A Case for Centrism
Partisan outrage gets attention. Recognizing your opponent’s humanity gets results.
In this day and age, there is a lot of pressure to ‘pick a side,’ and if you consume any type of media, it’s often quite easy to do this.
Opposing political figures and pundits say outrageous and reprehensible things, and all you have to do is experience the human emotion of disgust, send out a rage tweet, and there you are — on the supposed right side of history and morality.
But let’s take a step back, and gain insight from someone who was once fully entrenched in the Us vs. Them narrative, an ex-CIA operative named Amaryllis Fox.
Fox’s experience allowed her to see the truth beyond the headlines, a truth that might be behind most of the world’s conflict.
And the truth is this —
No one thinks that they’re the bad guy. In fact, everyone thinks they are the hero.
Everyone considers themselves the hero, and everyone considers themselves oppressed and aggrieved
Amaryllis Fox expressed this notion in an interview with Al-Jazeera —
If I learned one lesson from my time in the CIA, it is this — everybody believes they are the good guy. // An Al-Qaeda fighter made a point once during a debriefing. He said all these movies that America makes, like Independence Day and Hunger Games and Star Wars — they’re all about a small, scrappy band of rebels, who will do anything in their power with the limited resources available to them, to expel an outside technologically advanced invader. And what you don’t realize, he said, is that to us, to the rest of the world — you are the Empire. We are Luke and Han. You are the aliens and we are Will Smith.
The current zeitgeist of global events is no longer dominated by terrorist attacks and drone strikes — though of course, both still occur.
But for the most part, we are currently bombarded not by actual bombs, but by a daily churn of politicians, news hosts, and private citizens who make alienating and enragingly apocryphal statements, statements that further divide the world in two.
What is the way out?
Amaryllis Fox suggests that the way out of actual war isn’t to dehumanize the enemy even more, and then send a greater show of force.
And if we apply her insight to this current culture war, we see that to move forward through these times of outrageous insults and outrageously bad leaders, we don’t need to double down and be even nastier.
We are not one viral mic-drop tweet from turning the corner into victory.
And even if that tweet does gain a victory, it’s a short-lived and ineffective one, because those you’ve vanquished are now determined to thwart your candidate at every turn.
To move forward, we need something more than tit for tat, something more than another mic-drop tweet.
We need to open the floodgates of understanding our opponents again, and we can do it through compassion, and through Centrism.
In this article, we will define Centrism with a broad brush
We are not necessarily defining Centrism in terms of supporting middle-of-the-road politicians.
For our purposes, Centrism is more a state of mind, a state of understanding, and a state of action — you can be extreme Left or Right, and still perform a Centrist act.
In fact, if you want to achieve your goals, that may be the only way to achieve them.
And in this article, we will define Centrism in this way —
Centrism is refraining from Us vs. Them thinking. Centrism is a constant willingness to reach out to the other side. Centrism is maintaining a constant belief that those who think differently from you are human beings with a right to think differently from you.
So let’s see what happens when we apply Centrist, compassionate thinking to our problems.
But first, let’s see what happens when we don’t.
First, an exercise — list out the pundits and Social Media political superstars
Let’s begin by performing a small exercise.
Make a list of all the partisan truthbombers in this day and age, both the ones you like, and the ones you loathe.
If you are reading this article years — or perhaps even months — from now, this list of figures will change, but as of today, here’s but a few of these characters to get you going, from politicians to pundits, to whatever Donald Trump Jr. is —
Add a few more partisan truthbombers to this list if you can, on both sides of the political spectrum.
Ok, let’s add another row beneath this, and give it this header —
Ways in which these figures have substantively affected my life, or anyone’s life for that matter.
All right, now fill it in.
Chances are, you can’t fill it in, because these figures have done nothing for you.
That bottom row should be more or less empty, and if not — please leave a note on how these figures have affected anyone’s life in the comments below this article.
But in general, the field should be empty, and that is by design.
These figures are not here to actually do anything.
You might love or loathe Rachel Maddow, but she has never done anything substantive for you, or anyone.
You might love or loathe Ben Shapiro, but he has never done anything substantive for you, or anyone.
They haven’t done anything substantive, because that is not their role.
Their role is to get your partisan attention — either positive or negative — and turn that attention into advertising revenue.
