
America Needs a Centrist Party Now More Than Ever - eric_bullington
https://medium.com/@wwnorton/america-needs-a-centrist-party-now-more-than-ever-heres-how-to-make-it-happen-c1dbeba7a76d
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liberte82
The Democrats already _are_ the centrist party. They made that move with Bill
Clinton and the third way Democrats in the 90s to win elections again and
never looked back. Going even more right wing will not bring civility back to
America when one party is hell-bent on tearing apart anything that threatens
its grip on power.

What America needs is an _actually_ progressive party not beholden to
corporate interests.

This whole South Park-style "all sides are equally terrible" cynicism is a
huge factor in how things have been allowed to degrade to this point.

~~~
arca_vorago
I'm upvoting you because this is a discussion that needs to be had, because
your position is one I hear too often but is one that does not stand up to
scrutiny.

First, we need to more clearly define the term. There are actually quite a few
variations of the too easily tossed around and undescriptive term "centrist".
Are we talking about the academic political science term centrism, the third
way centrism you refer to, the centre-right or centre-left, or as the article
really intends, the non-party center?

So first, I would argue that the Democrats are indeed _not_ the centrist
party, even in the _third way_ sense, and the both sides aren't the same
retort against the criticsm that they are is increasingly disproven and is far
too often employed by the recent losers of some election or other.

I understand your sentiment though, so before you get too defensive, I think
the primary miscommunication here is in the fundamental misunderstanding of
most people of the scale of political idealogy. We must break this horizontal
only linear idea of left right and centrist to correctly approach the reality
of potential political positions. It is a fully dimensional graph, instead of
just the x axis it's exists on both x and y.

You seem to have some intuition of this in your comment about a truly
progressive party. So it confuses me that you rail against the left "going
even more right" when the article never advocated such a thing in the first
place. You are arguing against an position that was never taken. On top of
that, accusing only one party of being the one "hell-bent on tearing apart
anything that threatens its grip on power" while ignoring the very fact that
the issue is that they both are doing this smacks of intellectual dishonesty.

Respectfully, I would say I think it is this very type of kneejerk tribal
reaction that reveals a core-root part of the problem the article actually
does a fairly good job at addressing. The point is that it doesn't matter how
far left or right on the x axis either party goes, when both are shifting
further down the y axis towards totalitarianism, theocracy, dictatorship, and
general serfdom. The inability for the left, for example, the admit the
oligarchical manipulation of the primaries and the false propping up of the
candidates they thought they could handle easily later was part of the reason
the _stupid masses_ chose (what they thought was) to _rebel_ against the
establishment only reinforces this point even more. (and might I add
continuing to deny it only gives the supporters of the current administration
extra ammunition I wish they didn't have).

Now, on to the article itself. The author has articulated very well something
I have been discussing in a much more "big-picture" way for a while now. I, as
a problem solver, sat down to approach the issues of the day with a focus of
first, properly identifying the problems without letting preconcieved notions
taint the task at hand, and second by being pragmatic about the potential
solutions to those problems. I got good at this type of 0-knowledge research
after I got out of the Marine Corps and did what I call my "Descartes reset".

The main conclusion I came to was essentially the same as the author. After
much deliberation, I have determined that attempts to reform the parties from
inside are doomed to failure or to too long a political battle timeframe to be
useful. Given some refreshing of Montesquieu, I determined the primary focus
should be on restoring the checks and balances system of the branches of
government, and the most likely approach of success is through the legislative
given it is the one branch most able to be influenced by the populace. After
rereading George Washington's farewell address and warning of these very
things, the conclusion applied to modern pragmatism shows that the majorty
must be taken away from both parties. After reaching that point, it simply has
become a heated debate in my household recently on whether this could be done
via pure independents or if another, third-party should be formed. My
determination is that a coalition of both, including the disparate third
parties, is the correct approach. Eventually, over time and with enough shifts
in numbers, it would even be possible to then get a president elected who is
not beholden to the parties. This was part of my 2020/24 presidential strategy
(the details of which is another discussion). I hadn't until just now known of
the centrist project, but I will be contacting them to discuss these issues
further.

A good and relevant reading: [http://factmyth.com/the-left-right-political-
spectrum-explai...](http://factmyth.com/the-left-right-political-spectrum-
explained/)

~~~
pbarnes_1
Until the US switches to a parliamentary system, any third party is just a
spoiler. See Jill Stein and the Greens.

The Democratic party _is_ centrist. But it's a huge tent that covers a lot of
people and a lot of interests.

I honestly don't know who the Republican party appeals to, apart from being a
good vehicle for corporate interests.

