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I find the idea of centrists to be interesting. On the left we're accustomed to regarding a centrist as a professional politician who's largely a corporate schill. There is a more legitimate, philisophical centrist who like a principled libertarian (I know one) is something of a unicorn.

To me this theoretical centrist is someone who is capable of navigating two contradictory principles. The first being that government is often inefficient, ineffective and wasteful. The second being that a healthy society requires an active government solving human probems and providing stability. This radical kind of pragmatism is hard to accomplish with a left embattled by an opposition which is categorically against spending money on anything other than military, and for a right wing who encounters an opposition reluctant to acknowledge that all programs and legislation are not created equal and that government initiatives can be failures.

This centrist unicorn is possible to find on a city council or maybe in a state legislature, but I admit I haven't seen much purpose for trying to embody it as a voter, or someone participating in the national conversation.

^ Don't threaten me with a good time.

jason from volo wrote: Sun Aug 08, 2021 10:00 amSo I think the answer right now is Biden. Is he a moderate / centrist? I guess it depends on who you ask. If you ask folks like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, they would probably say yes. I doubt Biden thinks so. I think Biden thinks he is liberal through and through.

Well I think centrism has largely been the post-Soviet hegemony, so that's from where I view things.

losthighway wrote: Sun Aug 08, 2021 11:21 amThis centrist unicorn is possible to find on a city council or maybe in a state legislature, but I admit I haven't seen much purpose for trying to embody it as a voter, or someone participating in the national conversation.

I think of someone who emphasizes unity and coming together. Compromise. Commonalities instead of differences. Concern about polarization.

My main problem with centrism:
It is generally presented as non-partisan, or less partisan, while I think it is as partisan as anything else; a centrist position is not any less of a position. But in appearing to not be a position, but simply a mediating of other positions, it occludes the fact that it is in fact a position, and thereby shields it from being challenged in a typical way. It appears to be a position of a different character, something closer to "the way things are".

"Beyond left and right" suggests that political disagreements are not really disagreements at all, not disagreements over anything substantial; they can always be synthesized, brought together under some overarching principle. Or even: They are just results of temporary misunderstanding. The real answer to these questions will come when we simply "deal with the problem".

Not surprising then that centrist hegemony should accompany the triumph of neoliberalism.
(an amusing sidenote: I heard someone say once that neoliberalism and stalinism had the same goals - to make politics unnecessary, being left only with technical, practical problems.)

For an actual centrist politician I think the presidential run of Emmanuel Macron was interesting. He basically attempted a kind of centrist populism. You can see he studied those before him and adopted many of the trappings. Ciudadanos of Spain appear to be trying something similar. And it could work. "I wish politicians would stop arguing and just fix things", is a pretty "popular" sentiment.
However the populist parts of Macron's campaign appear to be rather superficial (putting people with no experience in cabinet positions), not to mention the fact that it was very top-down and calculated; while he has shown himself to be arrogant and out of touch in his actual rule.

^ So many excellent points here.

I agree with what you're saying about how a centrist can be marketed. It feels disingenuous when someone says, "Well heck, I don't know. Both sides are crazy." It's like those people who say they like all kinds of music, and then you're not sure if they're particularly interested in music at all.

Macron is an interesting figure. I almost wonder if he's the French equivalent of Obama. Just kind of a handsome, charismatic guy who thinks racism isn't cool, but doesn't want to tip over the apple cart with any big moves. Of course a French centrist is to the left of an American one, but maybe a centrist is mainly good for stabalizing current norms. I have the impression that the welfare state in France, and willingness of labor to get noisy and demonstrate leaves things in a less conservative state of equilibrium than where we tend here.

jason from volo wrote: Sun Aug 08, 2021 2:43 pm

losthighway wrote: Sun Aug 08, 2021 11:21 am This centrist unicorn is possible to find on a city council or maybe in a state legislature, but I admit I haven't seen much purpose for trying to embody it as a voter, or someone participating in the national conversation.

On one hand, I see the executive branch as lending itself at least partially to an independent centrist in a sense that a single person could be someone to unite the country and act more as a diplomat to two or more political factions that are at loggerheads. I think you somewhat alluded to this in your post. In a way, I feel that Biden is kind of serving this role; he is lending his ear to at least moderate republicans.

On the other hand, I see your point. I think that people potentially perceive a centrist as someone that couldn't have a strong vision for the country, whether it be progressive or regressive. So therefore no one would get excited about them.

Me bringing up all of this whole centrist, third party jargon is mainly a result of me lamenting about the fact that I'm pretty much now stuck with a single option (voting for democrats) because, aside from a handful of exceptions, the republicans have gone off to la-la land. (Sorry if I'm repeating myself at this point.)

The only moderate Republican is Romney, and his party hates him. If you compare the current crop to 40 or even 20 years ago, the majority of Republicans in the running are outrageously far right. Pat Buchanan would be averagely positioned on the spectrum of Republicans these days, and he was the neofascist punchline in the 90s.

What’s important is to push the conversation to the left, since the far right has been getting legitimacy for their ideas for years now. We need to bring the conversation back around so that, for example, single payer healthcare and a strong EPA and SEC that enforce their regulations are centrist rather than leftist positions - like they are in the rest of the developed world.

biscuitdough wrote: Mon Aug 09, 2021 7:44 am What’s important is to push the conversation to the left, since the far right has been getting legitimacy for their ideas for years now. We need to bring the conversation back around so that, for example, single payer healthcare and a strong EPA and SEC that enforce their regulations are centrist rather than leftist positions - like they are in the rest of the developed world.

