I would suggest you read the article again and this time pay attention. The fact that you are a centrist and/or independent (and we’ll just take that as a given) does not argue against the findings of the writer. The fact that you are a centrist and/or independent does not mean that most Americans are.
The thing is that many other people who consider themselves centrist independents agree with the GOP on the things that you agree with the Democrats on, and vice versa! So even though polls make these groups look large and important, their importance is greatly diluted by the fact that there’s no chance that they’re ever going to all vote as a bloc.
To be precise, according to this particular study, 32.8% of Americans consider themselves moderates, so nowhere close to “most Americans”. But quite a few of them actually hold opinions that, objectively speaking, would seem to classify them as either liberals or conservatives, so the number of actual “middle of the road” voters is even smaller.
Be sure that the two political parties are aware that they have been wrong and using the wrong strategies for years now then. There is no large center in the US, so no point running to it during the general election. Instead, certainly they should focus more on the left or right wing voters and issues…that’s a sure fire winning strategy.
You’ve convinced me.
101
You could count the number of centrist Republicans in my state on one hand and still have fingers left over.
[QUOTE=Dallas Jones]
You must be on one side or the other, so people remain distant from discussion. A socially liberal Republican, a fiscally conservative Democrat, there is no place in the political talk for either.
[/QUOTE]
QFT
Sure, but there’s a lot of latitude within those labels, and it’s likely that liberals on the more conservative end of their spectrum, and conservatives on the more liberal end of theirs actually have more in common than they do with the more ideologically extreme ends of their parties.
I suspect most people who call themselves moderates aren’t identifying with either party for some reason or another, and probably are not ideologically hardcore, or else they’d be card-carrying members of that party
I think part of the problem with this labeling and where who is on a left right single dimension axis is that the issues people care about aren’t constrained to one axis.
This is precisely what the OP’s article is arguing.
Ah, so *that’s * your bullshit strawman argument. I’m not saying that focusing solely on the left or right wing voters (the “base turnout” strategy) is optimal (although I note that there are a lot of political scientists and campaign professionals who would make that argument).
Of course, you need to win your share of “moderates” to win an election. My point is that that isn’t as simple as just taking positions across the board which are approximately midway between the normative Democratic and Republican positions and expecting these voters to flock to your banner. I’m not arguing to replace one simplistic paradigm with another, I’m saying it’s much more complicated than that.
Right, and I think that when someone’s got positions that don’t fit with one party or the other (like the aforementioned person who likes a big military AND equality and diversity), they’re not going to self-identify as a Democrat or Republican, which leaves them with “moderate” as the only real identifier left, even though they may not actually be ‘moderate’ in the classical sense.
I myself fall into that category- I’m not overly Democratic in most ways, but I’m not hateful or stupid enough to associate with today’s GOP either- what would I be called?
Moderate doesn’t mean nonpartisan; 22% of Republicans and 34% of Democrats identify themselves as moderates.
I’m not sure. Sometimes I think the concept of trying to reduce complex reality into single labels is more troublesome than helpful. Lists of properties seem more accurate even if they make communication slightly more cumbersome.
We can’t even decide what Pluto is. Or can we?
I agree with the OP.
I think most independents identify as such because it’s easy to avoid scrutiny when you can hide your opinions behind a non-informative label. It also has the ego-soothing effect of implying you’re more impartial and rational than others. Don’t we all want to see ourselves as independent thinkers? And who really wants to be extreme?
The problem is, in truth, independents are just as biased as anyone else, especially about their pet issues. There are independents that have a basement full of guns and there are independents who want UHC. The only thing that unites independents is their avoidance of identifying as liberal or conservative. They want the freedom to vote for whomever they want. Never mind the fact that they 1) have that freedom regardless of what they call themselves and 2) often vote in a manner indistinguishable from Dems or Reps.
There is a large centre in the US, and it’s represented by the Democratic Party. Your two main parties are one hard right and one centrist, that leans centre right in practice. There is relatively little space for someone to be in between the two.
The advantage of that is that, when the Democrats are in power, you will gave a pretty decent government.
That’s partially true for me, but the main reason I identify as an independent is I’m not a member of a party, and I thought that’s just what people did – you identify with a party if you’re a member of that party. I didn’t know until like 5 years ago that some people identify with them without formal membership.
This is what I mean by moderate. If the issue is economic, then my moderate stance would be that sure we can raise taxes a bit but we also need to cut spending. Not hammer the rich and middle class, or give tax breaks to all of the people. Something more in the middle , whereas we all give some concessions.
Abortion and/or gun control measures.
