Spit-balling compromise ideas in today's political climate

Politics and religion
21

This is not an example of the thing I’m talking about. I’m talking about 3rd party Senate and House candidates, where you routinely have votes in places that are R+20 to R+50 or the flip for Dems. To have a centrist candidate tip a race like that to the underdog is basically impossible (note - a third party candidate attacking from the flank could tip the balance by stealing votes exclusively from the favorite, but I’m talking about someone in the middle drawing votes from both sides).

Your argument presupposes that nearly everyone who votes is either a diehard for an established party or a temporary voter for whatever candidate. In my scenario of a true centrist party, there would also be diehard centrists.

Even if a few favorites lost to the “other party”, that doesn’t mean a 3rd party that actually stood for something would be unstable. If the party meant anything then it would think the candidates from both parties were unacceptable, so it wouldn’t really matter if the winner was a bit less popular than the other loser. In other words, the “third party” would be a different party depending on the makeup of the electorate, so not all mismatches would be the fault of one party that people then rationally abandon to get better outcomes.

22

What would the platform of a “diehard centrist” be, in the current political climate?

23

I have actually been close to opening a thread here a couple of times about ideas for a centrist party. I think you’ve hit on some of the key things. The party would be valuable in congressional elections where there otherwise isn’t real opposition, you’d be providing at least some choice to people. The party shouldn’t try to run a presidential candidate as that’s where third-party candidates can really screw things. However, you only need this party to pick up a fairly small percentage of seats in the house and senate in order for them to be a huge player, especially if they can reliably vote as a bloc. Suddenly you have a tie-breaker sitting in the middle who you have to negotiate with to get your majority. Hopefully, without the stigma of compromising with the “other side” you can actually get the system operating again to some degree.

24

Again, what would the platform of a centrist party be?

A party without a platform, I’m not sure what that is. Wishful thinking that “there must be an alternative”? If so, what is it?

25

Right now, my platform is to run on Making America Sane Again. Your platform is being the party of common sense and doing the right thing. Individual focus would be based on where you are running. Look at the Democrats that win in deep red states. A candidate who supports the 2nd amendment(bonus points for being a gun owner) but that wants reasonable reforms. Even if you don’t get the NRA, you’re way more likely to get people to look at that position seriously than they would if a Democrat tried to pull that(because everyone knows whatever they say is really secret lefty code for take all your guns). It’s dumb, but I think the lack of bad name association would do wonders. The electorate will only tolerate so much nuance, but most people do understand that most issues aren’t truly black and white. Right now they are just too blinded by hate of the other to care.

26

Exactly, but it isn’t just bad association to Democrat or Republican as a name or brand, it’s the specific bad associations with the party leaders. You can credibly say, “I’m not beholden to Trump, McConnell, or Pelosi” and can use small dollar donations to fund a campaign that doesn’t have to worry about the national scale power brokers. You form a new power base in the middle bases on positions the country generally agrees with. So that might mean lower taxes on the middle class, higher taxes on corporations, legal but restricted abortions, reform of immigration to create a path to green cards if not citizenship while tightening security against actual terrorist threats, reform of police procedures and training to reduce the use of inappropriate force, strong 2nd amendment but with equally strong practical controls and consequences for misbehavior by gun sellers, universal coverage of preexisting conditions and default enrollment in catastrophic health insurance, a lot of the elements of “libertarian paternalism”.

27

Other than the gun issue, where I think there is in fact room for compromise, I don’t see any other issue where there is a meaningful “centrist” position. This is because the GOP has moved so far right that all the true centrist positions (by objective and historical standards) are now either Democratic positions, or Dem-adjacent.

Where is the compromise on taxes when the GOP opposes all tax increases of any sort? Where is the compromise on spending when the GOP lies and says “welfare is the biggest single line item in the federal budget” (this is so wrong it’s laughable - they are off by 1.5 orders of magnitude). Where is the compromise on trans rights or gay rights or migrant rights or just the goddamn general right of liberals not to be called traitors, wimps and degenerates?

What is the policy position in the center on healthcare? Oh wait, the GOP wants to protect pre-existing conditions now! Except, that’s a lie. So where is the compromise?

Look, I understand the Dem label is toxic in many areas but that’s a part of the problem!!! The GOP and the right wing media machine have spread so much falsehood, bullshit, deception, etc. that they’ve convinced big chunks of the country that liberals stand for so many things that liberals don’t stand for. According to the right wing media machines, liberals support Al Quaeda. Liberals supposedly hate America and the Constitution. I mean it’s a litany of bullshit.

To me, the true path forward is to try to bring reality to the weakly aligned or unaligned voters in the middle, by pointing out that the sane and reasonable political option now is the Democratic party. Do the Dems have a few crazies? Sure, but the GOP is more extreme by orders of magnitude.

