We Are All Centrists Now
In the wake of the Nixon administration’s decision in 1971 to take the United States off the gold standard, the economist Milton Friedman purportedly quipped, “We are all Keynesians now.” I refer to that quote in the chapter on economics in my recently completed book manuscript about centrism. The book’s thesis is that centrism not only has a coherent set of desirable values but that centrists are as passionate in their beliefs as those at the more ideological extremes, even if we often have a hard time seeing it. Nothing has changed to make me question my thesis — quite the contrary — but I’m going to be doing some serious rewriting as I “shelter in place” with my immediate family. Why? Well, because COVID-19 has changed everything. My manuscript, unsurprisingly, assumes the social, economic and political status quo ante the pandemic. I’m not complaining, really; my modest monograph doesn’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world (yes, Rick from Casablanca makes a brief cameo in my book as an example of civilian centrism in action). But because the values I believe are intrinsically centrist in nature became deeply embedded in my consciousness during the writing process, they have enabled me to reassess politics in a post-coronavirus world. And my conclusion is that we are all centrists now.
A Virus Is Apolitical
By that I certainly don’t mean people will simply jettison their personal political orientation because we are experiencing a global viral epidemic. Although one can dream. Conjuring the image of all the members of Congress standing outside the Capital in a big circle — with the requisite six-foot separation between them instead of holding hands — and singing “Kumbaya” is enough to warm the heart of any American, centrist or otherwise. But I’m not holding my breath. Except when a fellow Trader Joe’s shopper sneezes, that is. The statement “There are no atheists in foxholes” was popularized during and after World War Two but it is erroneous, for the simple reason that combat service requires not belief in a higher power but sacrifice for your fellow soldier — and, ultimately, for your country. It would be more accurate to say there are no Republicans or Democrats — or straights or gays — in foxholes, which is basically what Pete Buttigieg said on the campaign trail in 2019, citing his own military experience in Afghanistan. Buttigieg, of course, is a centrist Democrat. Sadly, there aren’t many truly centrist Republicans these days, owing to the GOP’s capitulation to the cult of Trump, but more on that later. (And no, please stop calling Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski centrists. They dismally failed the test during the Kavanaugh nomination and Trump impeachment votes.)
Centrism for the 21st Century
For me, centrism is defined both in terms of what it doesn’t believe — namely, that political salvation is to be found by party allegiance or at any of the four ideological extremes — and what it does believe, that complex societal problems require balancing conflicting policies and goals to achieve just solutions. What’s that, I hear you say? Four ideological extremes? Yes, I do mean four and not two, for the simple reason that the primitive left-right spectrum is inadequate to describe the actual political divide in modern democracies. In my book I shamelessly borrow David Nolan’s two-axis chart to explain what he got both right and wrong.
Right Approach, Wrong Analysis
As one of the founders of the Libertarian Party in 1971 (largely in response to Nixon’s economic and foreign policies), he got right the notion that one political “right wing” cannot house under one roof conservatives who are religious fundamentalists and libertarians who champion gay marriage and legalized marijuana. And he got wrong the idea that absolute freedom in both dimensions — economic and personal — as portrayed in the novels of his beloved Ayn Rand, represents the utopian Promised Land for America. I literally go into chapter and verse in my manuscript as to why, but today nothing could provide a starker reminder of the need for a robust, capable federal bureaucracy than the COVID-19 crisis we currently face. Grover Norquist, the libertarian in GOP clothing, infamously said that he doesn’t so much want to abolish government, he simply wants to shrink it down to the size where it can be drowned in a bathtub. As we all now turn in desperation to the NIH and the CDC for guidance and help, and wonder what life might be like if the Trump administration hadn’t disbanded the NSC Pandemic Unit in 2018, that bathtub fantasy sounds not so much heroic or even villainous but downright suicidal.
The Overlooked Middle
Apart from distinguishing his own libertarians from conservatives and liberals with his now-eponymous chart (he simply called it the “Self-Government Chart”), David Nolan also defined two other areas that he promptly ignored: the lower, authoritarian quadrant and the middle, centrist zone. Nolan assumed — wrongly, as we discovered in 2016 — that we Americans would find populist authoritarianism so unappetizing, given our love of liberty, that it was hardly worth mentioning. For him, it simply was a place on the chart that represented the absence of both types of freedom, economic and personal. For us, it now epitomizes the appeal of Trump, a populist demagogue who fashioned himself the savior of the economically desperate. As history shows, authoritarians are successful when they play on the legitimate fears of the populace by fostering malign fears of the “other” (be they minorities, foreigners, or elites). But what about that forgotten centrist zone in the middle of the chart?
Getting Past Goldilocks
Centrists have a poor reputation as nothing more than compromisers who lack passion and who occupy the “mushy middle.” As the colorful Texan, Jim Hightower, likes to joke, “There’s nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos.” Part of that bad hype is undeserved, caused by others mischaracterizing what centrism actually represents. And part is the fault of centrists themselves, for either failing to communicate their beliefs effectively or for withdrawing from the hurly-burly of the American political arena to enjoy the blessings of personal life. I can be more forgiving of the latter sin, however, because we are supposed to be a representative democracy and our two-party system actively discourages it. Leaving us with representatives who have become, in the past few decades, more polarized and more corrupt in equal measure. If you think that overstates the case, I give you gerrymandering as Exhibit A, but the list goes on and on.
