100% agree with everything you've written here. I'd also add that there is absolutely no such thing as an accidental moderate in a way that warrants any sort of

100% agree with everything you've written here. I'd also add that there is absolutely no such thing as an accidental moderate in a way that warrants any sort of prideful thinking. Additionally, there are political world views that are often described as moderate, but are legitimately their own political world view. Namely, in the US political system, the democrats are a big tent party of liberals and social democrats with clear ideological differences between the new democratic caucus and the progressive caucus. Those liberals are not moderate, they're liberals which are much closer in line to conservatives ideologically as they both support free market capitalism. Anyone who is an "accidental moderate" in a truer sense of the word has never spent any time thinking about politics in any sort of unified sort of way. Politicians should have a both a unified theory of change and a broader political framework for which they rationalize their decisions. While many people describe the Clinton's or Obama as being moderates, they are not moderates, they are liberals, which just happens to be it's own fully unified political theory to the right of socialism and social democrats and to the left of conservatism, nationalism, and fascism.