's. Now it is 25 years later and it is even more outdated.
3
Why does the author insist on the term "Center"? That word alone ensures misinterpretation and ennui. Why not choose "Independent" instead? The word independent implies "different than the prevailing binary choices" with a multitude of possible points of view. It does not fix one in a geographic location halfway between the prevailing binary choices.
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@Joe Independent
Sorry Joe. Most "independents" are Republicans too ashamed to be tabled GOP.
3
@Joe Independent
I think "centrist" is a fairly well accepted political term? In NZ it means rational, practical and prepared and able to listen to and respect the views from both sides of the political divide. It works pretty well in New Zealand as we are usually quite centrist (as per my description) with our "left" and "right" government swings not making massive changes like you do in the US. And we mostly all get just along.
2
@Joe Independent
The choices really are binary. Either a Republican or a Democrat is going to be elected. And the only centrist I see who is currently in the race is Sherrod Brown. Hopefully Biden jumps in soon and gives moderates a choice.
1
Any time advancement is made in this country, from the very beginning from year one to the latest with women's rights and gay rights achieved, both sides dig in, ie the right who doesn't like it and is afraid and the left who doubles down on it, wants total equality/acceptance immediately and blames all conservatives for being the enemy that must be cleansed and wiped out and perverts the original heroes who won the rights.
Lincoln faced the same problem in the American Civil War, ie the fiery abolitionists like John Brown and the souther slave holding rebels.
Unfortunately no Lincoln has emerged. We have Trump on the right wanting to bring us back to the 1930s and Hillary on the left who ran an identity obsessed, elect me president because I am a woman and all present day men must pay for five million yrs. of existence and they are always wrong and the era of white men is over.
Trump won by a TKO. The middle either stayed silent or were suckered in by both sides.
Let us not make the same mistakes in 2020.
Ok, let's hear from both sides, mainly the liberals here but from conservative on conservative media, who will rationalize, intellectualize, carp, finger point, ax grind, co depend, enable, preach dogma, you are wrong, I am right answers.
2
Where on earth is the center these days anyway? Given what’s happened on the right?
You’ve got the Koch brother libertarians on the one hand, who seek the abolition of regulation, taxes and all but the most minimal of governmental functions, seeing much of anything this side of anarchy as government’s infringement of their freedom. Then you’ve got the religious right on the other, who seek government intrusion into and dictation of the most intimate, personal and sometimes difficult parts of our lives, from who we can love, to what we do in the privacy of our own bedrooms, to a woman’s right to control her own body, to forcing others to live within the strictures of their own religious beliefs, to hard questions of when someone should be artificially kept alive. And these two groups—one seeking to reduce the government’s presence to virtual nonexistence, the other seeking to establish government as dictator of public morality in their own image—are politically aligned, inexplicably under the banner of “liberty.”
Setting aside the political views of the left (which are at least roughly along a linear spectrum), how do you tack back to “center” from the antithetical mashup of those on the right, where the most basic notion of what government should be is so fundamentally at odds?
1
A better poet laureate of centrists was Yeats, who wrote in "The Second Coming" that when the center cannot hold,
"The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."
Yeats' core concept was that the center is worth holding onto at considerable cost, which appeals to conservatives like me but can bleed into fascism. Looking at the galaxies, you can see centers that are spiraling out. The galaxies have integrity, but also dynamism. I am unconvinced that conflict and tension within a system are such bad things as Yeats, Schlesinger and Professor Gates make them out to be. In particular, that is the brilliance of the U.S. constitutional design. Let there be light in the fight. Note that Yeats basically endorsed fascism in the the 1930s, looking for a center to hold. I'm glad that Hitler's center did not hold. Present examples of political dynamism are Trump and AOC. Neither is especially thoughtful, but both stir up serious thinking by their dynamic engagements. Go for it.
Right at the beginning it is clear the author is left wing. If centrist he would have said “Do refugees deserve human dignity?” and "Do bakers have a to right to decide what cake to decorate, or not?" rather than what she did.
1
@Doug McDonald
"He" is a she actually.
Instead of wasting time trying to label people and put them in boxes against each other, Let us read and let us dance - two amusements that will never do any harm to the world.
1
Because of our visual map of a left-right political spectrum it’s easy to visualize a person as far right or far left but impossible to imagine a person as far center. People use the term centrist to hack our imperfect model and therefore pose as impervious to a spectrum of belief. In fact, there are more moderate and more radical centrists. However a moderate centrist is basically a pragmatist in either party. Those who pose as centrists today are mostly radical centrists who hold to their belief of remaining in the middle of two sides even if one side becomes increasingly dangerously extreme. Taken further, a fundamentalist centrist would be at the center of any two parties even if one party became a Nazi Party.
It is indeed a lonely time for democratic moderates.
We despise Trump and see him for the ignorant, corrupt, wannabe dictator that he is. Yet, we also recoil from the increasingly shrill, self-righteous dictates on the far left which reeks of anti-semitism, identity politics and an inability to understand basic math (free college tuition and free universal healthcare just means the rest of us are going to pay for it).
"Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right" has never felt truer.
6
Of course the center is not gone. We just don't sit around shooting our mouths off on Twitter.
2
Thinking back, we have a definite tendency to sugar coat our political past, remembering its accomplishments and forgetting its conflicts.
I was born in 1956, and lived through the establishment, rise, fall, and maybe the resurgence of the John Birch Society. I remember the great civil rights struggle of the 1960’s and Dr. King’s ‘I Had a Dream’ speech, as well as the Jim Crow era. I lived through the Vietnam war era, and saw the internal political conflict it caused bring down the President who ushered the civil rights laws through the congress. I saw Nixon resign under the threat of removal by impeachment and conviction.
Political conflict is not new in America. Perhaps the loss of civility and decline of the norms of political discourse make it seem more different than it actually is.
1
Yes well the future of politics is going to be more tribal, violent (Antifa), and extremist on both the right and left. Centrists are hated because they are not ideologues and don’t pick sides so mindlessly. There used to be principles that helped foster a positive sense of what it meant to be an American that are eroding. Now, we are simply defined by our skin color, genitals, and political tribe.
1
I'm sick of what is described as centrists who are really to the right of Nixon. If Nixon, the president that signed the EPA into law did that today, Hannity and his ilk would be going insane.
Call "centrists" what they are; corporate shills that act like social leftists on small, relatively ineffective policies. Hillary is one of them.