And here’s my real problem with all this misguided pap about centrism: RIGHT NOW THE “CENTER” IS A LIE. The GOP has moved so far right, and hates the Dems so much, that the “center” is now to the right of where the GOP was under Reagan. The GOP is cheating, moving the goal posts, making positions that people like Reagan supported into “liberal” positions. You can’t compromise with that.

Also, you “centrist” folks, read this. I put some effort into making my thoughts more clear a few months ago.

Here’s an example: " Simply being for “bipartisanship” without regard to reasonable boundaries, reasonable starting positions, and a reasonable range of viable negotiation is not a good approach IMO. You have to be aware of certain preconditions for compromise."

28

There’s a dude here in Washington, Chris Vance. He was a State Rep, and then later State GOP chair for a while. He ran for the US Senate against Patty Murray in 2016 as a Republican, though he never, ever had a single good thing to say about Trump, and has consistently been against him. So despite the fact that I hate Republicans and pretty much all they stand for, he has that going for him.

Last year, he publicly left the GOP, starting the Centrist Project (https://www.uniteamerica.org/mission). So there’s one template for such a party. Unfortunately their website is thin on details of any actual positions.

The local NPR station (www.kuow.org) has a weekly show, “The Week in Review” that has local contributors discussing the week’s news, both local and national, and he’s a regular participant. What I’ve actually heard from him seems to be standard pre-Trump GOP talking points. That said, he was on the program in the last few weeks (I listen via podcast and sometimes catch up several all at once while in in the kitchen) and he said something that could almost be progressive. I don’t remember what exactly it was, but I did a serious double-take when I heard it.

I see the point of being un-tainted by the current parties, and that could honestly work. But you’d have to have an entire group of complete political newbies- to me this movement by this guy is tainted just by his involvement. In my opinion, his idea of ‘centrist’ is just trying to use the rabid right wing as ‘normal-right’ and move the Overton window of ‘center’ much further in his direction. And like @Tin_Wisdom upthread (where’s the Like button for that post?) I’m tired of the Left starting from a centrist position of compromise and then having to further compromise to the right. So I reject his idea of the center. Vance can start a New Right movement if he wants, just don’t try to sell it to me as the ‘center’

29

This is why I wanted to define a new party around a motivating principle of demographically-neutral support. Talking about the ‘center’ or about compromise or bipartisanship means accepting the positions of the other parties as reasonable poles on some single spectrum, then trying to split the difference. Aiming for demographically-neutral support doesn’t mean adopt midpoint positions on every issue. On many issues it would just mean adopting the current Democratic position, because that party has been pulled right by the Republican extremism. Of course, if a party was able to carve out a chunk of this middle ground, it would leave Democrats free to embrace the progressive wing and advocate for positions that actually improve the country instead of just being lead around by bad faith negotiations and an out of control propaganda machine. It will necessarily be more difficult to scare people with the positions of the neutral party and to run a national mudslinging campaign against two different groups.

30

Canada has those characteristics, but there usually seem to be 3 or more parties. Part of that is regional (especially wrt Quebec) but I wonder if something else is going on.

31

You have a centrist party. It’s the democrats. And it’s full of people talking to each other about policy options and compromising - drives the actual leftists in the party nuts.

So my idea of compromising is this - the republican party can be crushed until it is either gone or not crazy anymore, and then I’ll give the democratic party back to the lefties and enjoy not having to vote straight ticket anymore.

32

I think the people who want to end birthright citizenship want the change to be retroactive as well. They want to deny citizens their citizenship based on their race or their ethnicity. In any event, I personally think denying birthright citizenship is untenable legally and morally; how can you allow foreigners to reside in your country and deny their children citizenship, in perpetuity for each generation? It’s a recipe for a permanent underclass based on ethnicity, and we know how that works out.

33

I don’t really understand this argument. There isn’t anything magical about a third party. If the Dems don’t stand for the right things (an open question), then why not force the Dems to stand for the right things? If you don’t have the electoral might to make the Dems stand for the right things, then you don’t have the electoral might to support a third party anyway.

For my part, I don’t see the value in promoting ‘compromise’ between centrists (which most party Dems basically are) and extremists (which most party Reps are). What you end up with by doing that are extreme policies. Why would that be desirable?

34

This is a great point. I didn’t think Environmental protections and ideas could be put into the constitution, but apparently they can! I was listening to a story on NPR on my way home yesterday, and the Brazilian Environmentalists are really nervous about their new President that Brazil just elected, and whether he’ll carry through on his promises to start cutting down the rain forest. She said they do have hope because they got environmental protections into the Brazilian constitution, so it will be hard for him to overturn that. So my ears perked up at that idea.

