Washington is stuck in a cycle of performative conflict. The incentives seem to reward outrage, not outcomes that last; purity tests, not problem‑solving. So it’s no surprise that after three shutdowns in less than a year, public approval of Congress collapsed to just 10 percent this spring. (Gallup, April 2026.) But the country we live in — where many middle-income families report persistent financial strain and businesses are navigating unprecedented technological upheaval — cannot be governed by theatrics. Breaking this cycle requires moderation, consensus‑building, and a cooperative approach to governance.
This is not a call for centrism as an ideology. Instead, this is a call for transformative leaders to embrace moderation as their governing strategy, recognizing that in a pluralistic country of nearly 350 million people durable solutions require broad and stable alliances. Ultimately, this is a call for the 240 million of us who are eligible to vote in November to elect consensus-builders instead of bomb-throwers, and healers instead of arsonists.
The Cost of Governing by Extremes
The consequences of zero‑sum politics are no longer abstract. They show up in the daily dysfunction of our federal government.
When Congress is locked in partisan trench warfare, even routine responsibilities become crises. Budgeting devolves into brinkmanship. Oversight becomes a weapon, not a safeguard. And businesses and households face policy whiplash whenever control of Washington changes hands: executive orders are reversed on day one, regulations are rewritten with each new administration, and laws passed on party-line votes are left perpetually exposed to repeal.
This is not sustainable, nor is it what voters want. Nine in ten Americans say compromise is crucial to getting anything done; only fifteen percent think fighting for their values matters more than actually finding a solution. (Walton Family Fdn., Nov. 2023.)
Moderation Is a Method
Moderation is often caricatured as mushy centrism — a bland midpoint between two poles. But in governance, moderation is something else entirely. It is a pragmatic operating system for our politically diverse republic.
Moderation means building coalitions broad enough to survive changes in political power. It means crafting federal programs that states with different political cultures will actually carry out, rather than resist or litigate. It means acknowledging that no party has a monopoly on good ideas, and that the best solutions often emerge from negotiation rather than unilateral action.
Perhaps the most practical argument for compromise is that laws built with support from both parties tend to endure, because the people who helped write them do not spend the next election cycle promising to tear them down. A bill that clears the Senate’s 60-vote threshold almost always carries the fingerprints of the chamber’s minority — and that shared ownership is what protects it when power changes hands. Compare the Americans with Disabilities Act, which passed with overwhelming bipartisan majorities in 1990 and has been settled law ever since, with the Affordable Care Act or the 2017 tax cuts: each passed on a party-line vote, and each spent years as partisan fodder.
In poll after poll, Americans prefer practical, incremental, cross‑partisan solutions. (Gallup, March 2026; Morning Consult/Next American Era, July 2026.) We want leaders who can disagree without demonizing one another, and who can legislate without turning every issue into a referendum on national identity.
But there is a catch, and it helps explain why gridlock persists: most voters want the other side to bend more than their own. In one recent Pew Research Center survey, roughly three-quarters of both Democrats and Republicans said it was very important for the opposing party’s leaders to compromise. However, fewer than half said the same about their own party’s leaders. (Pew, Oct. 2025.) Genuine moderation asks something harder: holding one’s own side to the same standard expected of the other.
Consensus-Building Is Not Naïve — It’s Necessary
Congress, by design, requires collaboration. The framers created a system that forces negotiation through federalism, bicameralism, and checks and balances. So when certain lawmakers denounce compromise as weakness, they are actually disparaging one of the overarching objectives of our nation’s Constitution.
The House’s Problem Solvers Caucus is proof the system can still work: several dozen Democrats and Republicans (in equal numbers) are bound by a promise requiring broad support from both parties before the group will endorse any bill. The Problem Solvers played a pivotal role in negotiating and passing the bipartisan infrastructure law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the 2023 debt-ceiling deal.
What to Look for in November
Voters who want consensus-based leadership don’t have to take candidates at their word: they can look at the record. How often has an incumbent cosponsored legislation with members of the other party? Independent scorecards like the Lugar Center’s Bipartisan Index measure exactly that. Does a candidate belong to (or indicate a desire to join) a cross-party working group like the Problem Solvers Caucus? And when asked about a major issue, can a candidate name a single idea from the other side that deserves support or at least consideration? Candidates who cannot answer that question are telling you how they intend to govern.
Voters can also back reforms that would make consensus-based leadership the rule rather than the exception. Independent redistricting commissions, now used in a number of states, reduce the number of seats so safe that an incumbent’s only real threat is a primary challenge. Open or nonpartisan primaries give the broader electorate, not just each party’s most motivated voters, a say in who appears on the general-election ballot. None of these is a cure-all. But each one changes the incentives that today reward outrage over outcomes.
The voters who would be empowered by these reforms are not a fringe. Fully a quarter of Americans say neither party represents their interests well, majorities say both parties are too extreme, and the share viewing both parties unfavorably has nearly quadrupled since 2000. (Pew, Oct. 2025 and May 2026.) More than a third of eligible voters sat out the 2024 election (Pew, June 2025), many of whom feel neither party speaks for them. This “forgotten middle” is arguably the most important constituency in American politics, and certainly the most neglected. Give them something to vote for, not just someone to vote against, and they will show up.
The Politics of the Possible
The challenges ahead — like economic shifts, energy security, climate resilience, Social Security solvency, and our ballooning national debt — cannot be solved by one party alone. They require political leaders who are willing to work across fault lines, resist the gravitational pull of extremes, and restore both houses of Congress to their intended roles as deliberative bodies that thrive on collegiality and efficacy.
If we want a government capable of solving real problems, we must choose leaders who recognize the need for cooperation as a feature – not a bug – in the operating system the founders crafted nearly 250 years ago; who understand that principles actually get translated to policy through coordination, not combat. This is the politics of the possible. The founders built the operating system. Now it’s up to us to run it.
D. James Jones is the Chief Operating Officer of New Statecraft Institute, a DC-based think tank that conducts independent research and analysis of American public policy. He also serves as Senior Advisor to Resonant Public, a public affairs firm. He can be reached at djames@newstatecraft.org.