And please stop this talk of how women are going to save the world, there are plenty of incompetent, evil women on both sides of the aisle. If the sex of a candidate is your deciding factor you are a simpleton and a sexist.
2
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
Sex. Religion. Politics. Those are the three things everyone knows that you don't bring up at work, parties, holidays, and dinners at your in-laws.
The divide has become more apparent because people are willing to make their opinions known, not in an exploratory manner, but in an "in your face" manner.
Telling someone that "You're being played for a sucker by trump." is not going to pry them away from their decision. Instead, it forces them to wedge into the crevice even tighter.
The more trump is attacked, shamed, outed for the obvious lies, the more his camp comes to his aid. I believe they are forced into not backing-off because they feel personally attacked and shamed, too.
We need to create space where someone can change their mind and be respected for both choices, voting for, and voting against, trump.
But trump is digging in. He's been making clearer distinctions between people - us and them - with his tweets and policies. trump and Giuliani have been queuing the base for a year saying "there will be riots and violence if trump is impeached."
trump further ramped-up the divisiveness with his SOTU speech, telling the base, ready in the queue: If they pass the laws we want, life will be peaceful. If they don't, life will be war.
trump is always telling the electorate, that you have to pick a camp, you can't be in the middle, you have to chose sides before the real war comes.
The real war in 2020.
1
Umm I wonder if A I could fix this political mess?
Governor Brown of California once said his role was like rowing a canoe - sometimes you paddle on the right, sometimes you paddle on the left, but you are always going forward. The best way to be a successful centrist representing the whole country is to understand why people think the way they do. It seems few of us know. ALL people fit along the political spectrum based on how much fear they inherited from evolution. It is on a continuum. Academics refer to it as "sensitivity to threat". The more you have, the further right you go. Everyone is defined the same way, even the Supreme Court justices which proves that smarts, education and experience really don't matter as much as how you were born. It is evolution. Obama may have proved that this country has not evolved to the point where an African-American can be accepted by those most sensitive to threat. The fact that his mere presence drew conservatives out of the woodwork in opposition and practically shut the government down is the #1 take-away of his Presidency. Sad, but true. At the moment in history the country needs a moderate white male who understands the unconscious, evolutionary forces that shape people's thinking to get us out of the mess we are in. It can be done.
2
The very terminology of "Left, Right, and Center" is utter nonsense for the purpose of Policies of governance. We are not talking about traffic where there is clearly marked Left and Right but no Center either although it can be ascertained (half Left and half Right). IMO, this nonsensical terminology is used by the Western countries only to vilify the Just(ice). You see, driving on left in these countries (except a couple) is plain wrong and punishable. So would be demanding Just governance!. Otherwise, explain to me these nonsensical terms in plain English what it means truly. Public Policies for governance can only be Just or Unjust but not Left, Right or Center. Get my drift?
If Democracy is truly about the government being Of the People, For the People, and By the People, then the Policies of Governance MUST be Just and must not be Unjust. If all men and women are created Equal then they must be treated the same in all respects and not selectively.
Our Republic's Constitution's Preamble unequivocally states "... We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice,
insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare...". I reiterate, Justice, Tranquility, and General Welfare, of ALL People of the Republic. And, therefore, we must refer to the principles of governance as Just and Unjust.
This is such an important topic for discussion in the era of Donald Trump. I have come to reject the right/left construct and wish the author would have expressed some skepticism of it rather than giving it the full embrace. Could we instead reconsider a forward/backward political spectrum? Look around you and what political ideology has produced. Our political system rarely earns good grades, but what passes for political leadership today is a full-on embarrassment. The fringes have taken over and a discussion of left/right politics now seems so very 20th century.
I was a lifelong left leaning independent - think of someone walking along the left side of the road within handshaking reach of the right. I doubt there’s anyone standing on the center line so the two close sides were what I thought of as “the center” a place where people were more pragmatic, had some common values and strives to find the way forward together. Then there were the party loyalists, a little more in their lane. Finally, There were always extremists on both sides way off in the weeds but they were largely irrelevant. But since the days of Gingrich at least the right has elevated those people, made them think they are the heart of the party with their immigrant fears, biases and q anon beliefs, dismissal of science etc in order to lock in their votes. They convinced them to watch only Fox and fed them propaganda. They made their mantra “ends justify the means” which has turned into lying, cheating, demonizing etc. the conservatives i generally founds smart and honorable and worthy of working with have largely stepped back. And I am more and more decided I can never vote for them again. They have revealed their aims and characters and its ugly. (And I have no doubt a few will chime in here with the smears and propaganda terms Gingrich taught them to use...the whataboutism, the false equivalencies etc- but I’m not playing anymore.
3
Laurel, I feel your pain. But I think that “once an independent, always an independent.” It is an honorable and important tradition. Please don’t give up on it just yet.
Political positions are not abstract or arbitrary. They reflect economic interests. In America you either own a company or you work for one. The owners are the capitalists class. The employees are the working class. There is no intermediate or half way position. . . . This is why our political system does not work. In other countries, right wing parties represent the rich capitalists and the left wing parties, the poor workers. But in America, both parties are capitalist. Forbidden by their corporate masters to enact the long overdue social reforms their base demands, the Democrats' solution to the country's crisis will be a war with Russia . . . .
One problem is that one party is in some ways out of contact with reality, usually refusing to act as if Trump's dictatorial behavior matters or as if climate change matters. When one party simply ignores (or denies the existence of) extremely serious problems, where would a viable center be? Half way between Exxon's lies and the truth told by climate scientists? Half way between insulting our allies and behaving decently towards them? Breaking up only half as many families at the borders?
Now that the Tea Party types, the Republican party in general, and even the President are starting to squirm and fuss about policy posiitons put forth by Sanders, Warren, and OAC as being "radical" or "socialist -"positions that might be considered "center left" at best in other nations -I'd said some equilibrium may yet be found. For far too long, both parties have been tilting right/far right - favoring corporations and the very wealthy over everyone else. We have more stark income inequality, poverty, crumbling bridges and underfunded public schools - more of these markers of inequality - than any other "rich" nation. We are the "richest", yet we do the worst job of taking care of our own.
2
The proper metaphor is a diamond, as illustrated by "The World's Smallest Political Quiz", developed by Advocates for Self-Government. The diamond has two axes, centered at "home plate". Going towards "first base" you're rated from 0 to 100 on Economic Freedom. Towards "third base", the rating is for Personal Freedom.
