Should everything be in moderation? How can we find a middle ground and compromise? Can temperance lead us to better results?
We ask these questions about many aspects of our lives, and their application has probably led to practical and desirable results for you. I know they have for me.
There can be many examples, but relationships and health always seem to be discussed when talking about these concepts.
Many doctors, psychologists, and other experts say that compromising and/or taking a moderate approach can help us solve specific issues in these areas.
We may not get exactly what we want in the end, but following this line of thinking will be in the best interest of the relationship or our overall health.
But another very important example is our country. It works this way, too, and more importantly, our founders designed it this way.
In a world of kings and queens where one person made all the decisions, they embraced and designed a system around the concept of democracy, where many opinions are considered, and different points of view are accepted and embraced.
A system that allows many different groups with many different ideologies to come together and negotiate in a bipartisan way to solve problems.
Although we are now split between the ideologies of the Republican and Democratic parties, the system ensures that those ideologies must come together to find solutions to those problems.
It’s a system designed for bipartisanism—a system designed to embrace centrism and moderate politics.
Centrism and moderate politics could even be said to be the foundation of our democratic system, and many citizens identify themselves as centrist or moderate Republican or Democrat.
However, the concepts of centrism and moderate politics can be a bit nebulous in America, as can their effects on the political environment.
So, let’s dive deeper into this and discuss what centrism and moderate politics are, their role and effect on the political environment, and the positives and criticisms of these political views.
What are Centrism and Moderate Politics?
To understand the essential elements of centrism and moderate politics, we first must examine the notion of political ideologies and the left-right political spectrum.
Political ideologies emerged as a new way to guide politics in secular countries like the United States and France, which were breaking away from the traditional rule of monarchies. They can be defined as a set of values that guide the political goals of individuals and groups.
The left-right political spectrum has its roots in the French Revolution.
It emerged in the French National Assembly, a brief legislative body during the French Revolution. Supporters of the revolution sat on the left, and supporters of the old traditions sat on the right.
Those on the left in this assembly supported democratic views, and those on the right supported traditional authoritarian views.
This ultimately evolved over many years into what we know now as the left-right political spectrum, with ideologies like communism on the very far left and fascism on the very far right.
For American politics within a democracy, this typically means a left-right spectrum with liberals or Democrats on the left and conservatives or Republicans on the right.
This leads us to centrism and moderates, whose definitions, as mentioned earlier, are a bit vague, but here is how I best perceive them.
Centrism is intrinsically less of a purely political ideology and more of a basic overall approach to rejecting extremes, balancing the ideologies of the left and right, and finding a middle ground to compromise on policies and issues.
It can use aspects of both political ideologies and bring them together to solve problems in a democracy where many different views and opinions are embraced.
Most centrists in the United States are either center-left or center-right, meaning they hold these centrist values but lean more toward one specific side of the left-right political spectrum.
This is what is basically meant by a moderate, too. However, I would say a moderate is, more specifically, someone who is always a full supporter of one party but rejects that party’s extremes.
Outside of my opinion on that little difference, though, the terms centrist and moderate mean the same thing.
For years, these views were the predominant positions in the United States, with the 1990s being the height of their popularity.
In the 1992 presidential election, George H.W. Bush, a centrist Republican, ran against Bill Clinton, a centrist Democrat, and Ross Perot, a third-party candidate who ran on a centrist populist platform.
In my article, Third Wheel, I discuss this election more regarding third parties. But, for the two major parties, it marked a period when the election result wouldn’t result in a significant ideological difference.
There were differences in policies and agendas because Bush and Clinton were from different parties, but the centrist approach to balancing the policies of the left and right and finding a middle ground to compromise was present with both.
In 1990, President George H.W. Bush and Democrat Senate majority leader George Mitchell worked together. They passed amendments to the Clean Air Act of 1970, which addressed harmful environmental issues in a bipartisan way.
During President Bill Clinton’s administration, he and Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich also worked together. In 1996, they passed bipartisan welfare reform amid opposing pressure from their parties’ extremes and passed the Balanced Budget Act of 1997.
These are just a couple examples of the centrist approach from that era but show why this was a much more accomplished time.
While every party may not get what they want in totality, it’s in the country’s best interests to find compromises and solutions that begin to fix a problem.
But even more importantly, the system is designed this way so we do not get ignorant or dangerous legislation.
Centrism and moderate politics are so crucial because the system makes things difficult to get done.
This is by design.
A totalitarian system may be quick and efficient, but it leads to dangerous legislation.
However, in a democracy, many opinions, procedures, negotiations, and compromises are needed for legislation to pass. This ensures that legislation gets checked not only by multiple divisions and branches of government but also by the representatives of those branches, who must debate and negotiate to accomplish anything.
