We Need More Moderates, Centrists

There are numerous points in this article that will be ignored by the partisans no matter which side they are on. This is a right wing partisan site so one knows what their response will be just as if one goes to a left leaning site and posts the same article. However, the idea that the country needs less partisanship, and more moderates/centrists is nothing new. The Founders spoke out against a two party system, and, as is true in so many other issues they advised on, this was ignored. More then likely it is the fault of education in that the people are not taught the teachings of the Founders.

On a personal level, when I post to a site such as this I am automatically termed a “socialist”, or a “communist”, etc. The problem there is that the vast majority of topics raised in sites such as this are seen from a right wing slant. The same is true of the left wing sites save for the slant they support. And even though I oppose abortions, believe that the term “transgender” is nothing more then a new term for a “cross dresser”, oppose the rulings of the Courts in regards to religion, and the list goes on, there are those in here who are so shortsighted that they cannot grasp the concept. And when, which is very rare, I go to a liberal left wing site, and I support a right wing tenet I am then labeled a “fascist”, or a “war monger”.

This country was built on the ideal of a centrist, and actually heralded many left wing tenets. Social welfare, free healthcare for the poor, limited corporate powers and length of certification, limited involvement in foreign matters, trade with our surpluses not our production, staying out of war, taxing only the wealthy, etc. Consider the following:

http://time.com/5033395/nancy-gibbs-harvard-speech/

“Consider just a few trends that Bridgewater founder Ray Dalio, sees driving what he calls “the two economies.”

— For the lower 60%, real incomes are flat to down since 1980, to the point that the average person in the top 40% has ten times the wealth of the average in the lower 60, two thirds of whom have no savings.

–The lower 60% spend 1/4 as much on education, which sets their children up to fall further behind. Families of those who have not gone to college are breaking up nearly twice the rate of those who have gone to college.

–Premature deaths are up by about 20% just since 2000, driven mainly by drugs and suicides, which sets America apart from nearly all industrialized countries. Nothing about current trends suggests this will change.”

Then there is the culture:

“Cultural cognition research finds that people tend to be tribal when it comes to certain topics, like immigration or guns or climate change. “What people ‘believe’ about global warming doesn’t reflect what they know,” explains Professor Dan Kahan. “It expresses who they are.” To conduct an informed public debate, he says, “you have to change the meaning of the climate change. You have to disentangle positions on it from opposing cultural identities.”

Likewise any debate over regulating guns has to acknowledge, as a southern Democratic Senator once put it, that the gun debate is “about values” “about who you are and who you aren’t.”

In other words, we stand little chance of addressing these questions wisely and well if we are circled around our separate campfires. Progress on crucial, complex issues will only come when people don’t have to choose between freely appraising the evidence vs. being loyal to their tribe.”

As to Trump:

“He is outrageous with purpose: On the day he was elected, exit polls found that a large majority of voters said he was not qualified to be president (61%), did not have the temperament (63%), was not honest and trustworthy (64%). But a similarly large majority thought the country was on the wrong track, and of voters who cared most about change, 82% voted for Donald Trump, who if he had proven nothing else, had successfully proven that he could change all the rules.

Ever since, love him or hate him, no commander in chief has ever commanded the news cycle like this one. At times this feels like a strange kind of fixation, a rubbernecking presidency. In this he is a human algorithm, perfectly engineered to say or do whatever you are most likely to watch.

Herein lies one of many challenges to my profession: Trump is not at war with the press, nor it with him: This is a complex and co-dependent relationship. His presidency has been great for ratings, even in ways that are bad for journalism and bad for the country.

For one thing, his attacks on news institutions have damaged the public trust we need to function: fully 46% of Americans believe reporters simply make things up about this president.

In January and February of 2016, nearly the same share of Democrats (74%) and Republicans (77%) supported the press’ role as a watchdog, holding leaders accountable. Now roughly nine in ten Democrats support that role, vs. only 42% of Republicans; That 47 point gap opened up in just a single year.

When the press is derided and discredited and distrusted, it’s easier to ignore whatever it is discovering, even at a time when the investigative prowess of our best reporters has been extraordinary.

And what if they are investigating all the ways in which our adversaries are waging, literally, a war of words, driving our division, destabilizing our institutions in pursuit of their global agenda.”

 

It does not serve weak "leaders" that want to grab or retain power. Chaos is a ladder.

 

now that was funnywhos the we? that needs it too function correctly

 

This is why we can't have nice things. Give us a nice, peaceful society with plenty for all, and some will still find problems (by inventing them) and become increasingly extreme about addressing them. Too many of us need some conflict against some defined group of other people. It's how we've evolved.

 

Excellent article and I tend to agree with a lot of what you say. Out founding fathers indicated that they did not want political parties but they almost immediately split into political factions.

Trump is a master manipulator, fraudster and glimmer flam artist. Yet we all know that those who succumb to fraud are the greedy. Those who went for Trump knew better intellectually ( I hope) but their desire to want to believe him overwrote logic and common sense.

 

I'd like to see a center party, to break the partisan logjam.

 

Trump like Hitler, Lenin, and Stalin before him was bent upon at least neutralizing the press but like Hitler and Lenin he is out to destroy the free press. Trump does not want a free press to report all the lies he sells so he will try to have only Trumps Pravda-Fox News alive and repeating his lies.

 

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
Joseph Goebbels

 

true it gives reason base values and culture focus to continue down the path, if we get along to well we become blurred fat for the slaughter and lazy and confused

 

but your logic is flawed here, the press isn't free ,its run by the global corporations now
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_media

 

Sounds like the Left's BS Russian collusion narrative.