Draw lines perpendicular to the axes at the numbers you score for each. If you're close to home plate, you're authoritarian. First base is conservative, Third base is liberal and the pitcher's mound centrist. Second base (highest combined Freedom rating) is libertarian.
1
One need not look too much further than the presidency itself to see how far skewed the playing field of politics has become. A total criminal of the right wing rich is about as far from center as possible without going full on authoritarian dictatorship. That we are truly backward worldwide on social issues is a symptom as well as the tiered system of justice. We used to be a leader in promoting democracy, now we are barely a democracy having two presidents of the last 20 years that didn't even get the popular vote. The center is disputed here? I disagree. the center is moved to the right so far it went right off the board. I can no longer see it from my precarious perch on the left. Vast lunacy to the right for as far as my eyes can see.
1
Politics are not about left and right or center . It is about logic and philosophy of the law. I love this girl Alexandria because she thinks like a European :with logic . Her 5 minutes elaboration of an hypothetical corruption of the entire chain of American political representatives, that of course confirms to be completely true , is priceless. She is going to change US politics . Nobody can stop her .
@JPH nice words. Would have been nicer if you had not called her a "girl".
I see this as pendulum swings in social norms.
We’re evolving. Social media and online news allow us to be more aware and empathetic of complete strangers and their challenges, the world over and in our own backyards.
We embrace constructive and beneficial change instead of caving to willful ignorance and our own impediments.
We value our own traditions and sometimes choose to add new ones we adopt from other cultures.
To assign distinct political labels to anyone will come with lots of individual exceptions.
Big picture, we’re all on the same journey, together, and we leap-frog our way towards the future.
This pendulum will even out. Whatever label you use for that majority that settles in the middle, know that they’re smart and informed and aware. We’re going to be ok.
1
the center as it is explained to us really is not in between the too ideologies, it is simply conservatism or incrementalism that the radical right used to represent, but which has been replaced by populism, pro-worker, and anti-immigration sentiment. The left is also pro-worker and pro-immigration. Both the radical right and the radical left are anti-elites. They want higher taxes on billionaires, and eventually they will be united on those issues, because most of the radical right is not racist. They just don't have a leftist alternative to vote for as of yet. The 'center' or old-school conservative-let us keep the status-quo--is on the verge of extinction. The only people who exist in this camp at this point--are precisely the people who everyone on both sides --the right and the left--blame, and the right left and center analogy does not hold like it used to. A better one would be elite vs. anti-elite. And in a day coming very soon, the elites in this country will be overthrown by a combined populist uprising that will unite both these respective hemispheres under a pro-peoples anti-wealthy party. The ground is already laid for socialism, and policies that benefit the collective good, to come to the fore, and this old-school incrementalist conservatism that calls itself pragmatism, but is really just good old fashioned selfishness, will be what we call a 'fringe' view that almost no one holds, and at the very least will cease to be a political force.
@nickgregor, as many in the Democrat's once traditional constituency of labor have learned over the last 25 plus years, being pro-worker and pro-immigration in today's world is generally an oxymoron. This is why African-American, Democratic Congresswoman and civil rights icon Barbara Jordan, as leader of President Clinton's Bipartisan Commission on Immigration Reform, recommended chain migration reform; elimination of the diversity visa lottery; reduction of legal immigration from the 1980's & 1990's average of 750,000 per year down to 550,000 per year; and stronger enforcement versus illegal immigration (including mandatory E-verify). The pro-worker Jordan Commission examined economic trends, including expected impact to labor from NAFTA; increasing automation; and Reagan-era weakening of unions. And this was a few years before Clinton laid the groundwork for China's admission into the WTO.
Ironically, the Jordan Commission positions have all been abandoned by today's Democrats (and supported by Trump) for the last 2 years.
3
Both parties have been "captured" by corporations and the 1%, thanks to campaign contributions enabled by Citizens United. The Democrats, once standing for enobling policies such as those championed by FDR, has become enfeebled by its neoliberal ways for many years now. This is precisely why new policies and solutions, such as those put for by Sanders, Warren, and AOC are so desperately needed. It remains to be seen whether the Democratic leadership (think Pelosi and Schumer) beholden to Wall Street, will squash all of it before it can ever even reach a vote. Given this context, what does "center" even mean?
3
We should not underestimate the role played by the limitations of a one dimensional political model, and the persistence of a two party system, in creating and maintaining the appearance of an empty center. If I believe in strong voting rights laws, firearms control, and a woman’s right to choose, but think development of nuclear power is a less risky choice than worsening global warming, where am I?
The widespread use of the unidimensional model in political analysis in a two party system forces people to choose between two bundles of beliefs, neither of which may suite them. As more issues are included in the bundles, it becomes less likely that any one candidate will be at the middle of all of them, at the only true center. We need political parties capable of supporting alliances that shift over time, reducing the number of relevant dimensions in the model.
In less mathematical terms, we need political parties that support compromise.
2
I see no weapons drawn or new flags created or armies formed on behalf of "passionate ideas." I don't see any general strikes or fistfights breaking out at stadiums for opposite political views. Might come close at times and there are those Trump rallies but regardless. What I do see happening is that an establishment/elite erected by the boomer generation is disintegrating and a new one being formed by the younger generation who are not quite ready to rule. A certain lack of confidence grips the "center" and the extremes determine the nature of politics. But then nothing gets done. This occurred in the 70's when the polarities were much more extreme, the electorate grim and angry post Vietnam and Watergate, no one wanted to cooperate, the good and intelligent Jimmy Carter found it impossible to govern and up stepped Reagan who took the country in a new direction, forming a new center that was a mixture of conservative and liberal elements. It was epitomized by the relation between Tip O'Neil and Reagan who worked together to get a few things done. The "center" is fairly but not fully conservative and is built after periods such as this. Progressive reform usually comes when there is the perfect storm that requires it, along with a large critical mass of people who want it. It's always approaching but I'm not sure it is here yet.
I think the center in many ways is less about policy than about manner. We "centrists" really dislike the nastiness. We dislike the dehumanization of those we disagree with (and in turn resent being dehumanized ourselves). We long for a day of agreeing to disagree.
I often recount a story about two encounters I had discussing politics. I remember several years ago having dinner and a beer at a truckstop and having a lovely chat with two very conservative truckers. We disagreed about much, but were able to discuss things in a manner of mutual respect.
