In Search of the Political Center

Pundits claim Democrats must run to the center in order to win. Should we listen to them?

It’s no secret that I’m not a big fan of James Comey. In his role as FBI director, he inserted himself into the 2016 presidential election—twice—and thereby very likely handed the presidency to Donald Trump. In the time since Trump fired him, Comey has reentered the public spotlight as the author of a memoir that contributed nothing to the political discourse and a Twitterer of obvious, vapid thoughts.

My least-favorite Comey tweet to date was published on July 22nd of this year, shortly after Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez’s primary victory over establishment Democratic Congressperson Joseph Crowley. Comey decided to address Democrats directly. He warned them to “…please, please don’t lose your minds and rush to the socialist left.” His reasoning against a leftward lean? “America’s great middle wants sensible, balanced, ethical leadership.”

I shouldn’t have to tell you that James Comey’s political advice is entirely worthless. Comey has never run for office. His understanding of politics has thus far been decidedly unsophisticated, to say the least.

If this was just one guy on Twitter, we wouldn’t have a problem. But Comey’s appeal to the “middle” and “balance” is fairly common take with white men in the media. Pundits and retired politicians are calling on Democrats to “run to the center” in order to appeal to Republicans in the midterms and the 2020 elections. But very few of these think-pieces bother to explain what “running to the center” actually, you know, means. So let’s lay that out here.

Presumably, the “center” that Comey and other pundits are alluding to is some ideological ground in between the liberal left and the conservative right. But people like Comey always refer to the center as “balanced” or “stable” and “just common sense.” They imply that what they describe as centrism has always been the center, and will always be the center.

That’s simply not true. The center between John F. Kennedy’s Democratic Party and Richard Nixon’s Republican Party in 1960 does not in any way resemble the center between Hillary Clinton’s Democratic Party and Donald Trump’s Republican Party in 2016. Thanks in part to insidious long-term planning from a few Republican mega-donors, the Overton window of America’s political discourse has moved consistently rightward over the last 50 years—center and all. So since the center keeps moving right, Comey and others who call for centrism are demanding that Democrats act more like Diet Republicans.

Frankly, that’s not going to work.

For one thing, the Republican Party is now much further rightward than it has been in modern memory. There is no middle ground between the liberal position and the racist and harmful immigration policies of Donald Trump’s Republican Party. You simply can’t compromise when the issue is separating children from their parents, or supporting white supremacists.

Look, I get the emotions behind what people are saying when they ask politicians to “move to the center.” They want their politics to be less rancorous. They want their politicians to be more reasonable. And that’s fair. But what does that mean when the reasonable politicians sit down to actually craft policies?

“Slightly to the left of Republicans” is a terrible and inconsistent slate of policies. Twelve years ago, most centrist policy suites included some variation on Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts health care plan, which served as the model for Obamacare. Now, conservatives all consider Obamacare to be a disgusting excess of socialism and nowhere near the political center.

So in a world where the center is moving ever-rightward, how do we define the true political center?

Our boss at Civic Ventures, Nick Hanauer, published a piece in Politico Magazine yesterday which redefines the center in a way that makes strategic sense. Hanauer writes:

In fact, there are two kinds of political centers: There’s the ideological center — the one that Democrats are waging a civil war over. And there’s the majoritarian center — the one where most of the people are. If Democrats hope to be a majority party, it’s the majoritarian center they need to embrace.

In short, Hanauer defines centrist policies as ones with majoritarian support—in other words, the policies that benefit more than 50 percent of all Americans. And you might be surprised what kind of policies those are: a high minimum wage, increased overtime standards, Medicare for All.

See, most Americans are looking for security—the financial security to know that they’re not one paycheck away from being wiped out, the security of health insurance that won’t bankrupt them or drop them when they get a bad diagnosis, the security of knowing that they can buy a home in the city they love. There’s nothing outrageous or confusing (or left or right) about that.

As Americans, we all want a shot at building a better life. And so many politicians have gotten so swept up in a feverish battle over partisan point-making that they’ve forgotten their main goal is to ensure that we all get our shot. Go read the piece so that the next time someone waxes rhapsodic about the fabled political Narnia known as the center, you can tell them that they’ve got their balancing act all wrong.