Wouldn't a centrist win every election?

about that... wrote:

Ask John McCain.

Mitt Romney is also a good example. Romney and McCain totally failed to ignite the party bases.

I know people on the left won't like to hear this but Trump was pretty much a moderate. He was a populist for sure, not a conservative. If you look at his position on issues he wasn't that far-right. He did some deregulation which is a right thing to do, but did nothing to curb reckless spending. On foreign policy, he was more to the traditional right. The judges he nominated were very conservative.

But if you look at a lot of his policy it wasn't that far off from Clinton. The left has moved so far to the left they have no idea what the center is. Bill Clinton would have to run as a Republican in 2020. Manchin/Sinema/Romney/Collins types are the center. People like Biden were considered progressives their entire career until about 5 years ago.

OozmaKappa wrote:

guess which ones wrote:

Most of those things describe both parties, and a few describe neither.

Radical left:

Open borders

Massive bureaucracy

Boys in girls' bathrooks

Big media kahoot

Big tech kahoot

???:

Big pharma

National security

Warmongering

For the record, President Trump is firmly against “war mongering” and acting as the world’s police.

He comes at the issue from a very pragmatic perspective . Why in the hell should the American taxpayer get sucked into paying for :

A) “nation building” (which is a complete farce)

and

B) The world’s police. European countries can pay their fair share to defend “the west”. Compare what we spend on defense as a % of our gdp vs what Germany spends as a % of their gdp for example. They get the benefit and we foot the bill. Add every other western euro country and Canada and Auz and NZ tk the list. Throw in Mexico too.

This guy gets it. The left has shifted left so much that not-so-old democrats would be republicans today.

crush it wrote:

OozmaKappa wrote:

Radical left:

Open borders

Massive bureaucracy

Boys in girls' bathrooks

Big media kahoot

Big tech kahoot

???:

Big pharma

National security

Warmongering

For the record, President Trump is firmly against “war mongering” and acting as the world’s police.

He comes at the issue from a very pragmatic perspective . Why in the hell should the American taxpayer get sucked into paying for :

A) “nation building” (which is a complete farce)

and

B) The world’s police. European countries can pay their fair share to defend “the west”. Compare what we spend on defense as a % of our gdp vs what Germany spends as a % of their gdp for example. They get the benefit and we foot the bill. Add every other western euro country and Canada and Auz and NZ tk the list. Throw in Mexico too.

Americs First level understanding of foreign policy. Point deduction for not mentioning the Jews.

I agree with you that Trump was largely a centrist for most of his life. The problem is that he is also very empty headed and subject to undue influence and flattery. He surrounded himself with extremists/racists/conspiracy nuts that bought/brown nosed their way into his inner circle. Then they proceeded to fill his head with all manner of awfulness and convinced him to run with it.

Don't get me wrong, the man and his family are corrupt AF as well as shameless grifters. Deep down, if left to his own devices, Trump is probably a small "l" Libertarian and very liberal on social issues.

I'll Take This One... wrote:

I agree with you that Trump was largely a centrist for most of his life. The problem is that he is also very empty headed and subject to undue influence and flattery. He surrounded himself with extremists/racists/conspiracy nuts that bought/brown nosed their way into his inner circle. Then they proceeded to fill his head with all manner of awfulness and convinced him to run with it.

Don't get me wrong, the man and his family are corrupt AF as well as shameless grifters. Deep down, if left to his own devices, Trump is probably a small "l" Libertarian and very liberal on social issues.

Citation needed. List the racists and extremists Trump surrounded himself with and how they influenced his decisionmaking as president.

Up until George Soros bought and paid for B. Obama, yes.

political guy wrote:

You've got the group of people who will vote republican no matter what, and the group who will vote democrat no matter what. The swing voters will choose the one that seems sane and reasonable.

You are greatly underestimating how big those first two groups are.

I bet I could correctly guess how >80% of the US population will vote in the 2032 presidential election today if you show me how they've voted previously.

political guy wrote:

You've got the group of people who will vote republican no matter what, and the group who will vote democrat no matter what. The swing voters will choose the one that seems sane and reasonable.

Nope.

Not sure what elected position you are talking about, but in the Bible Belt, in most elections, you'd better be Christian (and the right kind of Christian) and anti-abortion and pro gun, and I mean pro gun in a nutso no restrictions ever kind of way. In those places, a moderate would get destroyed by a far right-wing nutbar.

Same is true for very blue areas, though even very far left Democrats are much more reasonable and could be more accepting of a moderate than far right-wing crazies.

Flagpole wrote:

Nope.

This is what I think everytime you post. Will he post something intelligent? Nope.