Then, on another occasion I was at a party in San Francisco. I was surrounded by people I ostensibly agreed with policywise, but their self-righteousness and complete unwillingness and inability to put themselves in the shoes of someone they disagreed with was astounding. I may have supported the same politics, but I disliked their manner.
If I were to put labels on people, it would be distinguishing between absolutists and those who realize the world is shades of gray. I belong firmly in the latter camp, and I think there are many Americans across the political spectrum feeling adrift in the same boat.
4
The day following Truman's election in 1948, I joined my classmates in a standing ovation as AMS Jr. took the podium.Prior to that moment, almost to a man, we had avowed our support for Henry Wallace:on that morning, as we compared notes, we found that most of us had actually voted for Truman.
Schlessinger also believed that political sentiments swung like a pendulum. I sincerely hope that he was correct and we are at the beginning of a strong surge leftward.
1
Democracy only functions in the political center: center-left to center-right, with country coming first. That means finding enough common ground to compromise and get things done, problems solved, issues mitigated. Far left and right cannot do this, and represent less than a third of the electorate.
Ideology is failure in a democracy because while reality is complicated, ideological tenets are not. More extremism simply cannot and will not accomplish what the moderate center can and will. Pretending otherwise is intellectually dishonest. Complicated issues require complicated solutions.
Trump is proof that things need to become sufficiently worse before enough voters realize that centrists have to vote and take back control of their society. We can still differ in opinions, but governance and making things better doesn't grind to a halt, and we avoid tyranny of the minority. They are far more dangerous to democracy than the majority.
The radical solution we need now is moderation in politics, not more extremism, which only create dysfunction and gridlock. Increased divisiveness has done nothing positive for our society and made many aspects far worse. We can and must to far better, and soon.
Eclectic Pragmatism — http://eclectic-pragmatist.tumblr.com/
Eclectic Pragmatist — https://medium.com/eclectic-pragmatism
1
@Eduardo B
Beautifully expressed.
Let's take a moment for quiet calm, center ourselves and then befriend our neighbors and others who are not of just our political views.
I respect politicians who are unwilling to demonize those of a different political party. I respect politicians who truly enjoy colleagues of the opposite party, and most of all work with them.
2
People have a range of ideas, from what we label liberal to what we label conservative. Moreover, people aren’t completely consistent, in that they may be more to the liberal side on one issue, less so on a different issue. To assume that the publics’ views are monolithic in any measure is mistaken. Most people are neither prototypically liberal or conservative. They are most often some mix of both, and thus more logically aligned somewhere in a mythological center. Very few people, as they self-describe, are rigidly either one or the either on every single issue. In other words, people are complicated.
I think we tend to obsess (when and if we do) on more polar views because of the human need to label others. In the wild, humans evolved to quickly identify strangers as friend or foe in order to react properly and protectively. Modern humans apply this trait to political issues without using a great deal of their rational capacities.
The center always exists, if in no other way than as a statistical labeling of a point in the range of differences. The extremes of the spectrum can elicit a temporary enthusiasm, which for some lasts and for others disappears quickly. But the center is always, inexorably, there in the middle. People vote how they feel at a particular moment, but the full range of views always exists, and the center is always, inexorably, in the middle. Politicians compete for those votes: sometimes they guess right and win, sometimes they guess wrong and lose.
The political center lacks a charismatic proponent. Social and economic injustice are easy fodder for the left to raise their voices for. Impending invasion of immigrants and socialism the same for the right. Common sense and pragmatism tend to be milk toast in comparison and often attract milk toast spokespeople. But it need not be. We in the middle crave someone who can FERVENTLY point out the folly of both the far right and far left positions. Someone that can communicate the beauty, simplicity, and effectiveness of centrist positions. A Steve Jobs of politics rather than tech gadgetry if you will. Find him or her and we in the middle will make our presence known.
1
No, Ms. Gage WE THE PEOPLE do not imagine the electorate in red and blue, solid colors representing a divided country.
The media and radical republicans have made that into a talking point and fear-anger-hate tool.
WE THE PEOPLE know that America is great because of the vast difference in OUR population. Most of us celebrate the diversity once we learn about people who aren't like us.
Divide and conquer. A tale as old as time by the financial elite who want to control the rest of us. WE THE PEOPLE must not allow it to destroy OUR United States of America.
Not now. Not ever.
4
Propaganda and time do not change facts.
Right and left are objective things in their own right. The extremity of a position held by an individual in either direction does not move the center, it objectively drags the left or right fringe out further.
The people's perception of what is right or left or extreme or rational does not always track with what is objectively true. Today's political rhetoric being a clear case in example. Propaganda has a lot to do with that. In fact it is the only reason there is a question as to what is right left or center.
To honestly look at the center we have to go back to LBJ. When he was president the objective view of left right and center was still accurate and not irrationally distorted by propaganda as it is today. But the distortion was starting and in 68 reagan began the using the propaganda that has led us here on the national stage.
Case in point Bill Clinton, Widely perceived as a liberal president. Fact is he ran to the right of reagan on many things which is how he beat Bush. He drug the DEMs rightward well past reagan who was an extreme right wing extremist in 80 and Obama nice guy that he is, has taken us even further right.
Fact is Bernie, AOC, Warren the most left of the DEMs today are actually right wing DEMs by honest objective standards.
It is not a difficult issue, you only have to be rational and honest.
1
@magicisnotreal If Obama, Bernie, AOC, Warren et al. are "actually right wing DEMs by honest objective standards", I'd like to hear what you'd consider to characterize a left-wing DEM.
By the way, "dragged", not "drug".
A thoughtful Democratic politician, to my view, will retain an old fashioned dignity, re-vamp an FDR-like plank of proposals fit for our times, and speak to the common good as well as clearly to pocketbooks. We have astonishing income inequality now, with many households hurting. Nods to "identity politics" may be well intentioned, but they will be used to our collective peril, as there is always a group left out - such groups represent voters.
6
@Ellen
Everything FDR did would fit unchanged today. Those changes are after all what the republicans have been taking revenge on us for over the last 50 years.
2
@magicisnotreal
Agreed that the bulk of FDR's initiatives would be welcome back today - adding how to fold in climate change initiatives to meet the challenge of our warming planet. Imagine a new "Works Progress Administration", just for one. How to pay for these initiatives: In my view, we could slice the military/"defense" budget in half, for one large source of funds.
