False equivalence is not centrism

Feb 4 JDN 2458154

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

~ W.B. Yeats, The Second Coming

Centrism is not very popular these days, but I believe this is because neither its alleged adherents nor its alleged opponents actually have a clear understanding of what centrism is supposed to be. Most of what is called “centrism” in this polarized era (the US is now more politically polarized than it has been in decades) is actually false equivalence.

Most people who express pride in their “centrism” adopt a heuristic which basically amounts to taking the two positions that are most loudly proclaimed in public and averaging them. One side says “Kill all puppies”, the other side says “Don’t kill puppies”, and they proudly and self-righteously declare that the only sensible policy is to kill precisely 50% of the puppies. Anyone who says “the two parties are the same” or “liberals deny science too” is guilty of this false equivalence—and it’s all too common.

But this is not what centrism is supposed to be. A good centrist isn’t someone who looks at their existing Overton Window and chooses the mean value. A good centrist is someone who understands and appreciates Horseshoe Theory. Horseshoe Theory says that the political spectrum is not actually a straight line from left to right; it’s more of a horseshoe shape, where the far-left and the far-right curl down and toward one another. A good centrist is someone who values the top of the horseshoe, more strongly than they value whatever particular policies might move you toward the left or the right edge.

What does the top of the horseshoe represent? Democracy.

A good centrist is someone who really, truly believes in defending democracy.

What the far-left and the far-right have in common is authoritarianism:

For those on either edge of the horseshoe, people who disagree with (the collectivization of all wealth/the superiority of my master race) aren’t simply wrong, they are evil. Persuading them to vote my way is a waste of time. Freedom of speech is dangerous, because it allows them to spread their evil ideas. It would be better to suppress freedom of speech, so that only people who know the truth (read: agree with me) are allowed to speak.

Along similar lines, Slate Star Codex recently published an excellent blog post on how people seem to separate into two very broad political worldviews: There are Mistake Theorists, who think that most of the world’s problems are due to honest ignorance and error; and there are Conflict Theorists, who think that most of the world’s problems are due to the malign influence of evil enemy factions. The far-left and the far-right are overwhelmingly composed of Conflict Theorists. A good centrist is a Mistake Theorist through and through.

Being a good centrist means fighting to defend the institutions that make freedom possible. Here is a whole list of policies that neither the far-left nor the far-right particularly values that we as centrists must:

1. Voting rights: We must fight against voter suppression and disenfranchisement wherever it occurs. We must stand up to defend the principle “one person, one vote” wherever necessary.

2. Equality under the law: We must protect the rights of everyone to have equal representation and equal standing as citizens—including, but by no means limited to, women, racial minorities, LGBT people, and people with disabilities.

3. Election reform: We must find ways to undermine gerrymandering, the Electoral College, and the campaign finance system that allows corporations and wealthy individuals to exert disproportionate influence.

4. Freedom of speech: We must protect the right of everyone to speak, including those whose views we find abhorrent. Our efforts should be focused most on those who have the least representation in our discourse.

5. Individual privacy: We must fight against the creeping rise of the surveillance state and the use of extra-legal means of intelligence gathering, particularly in domestic spying. We should be outraged that the House of Representatives voted to extend the NSA’s warrantless wiretap authority after what Edward Snowden revealed about the NSA.

6. Demilitarization and deincarceration: We must fight to contain or reverse the expansion of military and penal force that has given the United States not only a military larger than the next ten countries combined, but also the world’s highest rate of incarceration.

On some of these issues we might find agreement with the left or (less likely) the right—but even when we don’t, we must press forward. In particular, the goal of equality under the law often aligns with the goal of left-wing social justice—but there are cases where it doesn’t, cases where hatred of White straight men or a craving for vengeance against past injustice drives the left to demand things that would violate this principle. And the atavistic joy of punching Nazis in the face must never overwhelm our sacred commitment to the principles of free speech.

This doesn’t mean we can’t also adopt detailed policy views that align with the left or the right (or both). I for one support single-payer healthcare (left), progressive taxation (left), renewable energy (left), open borders (left), zoning reform (right), reductions in corporate taxes (right), free trade (right, or so I thought?), and a basic income (both—yet strangely we can’t seem to make it happen).

But being a good centrist means that these detailed policy prescriptions are always less important to you than the core principles of democracy itself. When they find out that the rest of the country is against them on something, a leftist or a rightist starts looking for ways to undermine the public will and get the policy they want. A centrist accepts that they have been outvoted and starts looking for ways to persuade the majority that they are mistaken.

Centrism is about defending the guardrails of democracy. False equivalence is not centrism; it is an obstacle to centrism. It prevents us from seeing when one side has clearly damaged those guardrails much more than the other. So let me come out and say it: At this historical juncture, in the United States, the right wing is a far greater threat to the core principles of democracy than the left. This is not to say that the left is inherently incapable of threatening democracy, or never will do so in the future; but it is to say that right here, right now, it’s the right wing we should be worried about. Punching Nazis will never be as threatening to the core of freedom as warrantless wiretaps or the discrediting of the mainstream press.