Abortion is fine as long as we can somewhat agree on the bright red line to have it illegal.
Gun Control measures are fine as long as they don’t dip into hurting the legal ownership or providing an undue burden for very little effect. (IE, like bump stocks, or “assault” weapons bans)
It does seem to me that the base is who the political parties can get riled up to vote, reliably though. The middle wants to hear both sides and then PICK a candidate that reflects their OWN values.
If it’s a combination of left and/or right policies than great.
I will say that a centrist candidate would be far more likely to garner support for legislation if it wasn’t seen as fringe, or Dem or Rep based.
We are currently a divided populace. It can’t continue this way forever.
It’s not MY strawman. Reading the article you linked too, it looks to me like it’s built around a strawman argument (and some of those internet tests to show your east/west, north/south political orientation based on questionable metrics about their answers to a series of questions…just BrainGlutton used to do), namely that independent, moderate and undecided are all linked in some nebulous groups mind, and that all of those mean some sort of continuity of position across groups or even across the same ‘group’, and that all of this means, to quote you in the OP “some large group of “moderate” voters who feel that both major parties are too extreme and are looking for a “centrist” alternative”. Or to quote from your article “a pivotal bloc of reasonable “independent” voters sick of the two major parties, just waiting for a centrist candidate to embrace a “moderate” policy vision”. Perhaps there are folks who say this or think it (so it’s not exactly a strawman in that case), but that’s not what either the major parties or most people themselves THINK that ‘moderate’ or ‘independent’ or even ‘undecided’ (especially this one) actually means.
What it boils down to, as you sort of kind of admit yourself here, is ‘Of course, you need to win your share of “moderates” to win an election’. What that ACTUALLY means is that you can count on a number of people who are going to vote (assuming they vote at all) for one party or the other…full stop. They will never vote against that…they will simply not vote if it comes down to not wanting their chosen party. In this case, you need unaligned voters who actually don’t vote strict party line. Next up, you have folks, like me (or at least like I used to be) who basically look at the candidates and the issues, and vote for whoever they like best, regardless of the party they are in.
Now, switching terms yet again, you have people who have a very left leaning outlook. Then you have people who have a very right leaning outlook. These two groups are pretty much in lockstep about left or right leaning issues or policies. They will ALWAYS go for just about everything on one agenda or the other. Next you have people who are not quite in lock step, but mainly agree with one ideology outlook or the other, but usually have some vertical issue or issues where they can be swayed to a the other side. Finally, you have the people, again like me, who can lean a little one way or the other, but aren’t nearly as fervent either way as the folks who are in either of the first two categories.
These aren’t myths…they are reality. And the majority of Americans don’t have a strong left or right bias across the board. They might have one or two issues where they DO think a strong left or right position is correct, but on other issues they are less fervent or even lean the other way.
Just to wrap this up, I don’t think anyone believes that unaligned means centrist, or that independent means moderate. Basically, if you want to win in the US you have to capture your own fervent faithful and, at a minimum, get them to vote (ask Hillary about this sometime) AND then you need to capture folks who are in the center, who COULD be swayed one way or the other, to one party or the other, depending on the person running and/or the issues. Those people are not going to go for radical left or right wing positions, usually.
Or, to put it another way…people are more complex than silly strawmen, especially when you move away from the extremes and into the bulk of the population. Either that, or as I said, you really should get the memo out to the Democrats (or Republicans, though I doubt that’s your thing) that they have been doing it wrong. Really, you don’t need to worry about the center…it’s small and really unimportant and they should focus on pushing the extremes. That’s what I get out of your article and your OP…that it’s all a myth.
Why? I’ve got a left hand and a right hand, but not a middle hand.
Unless you’re a Motie, I guess.
A lot of people don’t follow politics besides the presidential races and even then a lot of people don’t vote. Being political junkies is cool if you get the hook but you need to have the time and inclination to do so. A lot of rank and file voters are not entrenched in a political party or set of policy programs. They may be keen on a policy or program but not single issue folks who dictate an affiliation to one party that promises to fulfil it.
It wasn’t that long ago being apolitical was the cool thing to do.
Of course there’s room for a fiscally conservative Democrat. Did you mean to say that there’s no room for a fiscally-conservative Republican?
Ludovic, in much of the US, there simply isn’t any such thing as being a member of a political party, and in others, being a “member” of a party means nothing more nor less than that the last primary you voted in was for that party. When an American says “I’m a Whig”, what that means is “I usually vote for the Whig candidate”, because there’s nothing else for it to mean. Well, OK, sometimes it also means “I’m a Tory but don’t like to admit it”, but that’s still equally as official as the other meaning.