1
The two party system divides American politics into two poles. People might not choose to believe Tweedeldee or Tweedeldum, but the system forces them to choose one or the other. Voting for a third party candidate almost always leads to a victory for whoever you consider the greater evil.
Without proportional representation, there is no way to fix this. We're not going to get proportional representation, so it will remain the way it is.
As wealth distribution goes, so goes the electorate. If there is a large middle class and high social mobility, there can be a flourishing 'center'. With increasing inequality, increasing polarization and evacuation of the center is assured. There are other contributing causes (media silos, geographic sorting, election structures....). But the money is what makes it bitterly existential, unbridgeable.
9
Centrism is as much a state of mind as a set of policies. It features more listening than speaking (or shouting). Mutual respect and reasonable accommodation are its telltale signs. It rarely makes the news because it's not scary or shocking or novel. But it never truly goes out of fashion either. Deep inside many of us know that screaming doesn't help and we can't always get our own way. Centrism is a practice as much as a political stance.
10
@Cal Prof
No, Screaming does help and that's why we scream. We will stop screaming when it stops working and when we listen to and respond to those who don't scream.
@Cal Prof
Many people on both the left and the right are good listeners, speak softly, and work hard to understand and persuade. They offer well-developed and cogent alternatives which follow from their experience, thought, personal disposition, and belief. Where fundamental issues are contested, sincere advocacy serves democracy. Unfortunately, partisans get little respect or gratitude for their contributions. People who cannot finish the work of decision and have no positions of their own demand that those who do have positions abandon them and come up with "compromises" which centrists can't be bothered to formulate independently. Centrists would rather indulge in stage direction and drama criticism than policy work. Choose stalemate if you wish, just please don't act morally superior.
1
Let's talk about what the leadership in Congress has done to accentuate the "crisis of the middle." McConnell, as leader of the Senate, and Ryan, while he was Speaker of the House, may have done more to diminish the center than anyone else. Here is where a focus on (1) "counting the votes" and (2) on pressuring any representative who does not follow the party line makes it hard for anyone to represent constituents who are in the middle and who want humane moderation and compromise. When the leaders in Congress put party first and parties stake out positions of no compromise, we end up with a "crisis of the middle."
2
Centrism as a political philosophy is nonsense, because it doesn't actually stand for anything, it just want to be in the middle. The reason the center doesn't exist today is that we have a party on one extreme (GOP) with ideas and policies that are supported by only a third of the electorate. The only reason it is a viable party is due to the significant over-representation of rural areas in our political system.
The other party (Dems) embraces ideas that are supported by roughly 60% of the populace and there is very little overlap. Centrism is a generally espoused by elites who want the status quo on taxes and economics supported by the GOP who don't want to have to justify the bigotry and retrograde social policy that goes with it. There is no natural constituency for socially liberal economically conservative policy choices.
7
@Andrew "There is no natural constituency for socially liberal economically conservative policy choices." Completely wrong; some variation of that is where most Americans whose principal occupation (or preoccupation) isn't politics are to be found. An excellent description of the situation is laid out by "Schneiderman", two responses down. But just as is true of libertarianism, centrism is hard to define specifically because there are many varieties of it.
Ideologues on the left, in particular, hate the idea of centrism because it represents a choice which doesn't support their view of things. In truth, they are just as politically intolerant as their counterparts on the right are socially intolerant.
1
Excellent thoughtful and nuanced column. Quotes from Schlesinger frame the issue of what "the center" means succinctly. The best do not lack all erudition. Look forward to hearing from Gage again.
2
The American political spectrum is more like a bell curve with the vast majority of the voters being in the center of that spectrum. Occasionally , the peak of the curve flattens or goes further towards the extremes while at other times the peak of the curve just shifts left or right. The problem is that people in the center are the least active politically - perhaps lacking ideological fervor - and therefore do not participate in numbers anything close to their actual numbers.
6
How can I describe the center and voters who call themselves centrists? Wishy-washy, indifferent, tolerant, ineffective, feckless, uninformed or not invested? All seem to fairly describe the center and centrists.
Substantive policy issues grow out of real problems that cry out for real solutions. The parties take polar opposite positions and the center calls for compromise. However, the centrists are not interested enough to become fully informed as to real concerns. They tolerate compromises that are ineffective and fail to provide workable solutions to real problems. Centrist just want to end the policy debates now, tune into the horserace coverage and vote for the winner.
That is the opposite of the civic engagement we need today.
6
@OldBoatMan
Democracy requires inelegant compromise because as fervently as you may believe in something someone on the other end of the spectrum just as fervently believes in something very different. And we can't just continually impose laws and policies on people that don't accept them or believe in them. People eventually won't accept them as legitimate. What if Roe v. Wade were overturned and monopolies allowed free reign. I suspect that Liberals would be apoplectic (including me).
Obamacare is an example of compromise which was neither Medicare for All nor a free market solution. It is significant but only an incremental improvement or change. Now, we continue to push forward to lay the groundwork for a Medicare for All system, which if history is any guide should be more acceptable in another 20 to 50 years.
5
@Schneiderman Ridiculous and not very informed. So you do not give any credit to the other 37 industrialized nations that provide healthcare from birth to death, and free or cheaper college and who have better outcomes that we have with health and education.
There is much savings to be had from Medicare for all and education.
The middle is status quo, letting the rich take more wealth than what they had in the Gilded Age of 1890's and early 1900's. We've been here before and working in the middle will not take care of the problems facing us. We cannot ignore Climate Change any longer.
There has not been accountability for 50 decades. Lies become facts, liars learn that lies work and have worked well for the rich. Politicians are now multi millionaires and when they leave government become richer as lobbyists to keep the status quo and the money flowing to the top.
"To yearn for the center is to imagine a politics without conflict, in which people of good will mostly agree on basic principles and deliberate calmly about everything else. In an age of partisan vitriol, it’s easy to see the appeal of this adults-in-the-room vision."
This is not necessarily true. Where does a fiscal conservative / social liberal fit on the political spectrum? Those of us who want to live and let live aren't avoiding conflict; rather, we believe the function of government is to preserve fundamental individual rights.
Both the far right and the far left platforms violate individual rights : the far right violates rights to privacy through its stands on gay rights and abortion, while the far left violates property rights through high taxation. Those of us who are socially liberal but fiscally conservative vacillate between the two parties based on who is causing the least damage. As the parties become more extreme, we are left without viable choices.
