What Exactly is a "Moderate?"
Newsmedia, Pundits and the Public at Large Have Differing Ideas; Most are Wrong
I recently read an article that really irritated me. The title of the piece was “Extinction of the Moderates” by Josh Kraushaar of Axios.1 It claimed:
Politicians and their constituents are in a “no compromise” mood; the only evidence he had of this was that the “No Labels” party failed to take off and that constituents are extensions of their elected officials who may have different motives.
Trump is barreling toward renomination and Biden has failed to appeal to swing voters, demonstrating the extremes are still winning; this is just lazy reporting, you could point to any number of data points indicating the opposite.
Moderating forces like Manchin and Sinema are not likely to win re-election in 2024. Manchin and Sinema are not “moderating forces” so much as obstacles for different reasons the majority must navigate; Manchin because his state has grown ever more Republican and Sinema because she’s just a flippant hedge fund defender.
With Trump at the top of the ticket, 18 House GOP in seats that Biden won, mostly in suburbs, will be clearly targeted and likely picked off. If you trade one suburban moderate for another of the other party, it doesn’t mean moderation is dead, but that it is alive and well.
What irritated me is that 1) from the article it’s clear he has no idea what a moderate is and 2) moderates are far from extinct, in fact they are biggest voting group in politics. This is common because the media and political parties make that mistake all the time, for reasons I outline below. But I thought it would be helpful in outlining what exactly makes a moderate and why they are hard to pin down.
Most people view politics as a left/right, red/blue, liberal/conservative dichotomy. You’re on one side or the other. Party activists and issue advocates most certainly fit that description and in fact define it; either you are with them and their cause without conditions or you are either flimsy or an opponent. There’s an absolutist aspect of this that is almost offensive. We’ve all heard the lines and the stories:
“Either you are with us, or against us.”
“There’s nothing in the middle of the road but yellow lines and roadkill.”
“Neutrality only serves to help the oppressor.”
These statements always present a false choice; they presume the person speaking it is always righteous, their cause is just and action is without consequence. Sometimes, that may even be the case, but not always, and not often in the context those statements are used. Most voters don’t adhere to an absolutist position.
What is a Moderate?
If you were to ask someone on the street “What is a moderate,” most would believe one of four things:
They would assume that a moderate is the squishy, hypocritical, apathetic non-partisan, bereft of any opinions worthy of action, without any real cares or hard opinions.
They would try to define it not by what a moderate was, but by it NOT being whatever they constrewed as “liberal” and “conservative.” In that sense, they would say that a moderate is just "not-liberal" and "not conservative" in this amorphous netherworld in the middle.
They would mistake “moderate” for “mainstream” as kind of an “average voter” kind of thing. Often they mistake moderate for “independent” which is closer, but not quite right either.
There’s also the idea that having conservative opinions on some issues and liberal opinions on others makes you a moderate, as if having extreme views on multiple various issues cancel each other out.
All of these are incorrect for various reasons. In short, nothing is further from the truth. Respectively:
Moderates have issues, ideas, and concerns they deeply care about. They just aren’t ideologically as rigid, and incorporate more practicality into their reasoning and logic. They’re also not as extreme in their rhetoric or actions, but rather cautious, considerate, thoughtful and deliberate. I heard one person refer to them as “zebras without stripes”; the thing is, they DO have stripes, they’re just not as bold or have as bright line edges as the two major parties try to dictate and bundle around.
Moderates don’t define themselves as “not liberal” or “not conservative.” More often than not, they lean hard one way or the other. They just look at what the activists within their “lean” do and say and disagree mostly with their zeal and extent of how far they go. They consider consquences and practicality of policy positions. With moderates, its not raw emotion, it’s careful consideration.
“Average” voters can sway and be re-defined based on who wins and by how much. Far too often, pollsters equate swing voters (votes R in one race and then D in another) as a moderate, which could be true, but not necessarily. Moderates usually move toward the winning side one way or the other but are more likely to just not vote if neither side appeals to them, particularly if the issues they care about amount to little difference in the campaigns or are ignored altogether and the parties instead focus on divisive ideological issues that turn them off.
This is wrong on its face. It defines liberal or conservative based on a partisan ideological position than a rational one. For instance, it’s often conservative positions to be anti-abortion and pro-death penalty. A true pro-life ideologue would have a hard time reconciling these two positions and can zealously pursue anti-abortion and banning the death penalty. That does not make this person a moderate, just a zealous advocate on two differing issues, one generally perceived as conservative, one generally perceived as liberal.
So what is a moderate? It’s someone who looks at a candidate or policy proposal fairly and objectively, weighing the pros and cons of the action accordingly as it relates to their own current position, considering not just immediate impact but long term consequences and tempers their biases with thoughtful rationale. Moderates often look at the two competing positions (or mutliple others) and find comfort in a sensible, middle ground relative to the extremes, but still showing progress towards a common goal. Moderates favor small incremental changes that add up over time as opposed to grand sweeping changes that result in backlash and a reactionary swing backward.
Why are Moderates Largely Ignored?
