The Centrist Manifesto

10/11/2020

In this short book from 2013, Charles Wheelan highlights that a majority of Americans are more willing to compromise on policy issues than their representatives in a congress that has become increasingly polarized through gerrymandering and an exodus of moderates. Wheelan explains how a range of contentious policy issues might well have middle-ground solutions that can be attained by building on the merits of the existing parties. Still, he emphasizes that a new Centrist Party will not simply "split the difference" between Republican and Democratic approaches, and he criticizes and shows the shortsightedness of each. Wheelan suggests that a Centrist Party, by focusing on realistic outputs instead of the ideological inputs of policymaking, would embrace a long-term vision to address environmental and social security concerns. It would also improve the electoral process by addressing issues related to Congressional redistricting, Senate filibusters, and political lobbying.

Wheelan proposes one main strategy to give a Centrist Party momentum though he acknowledges America's age-old hostility to third parties. He suggests focusing efforts on electing into the Senate enough Centrists to deny either party a majority. Such state-level elections would not be prone to gerrymandering as district-level elections would be for the House of Representatives. Such elections would also be easy for Centrists to win in swing states, or the many states that already send to the Senate both a Democrat and a Republican, or that have a Senator and a Governor from different parties. Such elections would be won early if Centrist Senators address the moderate voters that constitute the majority from the outset while Republicans and Democrats "pander to their bases" in their respective primaries.

Wheelan believes that a handful of Centrists in the Senate, undergirded by an increasing number of non-Democrat, non-Republican voters, would institutionally ameliorate the current foundering of bipartisanship and potentially serve as a refuge for moderates in either of the existing parties.

Keywords: moderate, independent, centrist, redistricting, filibuster, lobbying

For more on a potential American equivalent of Emmanuel Macron, see Timur Kuran's discussion of moderates in "Another Road to Serfdom, Q&A" (here)