OnPoliticalCentrism
ThoughtStorms Wiki
Context: PoliticalStuff
Quora Answer : Centrism & 3rd Party Prospects in U.S. Politics: Is there a rational middle ground between Democratic and Republican views of government?
No. Political positions tend to be bundles of preferences. Eg. this is more important than that. (Gay marriage is more important (or worth thinking about) than Iraq. Low taxes are more important (or worth worrying about) than Health Education.)
These tend to be discrete rather than continuous beliefs. Of course, they're held with some degree of firmness and passion. But people don't tend to passionately believe that gay-marriage and low-taxes are sort of neutral issues. There is no "being in the middle" on an issue, there is just not caring about it. And that just means you care about something else.
Normally we try to construct a middle-ground by horse-trading. Basically saying "I care more about low taxes than I care about gay marriage, I'll let you have gay marriage if you promise to keep taxes down". If different sides can agree with the set of trade-offs then you can make progress and call these compromises "the centre". But they aren't a centre at all. Just a compromise that works out. Other times you'll find that such compromises are impossible. That doesn't mean everyone has gone off to the extremes. (Even if the rhetoric can sound like that.) It just means that there's no deal available which everyone can live with.
Related :
Quora Answer : Now that it has become clear that Elizabeth Warren isn't getting any traction with the voters, does that mean Bernie was right that Democrats don't think a woman can beat Trump?
I doubt it.
It means that Warren's "niche" is too narrow and unstable; she's too close to Bernie for people who don't like his position, and not enough like him to take his loyal supporters away. And the exigencies of a winner takes all competition like the primaries therefore imply she's going to get squeezed out.
If you want a progressive, Bernie is more progressive, has strong credibility for having been progressive for over 40 years, is better at enthusing his supporters and just communicates his message well.
If you want a "safe centrist", there were half a dozen competing for that role and now they've all got behind Biden.
I think Warren's pitch might have worked. "I'm almost as progressive as Bernie but more rigorous, and pragmatic" might have been a winner.
But look. We're in the age of Trump. And Bolsonaro. And Boris Johnson. Few people seem to be in the market for technocrats and expertise.
That's a very serious issue. And I think it's due, a lot, to the breakdown in consensus about all kinds of basic facts. And the rise of disinformation online. One day we're going to have to learn how to value knowledgeable politicians again.
But that doesn't look like happening in 2020.
So trying to take up a position between the extremes, and make up the difference by being smart, is not the proposition that the primary voters think can beat Trump.
Quora Answer : Why do the political extremes (left and right) seem to have a stranglehold on public discourse?
Because there's no real "there there" in terms of a centre.
What you call an "extreme" is just "having an opinion on an issue". You're either for something (with some caveats) or against it (with some caveats). There's no actual belief that corresponds to a half-way position. The "political centre" is just a statistical fiction.
As to your perception of extremism, see Phil Jones (He / Him)'s answer to Have liberals/progressives become intolerant of their opponents? If so, why? Before 1980, liberals worked with conservatives on lots of issues and rarely demonized their opponents.
Quora Answer : What should I know about centrism and its political, economic, and social views?
There is NO centrism.
Everyone likes to think they're at the centre because they think "Oh, I'm not a crazy extremist".
But the reality is that there is no "centre" policy. You can be for stuff or against it. Being indifferent to it. Or liking half a policy to split the difference between liking it or not liking it, is a nonsensical nothing.
Related :
Quora Answer : With the left and the right getting more extreme will those in the center fad away or will they fight back.?
The centre is being eclipsed because it can't formulate an answer to the problems that people are facing.
The problem is that the centre was largely in power for 20 years in the West when things started going wrong. For a long while, the centre response to industrial decline in the West, increasing competition from China, changes in work due to new technologies, etc. was to just hope that it would all sort itself out.
The centre was committed to the neo-liberal consensus, kicked off by Reagan and Thatcher, that valorized free, globalized trade, deregulation, privatization of previously state run industries etc. The idea that private enterprise should be free to do what it wanted and that owning and running a business didn't entail wider responsibilities to the community or other stakeholders. Just to maximizing shareholder value.
The end result of this has been that large parts of the working class in the West live in communities that grew up around industries that no longer exist. And those communities are visibly falling apart.
The neo-liberal centrists have no answer to this. And the working class inhabitants of these declining areas have realized it.
There's now a fight between the far right (who say the problem is all due to immigrants and freeloaders) and the far left (who say the government needs to step in and provide compensating welfare / basic-income schemes and manage the industry for the good of the workers.)
At least the far right and far left acknowledge the problem and offer some kind of a solution.
I'm on the far left so I think the far right solution is wrong, both morally and practically. But at least it's an answer. Which responds to the problem. As a far leftist, I don't think most of what you hear from the far left is enough, but at least it's feeling its way in the right direction.
I don't see the centre starting a meaningful "fight-back" until we hear it accept the problem and start to give something that sounds like an answer that might work.
Related :
Phil Jones (He / Him)'s answer to What do you think about modern right-wing populism?
Quora Answer : Why do people with high IQ tend to hold extreme ideologies with regards to politics (communism, anarchism, anarcho-capitalism, etc.)?
People who are "intelligent" (I don't like IQ as a stand-in for intelligent) tend to be open minded and curious. They are more likely to have looked into non-mainstream political positions. And having looked at them, some will have found them convincing.
"Stupid" people are more likely to assume that anything that isn't mainstream must be wrong.
No Backlinks