 

Trump's lineage is from the same partbof tecworld that gave us Goebbels and the NAZIs so should we have been carefull?

 

1. Not just the left who does not want an enemy state to interfere with our election process. Every honest patriotic intelligent American wants our country to feel free of enemy interference and free of enemy domination of our POTUS.
   

 

Actually the press is controlled by Ztar Faravey the guy who drives the little sporty red UFO and lives on the planet Kapustastan in the Orion belt.

 

LOL, I bet reporters making things up about this president (after 8 years of kissing the feet of the previous president) have nothing to do with Americans believing reporters make things up about this president.

I am now convinced that the media's /Hollywood's total loss of any authority on moral issues is also Trump's fault and it has nothing to do with their lies, hypocrisy, double-standard and decades of covering up their perverts and sex criminals Weinstein, Lauer, Rose and others.

 

Congress cannot function without a healthy percentage of moderates because legislative compromise cannot exist when the proportions are reversed. The ideological legislative swings between the two party bases are too extreme and unpredictable.

 

I honestly think a new third party could succeed in this country. A centrist party that represents the interests of the 80% of people who are in the middle class and below.

As for Trump and the press ...

The national press is good at covering non-political events like a hurricane or plane crash or a crime. However, they are awful at covering politics and political issues because they don't report. Instead, they choose a side and propagandize, and we all know it. For this, the press deserves all the criticism it gets.

 

It strikes me that there is a critical mass point. Once all our needs are met, we have leisure time, and we're relatively safe, we lose the plot. We can't get beyond that point without turning on ourselves. We are, perhaps, insufficiently evolved to handle the responsibility of plenty.

 

We're headed for a war between those that want America to remain essentially what it's been for 241 years and those that want to fundamentally change it into something that is not recognizable. Moderates will be ignored.

 

You're right. There will be a backlash against Trump. We'll return America to .......Truth, Justice and the America Way !!

 

Good thread.

But not a current event.

 

As an independent moderate myself, I would love to see a viable third-party. However, I don't know why you are trying to make a connection between "centrists" and "80% of people who are in the middle class and below". Do you not think there can be moderates who are not "middle-class or below"? Additionally, party lines currently aren't divided based on "middle class and below" versus the rest, so......??

I agree with you wholeheartedly about the press and their terrible propagandized political coverage. They deserve every ounce of criticism being thrown at them.

 

A centrist third party could certainly appeal to the upper middle class and above as well. But it is worthwhile to realize that the economic demographic of 80% middle class and below is overwhelming. A centrist party that was geared to their interests as a first priority could be very popular. It is also worthwhile to realize that when the middle class is strong, and conditions are such that the lower classes have the opportunity to advance, this is actually good for the upper classes. It means lower taxes and more economic activity when people are self-sufficient, both of which benefit the upper classes.

There are solutions to some of our most vexing problems. Take health care for example ... Today, on the one side, we have the progressives who want socialized medicine. On the other end of the spectrum are the right wingers who don't really want to make sure that all Americans can have/pay for health care. But in the middle are practical thinkers with ideas that could work, without leaving people out, and without turning to socialism, and without costing the government money.

I think ordinary Americans solve problems every day. I think we're pretty good at it, actually. But when we solve a problem at work or at home, we put our practical, non-political mind to work, and we consider possible solutions, exclude the ones that won't work, and craft together a solution that works best. This is not how Washington works, however. Everything is based upon political dogma, pressure from the donor class, optics, how it will play in the next election, and, quite frankly, a lot of it is on deception to some greater or lesser degree. And we've got two halves of our legislative branch that won't even talk to each other!

I would like a centrist party that is interested in solving problems and that pretty much excludes the progressives and the establishment-government-corporate wing of the right. I honestly have no confidence in either of those groups to act as honest brokers for the needs of ordinary Americans. This would not be a party for ideologues. It would be a party that truly respected all Americans and that worked together to solve problems.

I think Americans are sick to death of Republicans and Democrats. As evidence of that I'll point to this last election. If we were to combine the votes that Bernie got in the primaries with the votes that Trump got in the general, we would see that Americans were sending Washington a clear and overwhelming message, and it wasn't a valentine, to say the least.

I honestly think Americans are yearning for this. A charismatic leader like JFK or Reagan, with the wisdom, experience, and class of Eisenhower, could actually make it happen imho.

Seth

 

How about this , you pay your fair share?

 

Regarding the national,press I see it as the problem is not the press but the consumers of the press product. People do not like it when the press brings out truthfull information about their favorite party, politician, or organization. Rupert Murdock was the first to realize that and he gave us Fox. People who did not like anything reported about the right to the extreme right wing gravatated to Fox where the right wing and extreme right wing was portrayed as angels and the left portrayed as the devil.
Fix being only a quasi news organization filled the air with the O'Reilys, Hannitys and that ilk. Fox was little bit of news the rest opinion. The others set up their own opinion generating voice such as MSNBC. CNN can in tomofer 24/7 news coverage but they had heir opinionish shows also.

NBC, CBS, and ABC pretty much stayed as legitimate news sources.

People gravitated to the networks that told what they believed already. Your hardline conservatives and the extreme right wing got their heroin fix from Fox and the liberals got it from MSNBC.
The middle group stayed with ABC, NBC, CBS and they dipped their toes into the CNN pool once in a while.

Basically people go where they hear what they already believe and what they want to hear not what they should hear.