4
@Janet
Libertarians are the smallest segment, so they have to take half a loaf, and sacrifice the other half, according to the relative importance to them of social and economic policy. Most libertarians have already made that choice, and vote Republican, and find that social conservativism matches tolerably well, if not ideally, with their devotion to markets, hard money, and small government. Good luck.
Polarization is another term for a disappearing center. Of course, a center position involves nuance, perception, avoiding extremes. A centrist approach cannot find anything to support on either side when both indulge in polemic based upon symbols, not facts, rhetoric, not analysis.
In the present case a centrist position is further made difficult when the GOP is way out there in alternative fact land with no intention of arriving at a clear statement of any problem, nevermind a solution. That means the center has to be found within the Dems, and a centrist has to deal with being labeled a turncoat or a mole, as well as trying to advance reason and observation ignored by many fellow Dems.
7
I see you are still using the two green check marks in your comments, Mr. Brews ✅✅.
Originally that was a symbol for NYTimes "trusted" commenters. Socrates and I were among the first. They no longer use the symbols and your use of them is misleading.
Please do away with them.
Thank you.
1
Let's take a leap...
The United States is a country of over 320 million people. Comparisons of various as it were decades, 50's, 60's, 80's is unfair to the people and our nation's needs by our Federal Government. When Eisenhower was President we were a nation of 152.3 million. By 1970 we reached 205 plus million people.Today we are 327 plus million.Our demands have grown, and ways to meet an ever changing population number have changed. Priorities have shifted as numbers have grown. And yes too, demographics have shifted between the proportion of people backgrounds and needs. In some geographical areas of the country what is good for say New York is not good for Kansas. What is needed in California is not necessarily needed in Florida. States have taken over the center in many instances to meet needs in the balance os service delivery.
What is needed in short on the Federal level are guiding leadership principles that meet this ever growing population. I am not looking for a leader of the past. In 2020 we need a leader who can inspire this ever changing community of people we call the United States I don't look for a man or woman who can lead from the center, left or right. I look for a balanced person who can lead by bold inspiration, passionate goals, bed rock Democratic principles and visionary pragmatic practices.
6
@Josh Shafran
Bedrock democratic (I think you meant small "d") principles apply regardless of population and demographics, whether in New York, California, Florida, Kansas or elsewhere. You can't justify rationing people's health care by affordability, on the lottery of where they live. Or weighting the value of their votes, for that matter (though we all know that's happening now).
If your thesis held water, you could equally argue for micromanaging state government county by county.
I would remind you that "this ever changing community of people" is called the UNITED States, and that its Constitution twice calls for the General Welfare.
Today's America disregards federalism, our most fundamental check against an ideologically dichotomous struggle for centralized governmental power. The radical center is just where it is supposed to be: within the states and their political subdivisions. The structure and design of our great experiment in self-governance embraces the array of political diversity strikingly apparent in our cities, school boards, counties, and states.
Grassroots localism, responsive to constituencies of the people closest to and most affected thereby, are empowered to legislate to the extent of each states' constitution. The central government is not nearly as relevant a safety net as most politicians would have us believe.
The centrism issue is poorly framed as a mathematical median on a color spectrum. It is vibrant and three-dimensional; a celebrated diversity of many cultural views, locally coherent, bound together by the uniquely American invention of the delicate federalist balance between local, state, and national governments. We can never forget our citizenship in all three.
8
Seems to me that the root cause of this problem is our sports obsessed winner take all culture. People in this country expend a lot of energy rooting for their team to win even though the reality is if their team wins or loses it does nothing to improve their own lives. This is especially true on the Republican side where people vote against their own interests only because their team is the good guys. So they’re against socialist ideas but not social security and Medicare.
16
@Roscoe
As someone who is not a sports nut, I wonder if the opposite is true - that the lack of a "national" sport that everyone follows leaves too much of a competitive gap that gets filled by politics. As the ancient Romans understood, bread and circuses was at the root of political stability.
1
The far right (libertarianism) has the backing of the 1% who fear democratic socialism (the rest of us) will wake us up to sharing the wealth, and they will lose their (citizens united, fox news) hold on the government.
These right wing libertarians represent global corporations and fight any regulations, bringing climate change on the rest of us (thanks big oil, coal and gas) along with harmful chemicals and gmo's (thanks Monsanto et al.) They must be reined in.
Regulations have been applied in the European Union and elsewhere bringing free or affordable healthcare and education (so crucial for a civilized society) to their citizens.
It is the democracy in democratic socialism that I stress. People will insist on regulating libertarianism if they clearly see their own best interests. The up and coming progressives in congress with their Green New Deal are having some success against the old establishment (who will mount a blitzkreig of propaganda and paid advertising against them.)
The democratic socialists all over the world are waking up "the rest of us."
17
I accidentally clicked "recommend", a mistake. Socialism simply cannot be democratic in a free country ... it absolutely reqires "regulating libertarainism" with a stern hand.
The GOP has pushed "the center" so far right that a progressive agenda now would have been centerist 25 years ago.
29
@Chuck, I am not so sure. 25 years ago was 1994, when President Clinton's Bipartisan Commission on Immigration Reform, led by African-American, Democratic Congresswoman and civil rights icon Barbara Jordan, was issuing recommendations. That "the center" and mainstream media all endorsed as being common-sense. The Commission recommended chain migration reform; elimination of the diversity visa lottery; reduction of legal immigration from the 1980's & 1990's average of 750,000 per year down to about 550,000 per year; and stronger enforcement vs illegal immigration. Ms. Jordan & rest of Committee was analyzing economic trends, including expected impact on labor, from predicted results of NAFTA; increasing automation; and Reagan-era weakening of labor unions. In '96, Clinton, of course, unfortunately, killed the legislation that was about to pass Congress, allegedly as quid pro quo for the illegal campaign $ from Chinese (via John Huang) and because of lobbying from strange bedfellows like corporatist GOP & La Raza.
The Commission's predictions of what would happen, absent the reforms, have largely come true. These reforms are now supported by President Trump. But both Democrats and media now condemn all of these reforms. So "the center" has certainly changed, but on issue of immigration, "progressives" ironically have gone way to the right. Today's Democrats and the business-first/anti-labor wing of GOP carry water for Koch Bros, Chamber of Commerce, etc.
2
How to solve the Gordian Knot of politics? Why not enrich voter registration by eliminating party declaration. The stakes of the outcome of elections being so high, let every voter have as many votes as she or he needs to properly express preference. Why should I not be able to vote in the nominating process of both or all parties. Either Or is a false choice.