In a nutshell, its because they’re not monolithic, nor loud. Think of a liberal and you can pretty much give a 30 second answer as to what they believe. Same with conservatives, although ask a conservative what a liberal thinks or a liberal what a conservative thinks and you’ll get a lot of derisive answers. With moderates, it’s more complicated.
A good example of this is demonstrated by the abortion issue. Liberal position is usually defined as pro-choice, while the conservative one as pro-life. These are euphemisms for whether a woman should have a right to an abortion or whether the government can be allowed to ban abortions. For a moderate, the answer may not be so black and white. Should women have the choice to have an abortion. Yes. Can the government ban late term abortions? Sure. What about at 15 or 20 weeks? Maybe. Some sensible regulations? Yes. Is requiring abortion providers to have operating privileges at a hospital a sensible regulation? Uh…. It’s just more gray and complicates issues activists and news media want bright lines on. Even among moderates, there is a level of disagreement of where lines should be. 2 Their flexibility makes compromise on hard issues possible, but also frays consistency.
Likewise, many of the issues important to moderates aren’t particularly controversial.
Better schools, better education standards, better teachers.
Health care. They don’t care who provides it and how, so long as its available, its affordable and billing is relatively simple.
Taxes. Everyone wants to pay less but they are "the price we pay for living in a free society. "3 Simplification of the tax code plays well with them but not at the expense of exploding the deficit.
Fairness. They despise gerrymandering and silly partisan games to increase/decrease votes in various areas. Everyone gets a fair opportunity is practically a credo.
Police/Security. If they don’t feel safe, there’s a problem. Police and Veterans should generally be respected.
None of these are overly controversial opinions; who WOULDN’T be for them really. The major parties even try to stake their claims on these issues in their own ways. Moderates won’t necessarily say “Oh you’ve got a health care bill, I’m in!” but what they will do is take in the details, assess the impacts and think about it. If something makes them uncomfortable, they’ll lean on reducing or removing those portions. With them, its not just the “what” that matters but also the “how.” This is how compromise works.
This is also why negative advertising is so effective on moderates. Health care coverage a boon to Big Pharma and Insurance companies? Medicare being gutting by the new Health Care Bill? You lose choice of provider and may have to travel further for coverage? These are all lines used BY BOTH PARTIES on each others’ health care bills, and they do it because it works whether it’s true or not. Moderates are likely to balk preventing any kind of progress on it.
However, mostly moderates get ignored because they are unpredictable. For campaigns and media, its easier to gear campaigns toward their bases where there is a known quantity and work to expand that outward than to angle for moderates and grow a bigger tent. For starters, in our electoral system, primary voters favor party activists, which works against moderates in primaries. Likewise, for activists, you can roughly gauge how many of your voters will come out come election day and it becomes just an issue of margins in particular areas, which keeps campaigning simple. In addition, extreme activists tend to scream the loudest and get more of the attention. Trying to appeal to moderates, going into election day you have no idea whether your appeal worked or not, which doesn’t help fundraise, doesn’t help win and gives the stigma of a debacle brewing.
So Where Does That Leave Moderates?
As I mentioned before, moderates are the largest potential voting bloc. Only 66% of the eligible voting public voted in 2020 and it’s not partisans who are not voting. People complain that voters are more partisan, which may be true if you include people leaning one way or the other but doesn’t include those not voting or independent.
Over the last 30 years, moderates tended to lean Republican but in the age of Trump are now swaying towards Democrats. The Democratic Party could build a coalition lasting for a generation if they work to expand their tent to include them rather than continue to cater to their party activists. Focusing on issues that matter to them and target them with language and rhetoric designed to appeal to their apprehensions, can go a long way to establishing a Democratic Majority not seen since the 1960s.
Republicans on the other hand are trending more extreme. The more they follow Trump down that path, the more moderates they will lose and the more their coalition will wane, particularly as Boomers give way to Gen Z in the voting population and aging Gen X and Millenials refrain from leaning GOP.
PurpleAmerica’s Recommended Stories
Ruy Teixeira and Mark Halpin at The Liberal Patriot are quietly building a great Democrat moderate focused substack page. I highly recommend it.
Another page, organized by former Republicans who were “Never Trumpers” is the Bulwark+. There are a lot of great articles on this site and some of the writers have great newsletters (Charlie Sykes’ Morning Shots and Jonathan V. Last’s The Triad are two great newsletters in my inbox every day). I usually find something good daily on this page.
https://www.thebulwark.com/
PurpleAmerica Cultural Criticism Corner
I’ve posted this before and I always love excuses to repost it as it’s still relevant today. This is Richard Jeni from over 20 years ago nailing the differences between the left, the right and the middle. It’s so spot on, it’s hard not to love it.
Outstanding Tweets
Footnotes and Parting Thoughts
Let me know what you think of the page. Please share and comment!
https://www.axios.com/2023/05/07/moderates-extinction-sinema-manchin
Or whatever other linear spectrum dichotomy you choose.
It should be noted this hesitancy and ideological waffling is why many on both the left and the right consider many moderate positions as an act of betrayal. Compromising on any ideological position is heresy.
Oliver Wendell Holmes.