And in this day and age, politicians often have the same role.
The currency of politicians in these times is no longer action — it’s attention.
You might love or hate the current Social Media superstar politicians du jour, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), and Whatever He Is Donald Trump Jr. (Whatever-Wherever) — but their actual effect holds a strong limit.
AOC has, to her credit, introduced legislation like the Green New Deal — but the flip side of being a Social Media Superstar is that anything she introduces is opposed on a line-item basis, and perhaps because of this, she has not yet passed anything.
Donald Trump Jr. has done — nothing.
You might love or hate AOC, but she has not affected your life in any substantive way.
You might love (?) or hate Donald Trump Jr., but he has not affected your life in any substantive way.
They are part of the daily churn of Internet outrage. They certainly get attention, and they certainly raise funds — but their actual effectiveness is limited, because their partisan viewpoints engender a partisan response that ends up negating whatever it is that they want to do.
On the other hand, let’s look at what happens when we dial back the partisan slams.
Let’s see what happens when we become a little more Centrist, and start recognizing the humanity in our opponents.
A list of Centrist accomplishments that have actually helped people
A brief qualification — we’re reading Centrist here as Bipartisan.
But reaching across the aisle and partnering with someone who thinks differently from you takes a certain amount of recognition of your opponent’s humanity.
In short, it takes a Centrist framework to pass Bipartisan legislation, and when it does — substantive things can happen.
Here is a list of accomplishments from the Bipartisan policy center —
Centrist/Bipartisan Legislation and Events in US History
- 1860: Lincoln’s Team of Rivals
- 1947: The Marshall Plan
- 1964: Civil Rights Act
- 1969: Man on the Moon
- 1973: Endangered Species Act
- 1977: The Food Stamp Program
- 1990: Americans with Disabilities Act
- 2002: The McCain-Feingold Act
- 2009: Cabinet Selections (Obama made a second team of rivals, with his former primary opponents in positions of power, and many Republicans in the cabinet as well)
- 2017: John McCain crosses party lines to keep the ACA going
And yes — this part of the argument is highly simplified.
The above list is a partial list, and there are plenty of times where Centrist/Bipartisan thinking has got us into trouble — namely the Centrist/Bipartisan support of the Iraq War resolution in 2002.
But still — want a mean tweet? There are a thousand pundits who will gladly give one to you, and all they want is your time.
Want to go to the moon or keep your health care?
Want to pass an actual bill?
Better find someone willing to reach across the aisle, and to do that, you need a certain amount of Centrism.
Conclusion — This is not to say you should compromise your political ideals. This is saying a Centrist, humanist framework might be the best, and perhaps the only way to achieve them.
This article is not suggesting you refrain from protesting, or to stop pursuing half of your political goals.
In fact, you can keep all your beliefs — and what is more, you should keep them.
But if you want to achieve any substantive amount of societal progress, you can’t think in terms of Us vs. Them, because as soon as you do, whoever you deem They will have no recourse but to oppose you at every turn.
They will fight you tooth and nail, even if your goals are justified.
Let’s bring it back to ex-CIA agent Amaryllis Fox, who spoke of ending global conflict in these terms —
As long as your enemy is a sub-human psychopath who is going to attack you no matter what you do, this never ends. But if your enemy is a policy, however complicated — that we can work with.
And that might be the core of Centrist thinking —
Refrain from dehumanizing your opponent.
Partisan thinking is easy, and it’s a quick way to get attention, raise funds, and rally people to your way of thinking.
But a partisan framework also gets negative attention, raises funds for an opponent, and rallies people to the opposite way of thinking.
So stay strong to your ideals, but if you want to reach out to those who think differently — don’t insult them, and instead lean towards them and their way of thinking.
When you argue from the middle path, it makes it that much easier to see things from the other side.
And when you can see things from the other side, it makes it that much easier to allow your opponents to see things from your viewpoint.
And then it is that much easier to achieve your goals.
That is the power of Centrism, a framework that can help you regardless of your political beliefs, and a framework that can move both our country, and the world forward.
Jonathan Maas is a Radical Centrist, on most days at least, and has a few books on Amazon. He would love to hear from you, and can be reached through Medium, or Goodreads.com/JMaas.