7
The political 'center' is just an imaginary line, where we try to establish what are the needs and wishes of the majority of the people, and based on prudence (doing what's right, however difficult); and then proceed, with due diligence based on competence and honesty, to convert our promises into actions. And as the environment shifts, so must the center. But then again, it's easier said than done.
4
Part of the problem with this argument is that the author is conflating three meanings of the word “center.” She uses the word in one sense to mean a place of non-ideological pragmatism. But she also uses it to mean the ideological space occupied by what political scientists call the median voter. And the third sense of the word is a place where ideas have become mainstream and not the property of the “fringes.”
All of this, in turn, stems from a conceptualization of our political space as one dimensional. But what if it is multidimensional in the sense that it can accommodate concerns about the economic order of things, the social order of things and a democratic order of things. We could then have, for example, a person who wants strong economic regulation, lax social regulation, and governance more by elites than by common people. Nothing limits us to three dimensions.
In such a world, it’s much harder to talk about “the center.” But, that’s where we are.
19
Professor Gauge starts up nicely: The "red vs. blue" binary metaphor is ridiculously oversimplified. It's like saying "The only places are New York or San Francisco. Those are the only two possibilities."
She goes on to add that "political spectrum" metaphor is also distorting: "It still presupposes there are only two fundamental worldviews, left and right, and that people’s preferences and temperaments will align, neatly and self-evidently, somewhere between them." That's like saying "The only places lie along Interstate-80, stretching from New York to Chicago to Salt Lake City to San Francisco. There are an infinite number of possibilities, but they all lie along this single line."
Unfortunately, she stops there. She could have pointed out that there are all sorts of places not along Interstate-80: Portland, Maine; Portland, Oregon; Atlanta; Yellowstone National Park; Lake Superior; Winnipeg; Singapore; Mount Everest; the Mariana Trench; the North Pole; Mars; the Andromeda Galaxy. If three-dimensional space holds such rich diversity, shouldn't multi-dimensional political opinion hold even more diversity?
We need to be honest: There are many policy questions, and many possible solutions to those questions. To reduce political opinion to "left, right, and center" is to lie. And it deprives us of creative solutions to difficult questions.
21
These sentences got to me: “Centrism is more about process than ideology, a faith in practical politics over moral absolutes. Its range of available ideas is mostly determined by what other people think.” It is making me reflect on what I will support when it comes to cast my vote (thankfully not in the US system) and that I cannot just hide by saying I am in the center.
3
That’s assuming there’s truth in this writers portrayal. I find not much. Very few people stand right in the center....but many circle close, not because they have no ideas but because rubbing up against others ideas, sharing methods,tales of successes and failures, makes our own ideas better. Because in governance you are not jettisoning everyone who sees things differently so you have to find ways that work for the greater good of most. Because creating a “hive mind”- as the current right tries to do- is not good for humankind.
1
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. was highly prescient on many matters. His book, "The Disuniting of America-Reflections on a Multicultural Society" should be required reading for all Americans. Written in response to the first wave of political correctness taking over college campuses, Mr. Schlesinger was a predecessor of sorts to other committed and sincere Democrats who also have since warned against the dangers of a descent into identity politics and abandoning a common American identity. He also warned against the trend toward censorship. In retrospect, sadly, Mr. Schlesinger was overly optimistic, thinking these trends would be a short-term fad, mostly limited to academia. Instead, they have taken over his party and left millions of Americans politically homeless, stranded in the independent camp.
In trying to find a silver lining in the results of the 2016 election, I thought the Democratic Party might finally engage in self-reflection and reform, including welcoming voices such as Columbia professor Mark Lilla, a successor to Schlesinger. Instead, while NYT deserves credit for publishing his opinion, Lilla has been roundly condemned for daring to support New Deal Democrats and providing a critique of identity politics. Sad and strange times in America.
27
@GRH
I loved Lilla's essay and found him a refreshing and needed voice.
1
The Democratic "Left" now occupies a position to the right of Nixon who was a anathema to the left! The whole spectrum has moved so far right, the "socialists" of today are the as left as the "traitors" to the anti-war wing of the democratic party in 1968, the anti- E McCarthy apologists who supported R Kennedy. History anyone?
33
The Neoliberal Democrats slow march to the right over the past several decades has devalued and discredited the meaning of "Center/Centrist." A moderate Democrat today would have been a Republican 50 years ago. The politicians labeled the center now are more often corporate conservatives who make superficial concessions to left wing identity politics while maintaining a status quo that largely favors the financial elite. Meanwhile, the state of our nation grows increasingly worse. People on both ends of the spectrum look at issues from disappearing blue collar jobs to climate change to affordable healthcare to the ever widening gap between humanists and evangelical world views, et al., and they see a world that needs bold significant answers to desperately pressing problems. The answers they offer, and sometimes the issues they think are most important, may be decidedly different but there is a collective consensus that moderate incremental change is no longer sufficient to address the crisis our nation is in. There is no legitimacy in a "center" where pragmatic compromise means doing nothing of substance and pleasing no one other than those who can profit from inaction.
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@Bruce T
My sentiments exactly.
There are actually two political centers. The center according to conventional wisdom is defined by the pundits, the politicians and most importantly the political benefactors; the latter got what they paid for, and moved the Beltway center to the right.
The people's center stayed more or less where it was, but was increasingly squeezed out of power by devices like campaign spending non-rules, gerrymandering, voter suppression and communications legislation that tipped the media scales.
Now the picture is changing. A mere four years ago, Bernie was a forlorn voice representing the Democratic Party's FDR roots. Now, suddenly, people like Bernie, AOC and a host of others are reminding the Dems of who and what they are supposed to stand for, and pulling the Beltway center back to where it should be.
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@Bruce T
You eloquent post is why I predicted that an "outsider" would win in 2016 - either Sanders or Trump - much to the disbelief of my Clinton-supporting friends. "Pragmatic compromise means doing nothing of substance and pleasing no one other than those who can profit from inaction" is a recipe for the various catastrophes we are in now. One big thing cementing this stasis in place - the ramifications of Citizens United.
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There is no question that political center is what Ms. Gage calls "a more orderly and sober political sphere", I believe myself to be a progressive liberal of the center who despises the logorrhea of the presumably centrist intellectuals, only talking, but doing nothing.
For disclosure, my wife says that my trilingual comments published in three reputable dailies, respectively, are written by an arch-reactionary.