Yeah, it’s a horrible idea. But at this point, my mind keeps telling me it’s worth it to be a single issue voter on the environment. Let the other side have some of their Totalitarian and racist ideas, let them build the wall, and make income inequality worse, but in exchange have it in stone that major changes will take place to protect the environment. Unfortunately, the party that wants all that other horrible stuff also wants to destroy the environment, so it’s not even a choice I can make.

So the only real solution right now is just to work on getting a more informed electorate. Getting more and more people to realize that Fox News and Limbaugh and their ilk often give their viewers/listeners bad information. That the internet gives them bad information that’s not true. To work on reversing gerrymandering and coming up with a more equitable system.

35

I think that leads to a pretty obvious place: The wrong people get to die because of climate change. Not a citizen? Well then, sorry, but this supermitigation thing is not for you. No, you can’t have any of that water. That’s how it s going to be anyway, so how are things improved by surrendering something like birthright citizenship?

36

A good read: http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/10/polarization-tribalism-the-conservative-movement-gop-threat-to-democracy.html

37

This is a response to a few of the people upthread. At this point most of the Democratic positions are pretty much the centrist position and I agree with much of what they are trying to do. That doesn’t matter to people who can’t look past the word Democrat. Even if you end up with many of the same positions, you at least give people a chance to look at them without that naughty word associated with it. I also don’t think there is any guarantee that the Democrats will stay so close to the center. Yes the roots of the Republicans hard-right turn runs deep, but look how fast Trump snuffed out every other part of that party. The backlash to Trump is already making the actual voices of the left speak out. Like someone mentioned, the centrist party option actually lets Democrats go to the left.

As far as the healthcare compromise option goes. I see it going something like this. We’ll look at the plans proposed by both sides, see which ones seem workable and of benefit to the country, and work with that party to adjust/implement what we agree is a good plan. Since the Republicans don’t actually have any real proposals on healthcare, there isn’t anything to compromise with them on. You look at various universal coverage options and figure out what would work for this country. This is a fun one for my party, because there is sooo much data out in the world about the various options. But you have to present the whole thing as we’re the neutral party trying to just look at both sides and figure out what will work. We’re here to solve problems without being political about it.

38

When there is no true left party the democrats inherit that position. I think most agree they aren’t truly leftists, and the GOP and Fox have done a terrific job of labeling them as such. If a true leftist party ever developed it would make the Dems the centrists they truly are and would deflate the rights argument. Of course, they would see a leftist movement as simply being a branch of the Dems, just as the left sees the Tea Party as being a branch of the GOP.

39

Which is why the new party has to start from the center and let the Dems cut ties with their too-centrist members and become the party they’ve already been heavily painted as.

The Dems are a national party, pulled left by members in left-leaning areas. That makes it very difficult for them to represent the interests of people who are to the left of the median voter in, say, UT, ND, or WV. Even when they succeed at it, they face a lot of pressure and create a lot of dissatisfaction when progressives see, say, a Joe Manchin voting for a Kavanaugh. A third party would have the ability to fight for those seats. Imagine that we had a solid centrist party of some kind with a new brand that attracted voters from both sides of the current divide by strategically selecting a mix of compromises and single-issue positions. This party might dominate states like CO, MI, MN, NV, VA, NH, PA, WI, and FL, and it might have an advantage in states like ME, NM, IA, NC, and OH. Then the battlegrounds between them and republicans would be places like AZ, GA, SC, TX, and perhaps AK, IN, MS, and MO. The battlegrounds between them and the Dems would be OR, CT, DE, WA, NJ, and IL. And of course every state would have the potential for an outlier candidate here or there, like Charlie Baker or Heidi Heitkamp. The centrist party wouldn’t win all these offices, but it would have a realistic shot at carving off a chunk of the 200 or so Reps and 50 or so Senators in its reach. Forcing Dems to stand for the right things to please voters in CA, MA, and also compete in GA or SC is very difficult. It’s also difficult for the GOP to reach far across the middle (like, say, into OR or CT) except within gerrymandered districts, but they don’t have to because there are 27 states with Republican-leaning PVI and 3 more that are even, giving them a huge advantage in the Senate.

40

I’m imagining that, and what I come up with is a minority party that proposes to raise top marginal tax rates by one or two percentage points in exchange for revising down the formula for determining cost of living adjustments for social security and Medicare. To me, the questions are 1) why do I want that?, and 2) assuming I do, how does this minority party gain the power to actually implement this compromise?

I mean, that’s the eternal David Brooks proposition, that we need some adult centrists to split the baby in half.