4 ms·

Nothing useful can follow a faulty premise. "That only happens if we bring down the artificial partition dividing the primary process, cleaving centrists into

Nothing useful can follow a faulty premise. "That only happens if we bring down the artificial partition dividing the primary process, cleaving centrists into two non-interacting camps." The Democratic party has completely captured the political center in the US since at least the 90's, if not earlier.

jfengel 4y ago
By "centrist" they mean "people close to the median voter". And Democrats have not captured the median voter. Elections have been split roughly 50-50 since the 90s, with perhaps a slight edge toward Republicans (who have held the Congress more often than not). The Democrats may have the "center" in terms of some left-right ideological scale, but such a scale is subjective and impossible to calibrate. The rest of the world may consider the Democrats to be a hodgepodge of a few social democrats with a center-right leadership, but within the country that doesn't give them anywhere near a lock on winning elections. (The arbitrary borders drawn by Americans idiosyncratic electoral system are a big contributor to the specific outcomes, and seem noticeably inequitable, but if they truly had control of the "center" of a spectrum that wouldn't matter.) Neither definition really well suits what the article is talking about. When you've got a bimodal distribution, where the "camps" don't much talk to each other, the notion of an ideological spectrum is less relevant. The parties are no longer trying to capture the median voter, but rather to improve turnout of their partisans. The net effect is already effectively random. They each have about half the voters sewn up, and political control is determined more by outside factors (the global economy, a pandemic, unexpected side effects of long-ago political decisions, moods that strike voters) than the actual policies espoused.

4 ms·

Nothing useful can follow a faulty premise. "That only happens if we bring down the artificial partition dividing the primary process, cleaving centrists into

by IndoorPatio 4y ago

jfengel 4y ago
By "centrist" they mean "people close to the median voter". And Democrats have not captured the median voter. Elections have been split roughly 50-50 since the 90s, with perhaps a slight edge toward Republicans (who have held the Congress more often than not). The Democrats may have the "center" in terms of some left-right ideological scale, but such a scale is subjective and impossible to calibrate. The rest of the world may consider the Democrats to be a hodgepodge of a few social democrats with a center-right leadership, but within the country that doesn't give them anywhere near a lock on winning elections. (The arbitrary borders drawn by Americans idiosyncratic electoral system are a big contributor to the specific outcomes, and seem noticeably inequitable, but if they truly had control of the "center" of a spectrum that wouldn't matter.) Neither definition really well suits what the article is talking about. When you've got a bimodal distribution, where the "camps" don't much talk to each other, the notion of an ideological spectrum is less relevant. The parties are no longer trying to capture the median voter, but rather to improve turnout of their partisans. The net effect is already effectively random. They each have about half the voters sewn up, and political control is determined more by outside factors (the global economy, a pandemic, unexpected side effects of long-ago political decisions, moods that strike voters) than the actual policies espoused.