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The New York Times Argues “Moving to the Center Is the Way to Win.” But the Data Shows the Strategy Is Tapped Out.
(data4democracy.substack.com)
this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2025
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politics
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People just don't want to acknowledge the real problem here: inequality. When people feel left behind, they are much more likely to break either reactionary or revolutionary. Status quo politics are not going to appeal to either of these groups. At the same time, the people who are doing well for themselves within the status quo are going to be put off by both the reactionaries and the revolutionaries. The people who are doing well don't want radical change, one way or another. Why would they? They're doing fine and they don't want anything to jeopardize that.
So, if a politician moves to the center they will appeal to the pro status quo group, but they will lose both the reactionaries and the revolutionaries. Similarly, if a politician moves to either the reactionary side or the revolutionary side, they will lose the other two groups.
We are divided. There is no one winning strategy because there is no one, single group of American voters to try and appeal to, AND embracing any one group means alienating the others. And we're not just divided because we watch different cables news stations or spend time in different web discussion forums, we're divided because our lived experiences are different. Our divisions are not merely ideological, they are material.
I think there may be more opportunity for success here than your argument seems to suggest.
I agree with the focus on inequality. The sense that society is fundamentally unfair has a corrosive and a radicalising effect on politics. People can react to it in very different ways, from redistribution to out-group scapegoating, but the underlying motivation is that people see that there is vast wealth available in our society and they're still struggling.
Where I may disagree is that most people are non-ideological. Not everyone, but a healthy majority. They aren't focused on the philosophical roots of a candidate's policies. They care that the candidate
Many people can find that in candidates with a variety of ideological positions. The overlap between people who supported Bernie after the great recession, and went on to support Trump is bigger than one would expect.
So the equation is much less zero sum. You don't lose one reactionary for every radical you bring into your camp. There really aren't that many committed radicals and reactionaries.
The most toxic message today is the economic moderate. "Hey, it's not so bad. Things could be a lot worse." This is the zero sum relationship. You can't keep both the people who are doing well and like how things work, and the people who are struggling and want the life they deserve. The material difference isn't left vs right, it's status quo versus change. There's a lot more room for flexibility in the change camp.
Yes, but not everyone who wants change wants the same change, and so not every change candidate is going to appeal to every voter, even if most of them are looking for some kind of change.
I would agree that both Bernie and Trump were change candidates, but their differing levels of success shows which change message spoke more to the American people.
I agree that a political campaign promising change is the way to go (that's been true since Obama in '08), but which one? I think it's reasonable to assume that a change campaign built on economic populism is the way to go, but Bernie tried that twice and he lost twice.
Denial of the plain fact that society is fundamentally unfair makes it impossible to come up with solutions, or at least mitigations.
I don't like the word "inequality" because libertarians sieze on it is "disparity" is the better word
I've never heard them do this, what is their line of argument with regards to inequality?
"We're not all equal!"
"Equality is impossible!"
"Equality? Don't you mean 'communism'?"
Libertarians are a fucking joke. Let them squawk.
They're like chess players who can only see one move ahead (and even that, not all that well). They apply simplistic models to complex human behavior and never consider how those models can be gamed. That might be because they're stupid, or because they think they're the only ones who'll figure out how to do the gaming.
The issue is that, as conditions decline, more and more people are going to radicalize. If the only option that people see is reaction, then the rise of the far right is inevitable. We have likely already crossed the line where "maintaining the status quo" is sufficient to win elections, but even if not, it's only a matter of time. Maintaining the status quo means maintaining a state of decline, and that decline is going to win out.