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.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.