A Case for “Moderatism” in Politics

In physics, Newton’s third law states that “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”. It seems that in our current social and political climate we want to meet far left perspectives with perspectives just as equally far right, and vice versa. I believe we do this in an attempt to find balance. But what we really need to find balance is more people in the middle contributing to the conversation.

With the current state of things it is easy to see the rampant divisions that exist among us. Our politics are more divided than they have been in modern memory and no one really seems to know what to do to get us back into balance. In many ways we cannot get out of our own way as many contribute to the vicious cycle of fear, distrust, and demonization. The knee jerk reaction to provide opposition to anything and everything has become more prevalent in recent years due to many factors. These factors include but are not limited to a mainstream media that is addicted to sensationalism, social media platforms that reinforce misguided preconceptions, binary thinking within our political discussions, and a rapidly changing world that leaves the population feeling squeezed by new realities. There are many ways to restore balance in our society and provide for an environment that is more conducive to pragmatic problem solving. We need a society that is not shackled to misguided ideas of ideological purity which too often leans on extremism to derive its fervor. This misguided desire for partisan purity is readily on display in the Democratic and Republican primaries. Both of these processes have given a proverbial megaphone to the loudest individuals rather than the person best suited to provide the complex solutions we need to the complex problems we face. It is my belief that the most needed antidote to this era of partisan division and political polarization is “moderatism”. We need people in the center to become louder than the people on the edges or fringes of society. We need people to reclaim the truth that compromise is not weakness and showing respect to the opposition is not selling out.

Moderatism should not aspire to be centrist for centrism’s sake alone. Moderatism should just naturally find itself in the middle because that’s where reason, logic, common sense, and solutions most frequently reside. It is my belief that the far left and the far right are by default ideologically disadvantaged because their world views depend so much on simplicity. They also seem to put more of a premium on the purity of their worldview than the function of their world view. This problem has always existed in American politics and society but we are overloaded with it now because of the four main reasons I stated before. They are as follows: (1) a mainstream media that is addicted to sensationalism, (2) social media platforms that reinforce misguided preconceptions, (3) binary thinking within our political discussions, and (4) a rapidly changing world that leaves the population feeling squeezed by new realities.

First let me address the mainstream media. Many of us can at least agree that the media in the United States is far from perfect. The degree to which it is far from perfect would change depending on who you talk to. But I believe the biggest problem with the media is us. We are a country of consumers in an economic system that places a premium on attracting eyeballs. We have a media apparatus that is not measured or rewarded by the quality of information it provides, but by the quantity of viewers it attracts. This leads the 24 hour news networks to become sensational, to hyperbolize, and also to be lazy. As a teacher I think of it like this…As a U.S. History teacher I need to plan to deliver 45 minutes of material to students in a manner that they can mentally digest and that keeps their attention each day. Now imagine that I had to do that for 24 hours a day. My nonstop lesson would lose quality and it would certainly need to become much more entertaining to hold attention for that amount of time. So in pursuit of this hypothetical non-stop history lesson I would most likely need to engage in more exaggeration, create more conflict, incite more emotion, and ultimately change my goal from delivering accurate content to delivering content that will keep attention. This is what has happened to all the media stations. We see this with the increased “Opinion Hosts” like Sean Hannity, Don Lemon, or Racheal Maddow. So now, because so much emphasis has been placed on people like these individuals, many have lost sight of the fact that these people are not there to deliver the news, they are there to deliver you.

Having said all of that, I do not prescribe to the idea of “fake news” when referring to networks like CNN, FOX, or MSNBC. The term fake implies that nothing they say is real, which is not the case. They talk about real things, we just have to be able to understand that when they are talking about them it is through the filter of their worldview. News stations still provide us some windows where actual journalists are attempting to give an objective viewpoint but those time slots are becoming more scarce because that doesn’t get people to watch, even though that’s what we claim to want. In reality many conservatives want to retreat to watching Hannity before bed to reaffirm their perspective and liberals can get their dose of Don Lemon to get their fix as well.

