Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

How America gets to a new center

How America gets to a new center
Getty Images

Anderson edited "Leveraging: A Political, Economic and Societal Framework" (Springer, 2014), has taught at five universities and ran for the Democratic nomination for a Maryland congressional seat in 2016.

America needs a new center, but it does not need a new centrist political party. A new centrist political party that could overcome the widely recognized dysfunction in our national politics caused by both political parties would be great, but it is not going to happen. There are too many impediments preventing the rise of a vibrant third party, including the fundraising obstacle, gerrymandering, the absence of open primaries in most states, and the poor historic record of third party candidates.


What is needed is a surge in independent politicians who are not part of a weak national third party, but who will push, directly and indirectly, the political system into a new center space. Democrats and Republicans ironically will be central to the birth of the new center and the death of their joint control over our political system.

Independent candidates from different ideological perspectives in the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate could wield sufficient power to forge compromises on major legislation concerning guns, the environment, child care, paid parental leave, the national debt and corporate tax rates. The key is not to make a centrist political party the change agent, which was the strategy of Charles Wheelan's The Centrist Manifesto and the third party, Unite America. This strategy paints a target on the back of the third party itself.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

Dartmouth's Professor Wheelan was about half right: generate enough votes in the Senate to act as a fulcrum (he called his approach the "Fulcrum Strategy") to forge compromises between the two parties. But he was mistaken to think that we needed a political party which advocated for moderate centrist solutions proposed by independents to create the leverage necessary to bring about the changes. Candidates which Unite America backed for the House and Senate in 2018 all came up short, and Unite America reinvented itself in 2019 and 2020. Today they back independents, Republicans and Democrats as well as election reform initiatives.

Independents, on the view being articulated here, would ultimately leverage their power to generate ambitious centrist solutions, but they themselves would not start from a moderate centrist standpoint or an ambitious new centrist standpoint. They would ideally move toward an ambitious new centrist standpoint because it would be more agreeable than the positions of the two major parties. We need creativity and out of the box thinking, not the same old trench warfare.

Therefore, the task before us is to have a diversity of communities and funders to encourage and back candidates from a range of political perspectives -- libertarian to green -- that are united in their opposition to both Democrats and Republicans. These candidates will disagree about substantive policies but agree that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have the answers or the requisite attitudes to craft the policy solutions we need. Their opposition to the two major parties, however, will in the end be sufficient to create the legislative basis for tripartisan solutions to our major challenges ahead that go beyond a moderate middle position between the two major parties.

There is no doubt that structural changes are needed in our electoral system as well, notably ranked-choice voting, open primaries and elimination of gerrymandering. Yet new laws and regulations will not by themselves transform the electoral system. We need a concept of how legislative change could come about through tripartisan policy solutions, and we need organizations which are in the fixing our democracy space as well as the media, traditional and social, to televise, advertise and catalyze this political development.

Notice that electing an independent president would shorten the birth pangs of this new political system, but change can come about with either a Democratic or Republican president. The president will need to help steer a new centrist legislative agenda, but ultimately it is Congress that will be the driving force of this transformation because Congress, not the president, makes laws.

The trajectory from here, to be sure, will not be linear. It will be more complex and nuanced. It will also take place over the course of five to ten years. You cannot transform Washington politics with a wrecking ball.

Read More

"Swing state" sign under a cutout of Pennsylvania
gguy44/Getty Images

Election Overtime project prepares Pennsylvania media for Nov. 5

A new set of complementary tools designed to support accurate reporting of contested elections will be unveiled by the Election Reformers Network and other election law experts on Wednesday.

The Election Overtime project will provide journalists covering Pennsylvania’s 2024 general election with media briefings by election specialists; guides for reporting on election transparency, verification processes and judicial procedures; and an extensive speakers bureau. The briefing is designed for journalists but is open to the public. Register now.

Keep ReadingShow less
Hispanic family

Rafael Mendez and his family.

Courtesy Rafael Mendez

U.S. Hispanic voters: Breaking the monolith myth

Macias, a former journalist with NBC and CBS, owns the public relations agencyMacias PR.

The Fulcrum presents We the People, a series elevating the voices and visibility of the persons most affected by the decisions of elected officials. In this installment, we explore the motivations of over 36 million eligible Latino voters as they prepare to make their voices heard in November.

According to the Census Bureau, the Hispanic, Latino population makes up the largest racial or ethnic minority group in America. But this group is not a monolith. Macias explores providing a more accurate and nuanced understanding of this diverse population.

Several new political polls examine how Hispanic voters view former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. Not surprisingly, the polls are all over the place, even though they were taken around the same time.

Keep ReadingShow less
Jimmy Carter watching election procedures

Former President Jimmy Carter observes voting procedures in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in 1990.

Cynthia Johnson/Liaison

Celebrate Jimmy Carter’s 100th birthday and his work on elections

Merloe provides strategic advice on elections and democracy in the United States and internationally. He worked with former President Jimmy Carter on elections and democratic transitions on four continents.

On Oct. 1, President Jimmy Carter turns 100 years old. According to reports, he is concerned about the dynamics surrounding the 2024 election and hopeful that the United States will turn the page. That is no surprise given his devotion to this country and his dedication to fostering genuine elections around the world.

Keep ReadingShow less
Young businessman holding his head and pondering
Hinterhaus Productions/Getty Images

When should you start worrying?

Chaleff is a speaker, innovative thinker and the author of “To Stop a Tyrant: The Power of Political Followers to Make or Brake a Toxic Leader.” This is the fifth entry in a series on political followership.

We recently read in The Washington Post that men in Afghanistan are regretting that they did not stand up sooner for the rights of their wives and daughters, now that the Taliban is imposing severe standards of dress and conduct on them.

Duh.

That’s the oldest regret there is when it comes to oppression:

Keep ReadingShow less