Some of us are concerned that a more polarized country will break itself apart, or crush itself, in a very violent way.
People like me believe that democracy is hard, and that dictatorship is the natural state of human affairs. And I feel that by taking up a banner against half of the country, we're moving more towards that latter eventuality.
And yes, the center does move around. But that's no reason not to aim for it.
That said, the reality is that centrists are very likely going to lose, or arguably have already lost. As a whole, Americans are incapable of understanding, empathizing with, or respecting "the others", a necessary ingredient in a functioning [edit: American] democracy, IMHO. After that, my money is that one of the sides will win and crush the other, and then everybody will lose except the rulers.
On the plus side, maybe after 100 or 200 more years of that we'll restart the experiment. :)
Polarization comes about as a response to power players / media using wedge issues to divide voters into warring blocs and centrist policies making their lives worse.
Centrism isn't an antidote to a polarized country. Especially not when the middle ground is making people poorer.
A fundamental reshaping of the media so as to not serve congealed pockets of wealth might help but nobody much has any appetite for that. It gets shouted down as being anti freedom of speech or some other such nonsense.
>That said, the reality is that centrists are very likely going to lose, or arguably have already lost. As a whole, Americans are incapable of understanding, empathizing with, or respecting "the others"
They have started to realize that centrism is making their lives worse so they have been abandoning it for one of the two extremes.
> Polarization comes about as a response to power players / media using wedge issues to divide voters into warring blocs
True, but those people don't tend to be centrists. :)
> centrist policies making their lives worse.
Also true to an extent. The middle is compromise, giving up something for the greater good, and not maximizing your take. The extremists promise that as soon as they're in power, they'll give you everything you ever wanted and crush that other side, and people eat that stuff up. Who are you going to vote for--the guy who promises you the world, or the guy who tells you you have to compromise?
> A fundamental reshaping of the media so as to not serve congealed pockets of wealth might help but nobody much has any appetite for that.
In the US anyway, this is a serious First Amendment issue. Judges are still reluctant to cede control of the Press to the government and the cases where it has have been very limited, or even rolled back. But last I checked the polling, a lot of the People were game for it, another sign of dictatorship winning out.
> They have started to realize that centrism is making their lives worse so they have been abandoning it for one of the two extremes.
Yup. The only thing they haven't realized yet is that after their extreme wins, their extreme is going to FUCK THEM UP.
The main tenet that undergirds the "why are centrists like this" argument is that viewing the world's political alignments on a 1D spectrum is an impoverished and naive perspective. Maybe that helps you to better understand the critiques.
Some of us are concerned that a more polarized country will break itself apart, or crush itself, in a very violent way.
People like me believe that democracy is hard, and that dictatorship is the natural state of human affairs. And I feel that by taking up a banner against half of the country, we're moving more towards that latter eventuality.
And yes, the center does move around. But that's no reason not to aim for it.
That said, the reality is that centrists are very likely going to lose, or arguably have already lost. As a whole, Americans are incapable of understanding, empathizing with, or respecting "the others", a necessary ingredient in a functioning [edit: American] democracy, IMHO. After that, my money is that one of the sides will win and crush the other, and then everybody will lose except the rulers.
On the plus side, maybe after 100 or 200 more years of that we'll restart the experiment. :)