Although a process has taken place more recently which troubles me even more than mainstream media. It is the process of people choosing social media as their primary source to derive information. I empathize with why people would feel inclined to do this out of reaction to some of the problems I listed above. But this seems a lot like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. We get frustrated by mainstream media for its sensationalism, for its perceived bias, and for the part it plays in our divisions. Then we trade it for another medium that does those same exact things but through a more sophisticated system that’s less detectable. Again, we have to step back and see what the business model of these platforms are. They make money by selling ads. They sell more ads by attracting more people. They attract more people by giving you things you will click on. How many people would click on an article titled “A full economic analysis of the budget for this fiscal year”? Not many. However people on the right would click on “Ted Cruz demolishes Nancy Pelosi’s spending proposal”. People on the left would click on “Bernie Sanders dismantles Donald Trump’s Presidency”. So we say we want more objective media, but most of us won’t click on the objective stuff. The more a person clicks on such politically biased headlines the more likely you are to see more of them. Facebook and other platforms are tracking your digital footprint to be able to predict your behavior for the sole purpose of getting you to do one thing; click!

The third problem is binary thinking within our political discussions. What I mean by that is our obsessive need to reduce complex issues into two boxes. There are several problems with this approach to organizing political discussions. First, it ignores nuance and diversity within the two boxes. A good example of this is something like the abortion issue. We have two boxes, pro-life and pro-choice. However, within those two positions are a litany of nuance that gets glossed over because we are too busy telling the other box they are wrong without acknowledging that there are people within our own box that we don’t agree with. This is also beneficial for politicians and allows them to be lazy when articulating their position on the issue. If you are courting conservative voters, just say you are pro-life. If you are courting liberal voters, just say you are pro-choice. So this is a perfect example of an issue where people care more about your position on a problem rather than your solution to the problem.

This binary thinking spills into issues that are not necessarily opposed to each other. Can I “back the blue” and at the same time believe that “black lives matter”? I think I can, and I do. Can I support our troops and stand for the anthem while still supporting efforts to combat racial injustice? I think I can, and I do. We get forced into these simple boxes when faced with complex challenges that need solutions not just opinions. A real example of an issue that I care about that speaks to my support for police and my support for combating racial inequities is the issue of “no knock warrants”. I believe this policy leads to police being put in unneeded dangerous situations and also perpetuates disproportionate police action against Black Americans. Breonna Taylor’s death and a police officer getting shot is a result of this overused and misguided practice. Police were lawfully executing a no knock warrant, Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend exercising his right as a part of the “stand your ground” law in Kentucky shot through the door at what he thought were people breaking into their home. Police returned fire and Brenonna Taylor was killed laying in her bed. She committed no crime, but her front door was busted down and now she is gone. So all of the people involved were put into a powder keg of bad policy which led the tragic event to take place. How many times did “no knock warrants” come up in the 2020 Presidential debates? Not once. Instead the candidates argued about the semantics of riots and protests while we argued about whether we should demonize cops or demonize black people. Both are the wrong answer but our binary thinking led us to discussions about our positions, rather than discussions about our solutions.

Lastly, I believe that all of us are trying to navigate a world that is changing faster than any time in human history. In some ways we can’t agree on how to adjust to these changes or even why these changes are occurring in the first place. For example, one side believes climate change is man-made, while the other side believes it is not. One side believes that people are losing jobs because of immigrants, trade deals, and a corrupt government. The other side thinks people are losing jobs because of rapid automation. Regardless of who is correct or the degree to which the perspective is true, the point is that if we can’t agree on a cause of a problem how can we agree on a solution? If we ask the right questions, we may not get the right answers, but if we ask the wrong questions we will never get the right answers.

My overall point with this last obstacle is that we feel the stress of a changing world and how it affects us but if we don’t understand why it is happening, then people running for office can exploit our frustrations and point them at blaming the other side. Our frustrations become easier to exploit when we engage in binary thinking, when we listen to one media station who over exaggerates the transgressions of the other side, and we retreat to our social media to get affirmation from our echo chambers.

So my case for moderatism is derived from the idea that society is like a pendulum and the harder we hit it from one side the further it swings to the other. So the answer is not to hit harder, the answer is to stop hitting. Allow the pendulum to begin to come to a state that is closer to at rest. We do this by doing a few things. The first is challenging ourselves to watch other media stations. If you normally watch CNN, turn over to FOX for a day or vise versa. The other is to recognize that social media is there to facilitate socializing, not to facilitate news or truth. The third is to be able to articulate your positions in a more complex way than just a label and to recognize the nuance within your “box”. To me politics is better understood on a spectrum than in two boxes. The last thing I would suggest is to stop asking “who can I blame?” And start asking “who can I help?” If you are a person who frequently finds themselves feeling caught in the middle, speak up! Don’t allow the most attention to continue going to those who say or do the most radical things. In the words of Albert Einstein “The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking”.