Values, Not Ideology
So what does centrism stand for, if not merely the need to compromise on occasion? Well, for one thing, centrism values facts over ideology, which is no small thing when seemingly any issue, be it climate change or medical care or gun control, is typically viewed by politicians and pundits first and foremost through a partisan lens. Even setting aside something as chillingly nonpartisan and indifferent as a deadly communicable virus, how can we hope as a republic to grapple with complex policy problems if we can’t analyze the underlying facts and competing values objectively? Centrism is uniquely suited to do that because centrists don’t quaver if the results make their team look bad and the other guys look good. That’s what integrity means. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the late centrist lion of the Senate, wasn’t afraid to buck his own party’s leadership when he believed the situation called for it. As he succinctly observed, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” When a centrist talks about “country over party” she isn’t just paying lip service to a forgotten ideal, she’s describing a holistic approach to government.
Fiscal Sanity
Centrists also champion fiscal responsibility in the manner that Rockefeller Republicans (remember them?) and moderate Democrats used to. It seems almost a quaint notion in the era of such quackery as Modern Monetary Theory and supply side, but when a major economic downturn occurs — like right now — you sure as hell better have some fiscal leeway to provide the kinds of stimulus programs required to get ordinary Americans back on their feet and the economy as a whole growing again. Notwithstanding the wishful thinking of an AOC or a Dick Cheney, deficits do matter. (Why did you not learn that lesson, Mr. Vice President, when centrist George H. W. Bush put country over party by self-correcting his misbegotten “no new taxes” pledge? Bush 41 had it right the first time, calling Ronald Reagan out for practicing “voodoo economics.”) Centrists look back wistfully at Simpson-Bowles that failed in the Obama years because of a lack of political will in Congress. What would life look like now if we’d forced ourselves as a nation to have the kind of discipline that banked a little surplus when the economy was expanding instead of giving the rich a huge tax break? A whole lot more secure, that’s what. Yes, more than ever we should fix our healthcare system, but voters instinctively realize safety lies in the centrist direction of Joe Biden and not Bernie Sanders. Imagine for a moment what a post-pandemic world would be like if Bernie miraculously had been able to pass his free college tuition for all and free Medicare for all and so forth, all borrowed from our grandchildren and adding untold trillions to the deficit, and then we suffered a recession — or, more realistically now, an actual depression? Same deal: very bad news. I realize that, in good times, centrists are like those boring people who forego lavish personal spending and contribute to their savings accounts so they can eventually buy a house or pay for groceries if they get laid off. Funny, it doesn’t seem so boring now.
Whither the American Dream?
Another thing that defines centrism is a fundamental belief in a middle-class American Dream, not as some rugged individualist/capitalist fantasy, nor as some socialist morality play, but as the post-New Deal mixed economy we came to know in the Eisenhower years. Ike, a centrist Republican president, understood like the last centrist occupant in the White House, Barack Obama, that a society is strongest and most successful when corporate CEOs aren’t paid 200x (or, even more obscenely, 2,000x) their employees and when any decent, motivated American can get a good education and have a fulfilling, well-paying career. There is dignity in work, just as there is value in sacrifice to community, and it’s equally mistaken to demonize the efficiencies and rewards of capitalism as it is to resist regulation and taxation of its inadequacies and excesses. Centrism is all about balancing because, contrary to what Barry Goldwater thundered in 1964, extremism in the cause of liberty is a vice. In fact, extremism in any dimension is undesirable, whether you’re looking at voluntary late-term abortions, civilian ownership of assault rifles or immigration policy. Benjamin Franklin, our nation’s first centrist, famously said taxes are as certain as death. The commonality is scarcity; we don’t get endless abundance, whether in years or in other resources. The wise among us internalize this initially disconcerting notion and learn to embrace it as a philosophy of being. Each moment is cherished not in spite of the fleeting nature of life but because of it. And centrists similarly absorb the reality that political life is literally a mixed bag, a constant tussle between competing values and limited means. Robert Heinlein, a science-fiction novelist who was a favorite of libertarians like David Nolan, perhaps summed it up best in the acronym TANSTAAFL: There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. But just as with Nolan’s chart, it better serves the case for centrism. Costs can’t be swept under a rug, whether it’s the accumulating cost to the planet of 150 years of post-Industrial Revolution CO2 emissions, the deferred cost to American society of an immoral slave trade that began 400 years ago, or the near-future cost in retirees’ lives of college students reveling on the beaches of Florida. Internalizing a centrist political philosophy means embracing scarcity and compromise, that there’s no more an obtainable socialist utopia than there is an anarcho-capitalist one. We’re all in this together, with limited resources but — and here’s the silver lining — unlimited loving kindness and fellow feeling.
Balancing Sacrifice
There will be dark days ahead in this pandemic, let’s not kid ourselves. As a child of WW2-era parents (who, remarkably, are still alive), it’s perhaps easier for me to remind my college-age children and myself what true sacrifice looked like, even though the Greatest Generation did have the undeniable advantage of pitching in together for the war effort arm in arm, with no call for social distancing. I hope, for selfish but also for altruistic reasons, that my book sees the light of day sooner rather than later, because I believe it provides an accurate, optimistic message for a centrist approach to government. Centrism remains as relevant in 2020 as in 2019 because we haven’t found a vaccine for polarization either. In fact, it’s more relevant, given the efficacy of political disinfectants like transparency and accountability. But even if we can’t heed the centrist lessons this time, perhaps we can in the future. As rational — and passionate — beings we know there will be happier times ahead and also some calamitous ones. There always are. Despite what real estate speculators and subprime lenders convinced themselves in 2007, the laws of nature or economics haven’t magically been suspended. And it’s at those moments when we understand that, in a very real sense, we are all centrists.
Owen Prell is a writer and a founding member of Unite America (formerly The Centrist Project).