2
I see two bigger points that are consistently overlooked in our discussions of politics.
First, we act as though polarization somehow just happened, when, in reality, it's a deliberate tactic of pollsters and political strategists. Our polarization is a most evil and pernicious application of target marketing.
Second, we are constantly fed dichotomous choices -- right or left, Republican or Democrat, Cubs fan or Cardinals fan.
All these characteristics are better described as ranges. We're starting to recognize that we are not simply "gay or straight." But by forcing us to choose, political messengers drive us deeper into warring tribes. You can't be a true Cubs fan unless you also hate the Cardinals.
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While the rhetoric has been turned up, and along with it a tendency to demonize the other side, I don't think things have really changed that much. Most people are either left or right, but neither the left or right form a majority (at least, in most places).
To win parties have to both maintain their base and reach out to uncommitted voters. These voters are usually characterized as 'center,' simply because they are neither left nor right and to win either side needs a platform that appeals to both their supporters and the 'center.' Hence, the reputation of the center as a moderating influence.
Gerrymandering is an attempt to create a voting block where such appeals are unnecessary.
5
I don't see us as clearly split into 2 camps with distinct fault lines because I know so many people who cross over them on some things.
The term "centrist" is sometimes used for them but it isn't accurate.
My immigrant friend who worked for Clinton's campaign and is strongly opposed to illegal immigration.
My gay healthcare provider who is socially very liberal but doesn't believe in global warming. Another socially liberal friend who is economically conservative.
The lifelong Democrat who admires Reagan.
These people are not cookie cutter versions of anything. They think for themselves about all kinds of things. I disagree with some of what they think and they disagree with me on some things.
But that doesn't stop us from getting along or interacting in a positive way.
That's what I think has been largely abandoned, and to our detriment.
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I largely agree. I always thought that all kinds of people entertain all kinds of views and opinions. That was a basic tenant of our diverse, multicultural civilization. Democracy is merely a way to arrive at a general consensus given this wide diversity of opinion.
Convergence to this consensus is a result of our personal goals, our perception of what worked well or poorly in the past, and our perception of major problems confronting our nation and the best approach to solving them.
The key is that we are all acting as individual who think they are well enough informed and smart enough to form our own opinions. That's my idea of centerism.
Devolution to today's political tribalism robs us of the individualism that makes us Americans.
Rather than a wide variety of opinions, our politicians encourage us to concentrate on a narrow range problems and solutions. When we become "Believers," we surrender what makes up Americans.
12
There is a subtle problem with the center based on the way Americans negotiate. The two sides are expected to compromise, to move to a mid-point between their positions. Anyone who does not move is considered unreasonable and, therefore, wrong. Now if one of the sides is the far right, the only way you can arrive at a centrist position is by starting on the far left. If you start at the center, you're forced to move to a center-right or right wing position which is no longer the reasonable and pragmatic solution you started with.
28
Uh, NO. If you start at the center, as Trump did recently,
Nancy Pelosi absolutely refuses to negotiate.
I would say that the definition of what is the "center" has moved to the right since at least Reagan. Republicans pushed the nation as a whole to the right and when Democrats acceded to what the new middle was (which was center-right) and began to win elections Republicans starting moving even further to the right. It seems to me that the so-called "far left" (by GOP messaging standards) is really just rebalancing what has been off-kilter for the past couple of decades.
The media (corporate media if you are a Democrats, the mainstream media if you are a Republican) seems bent on trying to define what feels like a mythical "center" of yesteryear; namely the center-right when in fact, the newer generations of voters, who are at once more diverse and more interested in reversing the inequality (esp. income) are determine to move the center closer to where it probably should be at this pt.
Some of this also strikes me as generational. If you are a Boomer, your population is largely white, you don't really care about communities outside of your own and you celebrate that fact. Successive generations are more diverse so more of the nation is taken into account. Not just in terms of race (a social construct) but gender, sexual identity etc. Seems like there'd have to be a redefining of the center if the nations population comes from an array of experiences rather than one.
23
Of course the electorate is split, exactly what did these politicians expect when for the last couple of decades both parties have supported policies that led up to the massive inequality we have today. And a hollowed out middle class where the "center" would otherwise be. Both parties focus on their own version of social and "moral" issues while stuffing their coffers with corporate donations and working in those interests. And yet somehow expecting voters to falling in line because they're better than the other guys.
I'm beyond done. What the Dems don't seem to get is that for a large part of what used to be their "base", better than Trump or the other guys just isn't good enough anymore. Many presidential candidates are starting to talk the talk now, but my vote is only going to the extremely small subset of them that walk the walk and and generally always have. Trump or no Trump.
9
In the media, in the comments section of this news paper, and in many other areas there is no middle. People believe that say climate change will destroy the planet without any objective evidence. They insist on Russian collusion without evidence. They want to highly modify the constitution to ensure their power or to apply their desires on all. The state our our "union" is terrible, we are massively divided and many believe those they disagree with are evil. Whatever middle there is no politician lies there.
3
@vulcanalex
That is not what 'people' say about climate change.
And virtually every sensible consumer of empirical data accepts the fact that climate change is real and needs to be responded to.
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@vulcanalex
Plenty of evidence, however: "There Are None So Blind As Those Who Will Not See".
13
@vulcanalex There is plenty of "objective" evidence about climate change. And I assume you are referring to climate change that is attributable to human activity. There is a lot of evidence. What there is little of is non-Koch brother type sponsored "research".
In terms of Russian collusion, presumably you mean between the president and Russia. That is still being investigated. So to say it is without evidence seems to be committing the same sin as those you say are insisting on Russian collusion.
Not sure what you are going for with regard to the Constitution. Sounds like a culture war talking point.
12
Like the word liberal, the word center or centrist has taken on shifting meanings over time. The center is always partially relative to what surrounds it, so the Tea Party on one side, moderate Republicans on another, and Libertarians on a third, could lead to a different version of centrist than one having liberal Republicans (remember them?) like Lowell Weicker, Nelson Rockefeller, and Earl Warren on one side, with Jesse Helms, Strom Thurman, on another, and Edward Brooke on a third could lead to a different version altogether. Programs like Social Security and Medicare were once seen as radical. The Tennessee Valley Authority or Works Progress Administrations were seen by some as leftist plots. Who and where are the centrists in all this? I'd say right now the U.S. as a whole has moved significantly to the right, but there are still plenty of left leaning centrists around as the 2018 election showed.
4