Totally. This is part of what makes that rare, authentic, philisophical centrist relatively unimportant to me in the US right now. A more extreme brand of conservativism is totally normalized.

I still think there's a role for Republicans in our country, but they're so far from being useful right now it's hard to even talk about. If our conversation can move left, and Republicans can stop being culture warriors and conspiracy theorists we can continue making policy to correct the horrific inequities in our country. Our state legistlature in Colorado is a pretty good version of what I want at the national level right now. The left side of the isle is dominant enough to safely pass anything that's well thought and reasonable, and the right side is a mostly sane minority whose mainly in the role of calling out sloppy and wasteful policy, forcing the dominant party to do their homework.

jason from volo wrote: Mon Aug 09, 2021 8:55 am

biscuitdough wrote: Mon Aug 09, 2021 7:44 am The only moderate Republican is Romney, and his party hates him.

In the senate, Collins and Murkowski also qualify. Republicans hate them, too. There may be some moderate republicans in the house, but at this point it's easy to confuse the few republicans that aren't drinking the "election was a fraud" Kool-Aid (e.g. Kinzinger, Cheney) with actual moderates.

Anyway, point taken. There aren't many.

biscuitdough wrote: Mon Aug 09, 2021 7:44 am What’s important is to push the conversation to the left, since the far right has been getting legitimacy for their ideas for years now. We need to bring the conversation back around so that, for example, single payer healthcare and a strong EPA and SEC that enforce their regulations are centrist rather than leftist positions - like they are in the rest of the developed world.

I agree it needs to happen, but not instantly. It will take a little bit of time. Going too quickly, like forcing the issue by ramming through legislation with zero moderate support, runs significant risk of backfiring (e.g. being repealed in four years). Obamacare... which does not go nearly as far as the far left wants to go, only survived by the skin of its teeth, and its survival was really only circumstantial (one vote away, and that last vote was a final "fuck you" from McCain to Trump. McCain otherwise had a strong dislike for Obamacare).

The far left needs to keep talking because they are the visionaries for the political future of the USA, but in the meantime they have to be willing to accept losses and/or compromise. We almost undoubtedly will need to get to where the far left wants us to go at some point, though.

There is no far left in American politics. Bernie and the Squad are center-left. They’re not talking about the workers owning the means of production, they’re talking about New Deal style band-aid fixes. Which is fine! Their positions should be the moderate option though.

Another idea also occurred to me. Some of us mentioned that the authentic centrist can be an agent of national unity and have a calming effect during turbulent times, but we've been going over all of the things they're not good for. I forgot to mention climate change.

In light of today's news, along with the other hundreds of warning we've had, it seems a time for radical action has been here for quite a while. I think if my grandchildren are going to have a chance for a halfway decent life, I'm going to need to see some significant changes for how society functions in my lifetime. Reordering transportation, business, manufacturing- our whole economy- is no simple task and it can't happen without some serious disruption.

losthighway wrote: Sun Aug 08, 2021 11:07 pmMacron is an interesting figure. I almost wonder if he's the French equivalent of Obama. Just kind of a handsome, charismatic guy who thinks racism isn't cool, but doesn't want to tip over the apple cart with any big moves. Of course a French centrist is to the left of an American one, but maybe a centrist is mainly good for stabalizing current norms. I have the impression that the welfare state in France, and willingness of labor to get noisy and demonstrate leaves things in a less conservative state of equilibrium than where we tend here.

The stakes in the 2017 election was to prevent a Le Pen win. The vote for Macron was the vote for continued tolerance, pluralism, internationalism, etc. etc. Such was the marketing of his campaign. And in addition to that some vague talks of reform, innovation and so on.

https://www.euronews.com/2021/04/29/aft ... stands-for

Macron has relied not on political ideology but rather on political branding to sell his platform, contributing to its convoluted and sometimes undefinable political leaning, some argue.

Macronism is “neither an ideology nor a clearly defined body of thought,” Llorca, who is also an expert at the Fondation Jean-Jaurès, said, but rather a way of “staging” or presenting political projects.

He argues that Macron’s use of symbols, colours, and appeasing political language all contribute to an effort to create a narrative rather than a political ideology.

This could have been excused if the government delivered - so that it would sustain some sort of anti-Le Pen momentum and not just end up in the same situation again next election - but it's dubious whether it did.

Not even on the environment Macron seems to have done that great, which is ironic considering the Yellow Vests protests started partly in response to some of his "environmentalist" policies (resulting in rising fuel prices).

Funny you mentioned the combativeness of French labour - Macron at one point expressed admiration for the Swedish labour model (i.e. centralized agreement between big business and big labour), because he figured it could help disarm the independent French unions.

And then there's this ludicrous event:

Macron’s nomination of interior minister Gérard Darmanin, who has taken a harder stance on Islam and policing, has also lead to more speculation that the French president’s party has positioned itself to the right on security issues.

[...]

Then in a stunning debate against Le Pen, Macron’s interior minister said the far-right candidate was too soft on certain questions in relation to security and Islamism, prompting her to reply: "Mr Darmanin, I confirm that I am not attacking Islam which is a religion like others and, because I’m attached to our French values, I hope to allow them to continue to fully organise and practice."

This is quite worrying with the next election coming up, because you can only play the novelty card once. Considering Macron is the only strong enough opposition to Le Pen, if his government doesn't have much else to show for it, what will his new sales pitch be? Considering also he has made himself very unpopular with the unions, and that there are Le Pen supporters among the Yellow Vests (although one probably shouldn't make too much of it).

Beware the centrists, for they are the most dangerous of all.


Also: Overton Window.