CarlyRaeJepsensMalort wrote:

) open borders - literally a libertarian dream. just let the market dictate where people live

) massive bureaucracy - bureaucracy in and of itself is not really partisan

) boys in girls' bathrooms - i will give you this one as being pretty radical and vaguely "left"

all of these next 5 are right wing because they serve to enrich the wealthy and powerful:

) cahoots with big pharma

) cahoots with big media

) cahoots with big tech

) cahoots with national security state

) warmongering

so thank you for making our point that the democrats are stupid moderates.

You are logically impaired. None of the things I listed are moderate positions, they are all extreme, and many absurdly so.

Flagpole wrote:

in the Bible Belt, in most elections, you'd better be Christian (and the right kind of Christian) and anti-abortion and pro gun, and I mean pro gun in a nutso no restrictions ever kind of way. In those places, a moderate would get destroyed by a far right-wing nutbar.

Same is true for very blue areas, though even very far left Democrats are much more reasonable and could be more accepting of a moderate than far right-wing crazies.

Your bogus designation of mainstream conservative positions as "far right" and general bias aside, you actually get to the point of why being a centrist isnt inherently advantageous.

You can't really be a moderate on the core issues. At least not without pissing off more people than you otherwise would have if you had shown some conviction. A lot of people understandably dont like voting for wishy washy candidates who try to play the middle because you dont know which way theyre gonna fold when there comes a time that you cant meet exactly in the middle. People'd would rather have assurances, voting for a guy who at least pretends to be principled, not this phony pragmatic bs.

sbeefyk2 wrote:

sbeefyk2 wrote:

You’re right, the problem is the swing voters are only 10% of the votes or so. So they decide who wins the election, but that 10% alone can’t pick their own person.

By swing I mean true swing voters. Like me. In my 4 presidential elections I’ve voted Democrat twice and Republican twice. Most people say they are an independent swing voter but they vote for the same party for 20+ years. Sorry to break it to you, if you only vote for one party you’re not independent and you’re not a swing voter.

This also doesn't really make sense. You actually voted 50-50 even though whoever wins is going to go into office with a 100-0 mentality. You should figure out your actual political ideology and if you're something like 60-40 you should vote for that party every time until we get ranked choice voting or more political parties or seats given out based on percentage of votes, etc.

That’s just modern conservatism. Being accepting of homosexuals is not a progressive political stance. It’s like saying you believe black people have the same rights and white people.

Barack Obama famously did not initially support gay marriage. Did you forget about that? It was a big deal when he did. This was just last decade.

OozmaKappa wrote:

Barack Obama famously did not initially support gay marriage. Did you forget about that? It was a big deal when he did. This was just last decade.

Gay marriage is an issue which was very lefty-progressive 15-20 years ago and now almost everyone forgets how divisive it was. It demonstrates how progressive values are actually really benign and not scary at all.

political guy wrote:

You've got the group of people who will vote republican no matter what, and the group who will vote democrat no matter what. The swing voters will choose the one that seems sane and reasonable.

How many elections have you watched as an adult...any?

The primary system kills any hope of a moderate candidate winning a national election.

In the primary candidates will appear more liberal or more conservative then shift toward the middle for the general election. See Clinton 1992.

The problem today is that more liberal and more conservative views get more air space because that equals likes and shares on Twittfaceagram. The middle is boring. Common sense solutions are boring.

Congress and the national parties figured this out long ago. They figured out they can lie to get elected then once elected they have set up rules to stall stall stall until they get full control. Nothing ever happens with a split Congress.

So the rules need to change. No more filibuster. 60% vote to pass ANYTHING to include judicial appointments. This makes compromise mandatory.

Alan

yeah repealing ACA ( just cause he failed) is a moderate policey. Same thing with building a wall. Gutting environmental and coting laws. Appointing right wing hacks to the courts and so on down the list. How far to the right do you have to be to consider him a moderate?

It is funny though to watch conservatives try to disown the war they started. It was the unwinnable quagmire the people on the left warned about before it started. After 15+ years it is clear they were right and infortunately we had no good way out...

And of course complaining about people not paying taxes after you cut their taxes is also funny. It isnt the democrats passing tax cuts that let middle class families pay 0 dollars in federal income tax...

about that... wrote:

Ask John McCain.

Although McCain was a moron, there is a little bit of truth to this in that the Republicans usually nominate someone closer to the mythical "center" than Democrats do. The exceptions to this since 1950 are probably JFK. Carter, and Bill Clinton -- who were probably as center/left as their opponents were center/right. Trump is/was a blowhard but his policy positions were fairly mainstream.

Reagan was farther from the center than Carter, but by the time he was reelected in 1984, the center had shifted toward Reagan and he came within 4,000 votes in Mondale's home state from winning all 50 states.