The alternative? Either have gridlock and get nothing done, or wait for an election, gain a large majority, and pass partisan legislation.
This can sometimes be effective if the legislation is needed or essential, but most of the time, it’s more about the partisan agenda than really solving a problem, and it needs support from at least some in the opposing party anyway.
However, centrism and moderate politics do face criticism.
Left, Right, Center
Most people reading this and knowing I’m an independent will probably assume that I think very highly of centrism and moderates, and I do.
However, as described in my about page regarding my political philosophy, I feel politics is situational and about the truth and pragmatic nature of an issue. But an issue’s truth and pragmatic nature aren’t always 50-50.
For me, it depends more on the issue and the nature of the situation surrounding that issue. So, my real break from centrism and moderates is that sometimes, given the situation of the issue, balancing the ideologies of the left and right and finding a middle ground isn’t practical.
But, as mentioned in the last section, I believe our democratic system is absolutely founded on centrism and moderate political principles.
And at the end of the day, I feel most informed centrists would agree with most of this. They wouldn’t realistically find compromise in every circumstance either.
In addition to this, centrists and moderates can also get other criticisms, especially from the far left.
Many on the far left say that centrism and moderate politics are really just right-wing politics.
They say this because of the left-right political spectrum we discussed in the last section.
Remember, in the left-right political spectrum, we had communism on the far left and fascism on the far right.
They say that, in an accurate spectrum, social democracy is in the very middle of that spectrum.
Social democracy combines capitalism, such as strong markets and private ownership, with a high emphasis on social equality, such as strong economic equality programs.
Many countries in Europe fall under this political ideology. In the United States, many, especially on the right, criticize this ideology as socialism and consider this ideology far left.
But it’s really a combination of capitalism and socialism and is to the right on the political spectrum from communism and actual socialism.
The critics on the far left ultimately say that since social democracy is considered extreme left-wing politics in the United States, anything right of that is actually right-wing politics, including centrists and moderates.
In their reasoning, social democracy is the true centrist position because it is ultimately in the middle of the left-right political spectrum, making American centrists and moderates right-wing.
My issue with this is that they put social democracy in the middle of the left-right spectrum when the ideology of liberalism or a liberal democracy should be in the middle of the spectrum.
Quick note: Liberal democracy and liberalism in this context refer to liberalism as a political ideology emphasizing individualism and free market capitalism. It is not liberal in the sense of the Democratic party in the United States.
If social democracy is a combination of socialism and capitalism, liberalism or liberal democracy is a combination of individualism and capitalism.
Social democracy puts too much emphasis on social equality regarding government control, like economic social programs, for example, to be in the center.
But, liberal democracy emphasizes more individualism than social democracy and American Democrats and more secular freedom than conservatism and American Republicans, putting it in between them both.
A basic left-right political spectrum should be communism-socialism-social democracy-liberalism/liberal democracy-conservative-reactionary-fascism.
Also, centrism isn’t a political ideology like social democracy, communism, fascism, or liberalism.
As I’ve emphasized throughout this entire article, centrism and moderate politics are approaches within a democracy.
Whether it’s a social democracy of Europe or a liberal democracy like the United States, centrism is an approach within whatever democratic system you have to solve problems reasonably.
But the far left will also criticize centrism for this.
They’ll say that this approach to the democratic system we’ve been discussing, bringing together both sides to compromise, balancing the left and right, and finding a middle ground, does not lead to progress but that it slows progress, stops progress, or reverses progress.
They say that since centrism is in the middle, centrists always try to compromise with the left, which is looking to change society, and the right, which is trying to keep it the same. In their view, this will never lead to true progress because it will either cause slow progress, keep things the same, or regress us as a society.
My major issue here is with the concept of progress.
Progress to the far left, and the far right for that matter, means the total achievement of their goal on an issue and changing society to their ideological image.
And anything a centrist does that doesn’t fall into that category must be right-wing politics or regressive, but that’s missing the point of centrism and democracy.
It’s not always about constant progress or constantly changing society; it’s about solving problems and respecting differences of opinion.
And sometimes solving problems means embracing a right-wing position.
Just as sometimes solving a problem means embracing a left-wing position.
It may not be progress under their ideology, but that’s the point of democracy.
Democracy considers many interests and opinions, and the concepts of progress will differ depending on those interests and opinions.
And considering how divided we are, we could use much more of this.
Regardless, centrism and moderate politics will remain in focus with all the divisions.
The bigger question is: will they be pushed out of politics as the division continues? Or will this lead to their return as the predominating approaches the way they were a few decades ago?
