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.
Moderate centrists occupy a place on the political spectrum that sits between progressivism and conservatism, roughly between the two 30 yard lines of a football field. Those 40 yards are neither purely Democratic nor purely Republican yards. They are largely centrist yards. Indeed, according to Gallup, 40 percent of American voters identify as independents; and although not all independents are centrists, most of them are.
Bold centrists can also be placed in the forty yards which sit between the pure Democrats and pure Republicans. They either want some unique synthesis of the left and right or some standpoint that transcends the left and the right. Georg Wilhem Friedrich Hegel was famous for generating a synthesis out of a thesis and an antithesis. Some Third Way Thinkers like the UK's Anthony Giddens have tried to transcend left and right to create a new democratic point of view.
A moderate centrist would propose a compromise on paid parental leave and child-care: six weeks of paid leave rather than 12 weeks and a child tax credit (which can be used for child-care) of $2,800 (up from $2,000) for children under five rather than $3,600, as well as $2,500 (up from) $2,000 rather than $3,000 for children between six and 17. The higher numbers were instituted as part of the American Rescue Plan Act which has expired. A bold centrist, like myself, would call for 24 weeks of paid leave and a choice of either $15,000 for child-care or a $15,000 tax credit for a stay-at-home parent. The moderate centrist finds a monetary middle ground; the bold centrist, in contrast, addresses a major cultural divide and tries to accommodate both sides with a unique policy solution.
In truth, it is not helpful to think of bold centrists as sitting between progressives and conservatives on some political spectrum. For bold centrists take the same approach to politics as the leading 20th century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein took to philosophy. Wittgenstein held that philosophy was not a doctrine but an activity.
To say that bold centrism is not a doctrine is to say that it is not primarily a belief system made up of a set of positions on a set of public policies, including immigration, transportation, health care, climate change, guns, taxes, foreign policy and family policy. Bold centrists must, in the end, take a stance on all of the policy issues. Yet being a bold centrist means you place more emphasis on the activity taken to arrive at the policies than the policies themselves. Being a bold centrist requires imagination, interaction with rival camps, an interest in finding a creative synthesis, and the patience it takes to reach this place.
The current discussion about centrism in Washington is focused on the efforts of No Labels, the source of the influential Problem-Solvers Caucus on Capitol Hill, to elect a moderate centrist ticket for president in 2024 "if the environmental conditions are right." The fear expressed by well-known Democrats ranging from Bill Galston of the Brookings Institution to former House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt is that a No Labels centrist ticket -- perhaps with West Virginia Democratic Senator Joseph Manchin and former Utah Republican Governor Jon Huntsman running for president and vice-president -- would lead to a Trump presidency.
We will not find out until April 2024 if No Labels runs (though they will not fund) the moderate centrist ticket. And they have every right to run a moderate centrist ticket. Yet, what this race needs is for a candidate or organization to step forward with a bold as opposed to moderate centrist agenda. Perhaps the Forward Party headed up by former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, former Republican Congressman David Jolly, and former Republican New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman will produce a bold centrist agenda and generate the kind of activity needed to produce viable public policies. To date, the Forward Party seems more on the moderate centrist side than the bold centrist side, but it is too soon to tell.
It is conceivable that President Biden will change course and become a bold centrist himself. Indeed, this may be precisely the kind of development his campaign is going to need for him to be re-elected. But one way or another, campaign 2024 needs exploration of both moderate centrism and bold centrism because our country needs a very serious look at the overall concept of centrism. Thus, it may be best for our democracy if the race for president has two centrist tickets, not one.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a“ Steel Across America” event ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11th attacks on the Ellipse near the White House on Sept. 8, 2026 in Washington, D.C. President Trump welcomed 9/ 11 first responders to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation’ s“ Steel Across America” event featuring a 16,900- pound, 21- foot steel beam recovered.
For Trump, even 9/11 is an opportunity
There was a reason organizers of the 9/11 ceremony in Manhattan told President Trump he could not speak at this year’s memorial service.
A good one, it turns out.
Because in a speech he gave on Tuesday in Washington, he did exactly what they were presumably worried about — he made it about himself.
According to The New York Times, Trump had wanted a speaking role at the service, but the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum, which oversees the site, said no, as they’ve maintained for the past decade-plus that the venue and event should be nonpartisan.
Trump has long used awful tragedies to either puff himself up, trash political opponents, or sell lies to the American people.
He blamed a deadly plane crash at Washington National Airport last year on diversity, equity and inclusion policies. He blamed Puerto Ricans for the devastation they endured after Hurricane Maria in 2017. He reportedly considered withholding disaster relief after the California wildfires based on the way affected regions voted. In an interview on Fox News meant to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, he used the occasion to slam former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi…with graves of the dead behind him.
And now, as we approach the 25th anniversary of what many New Yorkers consider the darkest day in modern history, Trump has done it again.
He told a rambling, nonsensical story — one he’s told before — about going to Ground Zero just after terrorists flew two commercial jets into the twin towers. In the story, which no one has been able to verify, despite multiple attempts, he says firefighters had to carry him out of One Liberty Plaza, also known as the U.S. Steel Building, because they thought it was about to collapse.
As CNN fact checker Daniel Dale notes, there’s no evidence Trump went into this building, especially at a time when NYPD and NYFD had locked down the area. There’s no evidence that building was collapsing — in fact, it was deemed structurally sound and reopened within two months of the attacks. There’s no evidence he was carried out of it by firefighters.
But the lie isn’t even the worst part. Pretend it was all true — why would the leader of our country, and a New Yorker, decide to make that tragic day about himself?
Because that’s who Donald Trump is. He’s a malignant narcissist.
He’s also, incidentally, a terrible and ineffectual president, who’s made ill-fated decisions that he has to keep defending, and there’s nothing he won’t do to make himself look and feel better.
Within the first two minutes of his speech, he was cravenly using 9/11 to justify and promote his dumb war in Iran — two events separated by 25 years and 6,000 miles.
“And I will tell you, we’re right now fighting because we have a certain nation that wanted a nuclear weapon, they were very close to getting it, and now they have no chance at getting it. They will never have a nuclear weapon. Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. And they’ve been punished greatly. As you know, we’ve really taken it to them.”
As a New Yorker who lived through 9/11, still one of the worst days of my life, I’m utterly sickened by Trump’s crass, political, and self-promotional framing of that awful day.
And I’m relieved he won’t be given a platform to do it again on Friday’s anniversary in lower Manhattan.
Because for Trump, everything is his for the taking, and absolutely nothing is sacred.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.