Never Call Yourself a Centrist

You’re not a centrist, moderate, or independent. You’re something new.

I hate the word centrist. I loathe moderate too. I reluctantly tolerate independent, although I would rather it go away as well. I use these words sometimes because they’re the ones everyone uses and understands, but America would be a better place if we abolished them from the language.

The problem with describing someone as a centrist or a moderate is these labels presume the legitimacy of the phony left-right spectrum and are therefore self-defeating. They rhetorically assume a person isn’t serious about their beliefs, but taking a half-hearted position between the only two legitimate orientations, the progressive left and conservative right. They presume anyone who isn’t fully on board one of these two teams is a weak fence-sitter splitting the difference and afraid to take a stand.

To call someone a centrist assumes there’s a center place to occupy. The word assumes by definition that all political opinion in the world lines up into some neat line between two pure poles of left and right. It presumes the people in this supposed center are just taking bits from more pure ideals, participating in a political buffet instead of standing on their own.

To call someone a moderate assumes they philosophically agree with everything Team Red or Team Blue believes, but are trying to be careful and take things slow because they lack the courage of their convictions. It assumes they’re someone who completely agrees with the radicals but is afraid of going too far too fast, instead of someone who believes entirely different things.

To call someone an independent makes it sound like anyone who refuses to fall into line with one of the dominant tribes is a weirdo outsider with fringe beliefs.

In reality, the people we call centrists or moderates aren’t splitting differences, moderating opinions, or standing in the center of some made-up and arbitrary line. They’re people with strong and well-considered beliefs that don’t come from the same place as the progressive left or conservative right. Their politics is based around different ideas and seeks to accomplish different goals. They might ally with one side or the other out of necessity or convenience, but they’re not moderating anything. They believe strongly in something else.

The left-right spectrum is bunk. There are more than two political orientations across humanity. Human opinion is a splendid cacophony of competing beliefs, issues, values, and ideas wound into a multitude of compelling philosophies. Across the history of our species, people have believed and advocated for countless different things for a multitude of interesting reasons. There’s no single middle point between all of these ideas for anyone to occupy.

No one even knows how to reliably define what makes an idea left or right in the first place. Many people over the years have tried to define these terms, and none of them have ever succeeded in any consistent and predictive way. It isn’t true that the left is more supportive of equality and working people, since sometimes that describes the populist right. It isn’t true that the right is more resistant to change, since that depends entirely on what it is you’re trying to change. There’s no rational reason why support for labor unions has to go with a pro-choice position on abortion—and in fact in the real world plenty of people support one but not the other.

The ideas we call the political left and right, just like the concepts of liberal and conservative, are reverse-engineered descriptions of whatever it is the two major coalitions in a democracy happen to believe. Democracies always trend toward two big coalitions vying for a majority. Out of habit and convenience we label one the left and the other right. When the particular issues and ideas each team supports change with time, so do the definitions. This should be obvious in an era in which our political teams are in flux, with ideas we recently called left moving right and vice versa.

I could write the better part of a book refuting the idea of the left-right political spectrum, and in fact I sort of already have. I wrote an entire chapter about the problems with the left-right spectrum in my book The Next Realignment, and back when I was on YouTube I made a video about it.

The polls and political scientists will tell you America is polarized. Personally, I suspect a majority of Americans today are in their hearts followers of neither ideology dominating politics. Polling shows we’re getting close to twice as many American identifying as independents as partisans of either party. Gallup found in 2023 that a shocking 63 percent of Americans believed a third party was needed. From what I can tell, both major political ideologies at the moment are mostly controlled by people with unpopular and bad ideas, and no ideas. Ordinary Americans might attach themselves to one team or the other, but only to oppose the side closest to advancing their worst ideas. Then everyone gets frustrated when nothing important happens because they’ve empowered people with no ideas at all. Americans call themselves conservatives or liberals out of tradition, but deep down wish there was a more enticing option.

Between bad ideas and no ideas, I choose neither. I bet you do too. I’m not interested in staking out a center point between two sets of bad ideas that everyone knows will fail. I don’t want to moderately pursue bad ideas with a bit less zeal. On the other hand, moderating no ideas just means going nowhere a little slower. I have no interest defending and propping up a status quo that’s clearly failing and cracking up. I think what we all want is to make America work again and restore the promise of the American Dream.

Labels like moderate and centrist just convince people they have no options and are morally obligated to go along with things they don’t believe. Ideological minorities with unpopular ideas use these words to claim you owe them your obedience, when you don’t. Worse, they convince you to enforce this false loyalty upon yourself. Moderates who call themselves center left come to believe they must be loyal to people who hate them, just as do moderates who call themselves center right. At the same time, each hold the other in contempt, when in reality they mostly believe the exact same thing.

I would love nothing more than to rhetorically free us from this madness. I would like to clear these labels away so my people can see we’re now part of one new political tribe with its own political identity. What does our tribe believe?

We believe America must undergo serious reform. We know many of the complaints that have plunged our politics into chaos have merit. We agree the middle and working class Americans have gotten a raw deal. We know America isn’t keeping its promises, many institutions are broken, and too many important parts of our society no longer work. We can see that too many of our leaders have failed and are unworthy of their positions. We know in this time of radical technological and social change, America hasn’t even started to do the necessary work to adjust. Most of all, we know Americans need more control over their futures and a fair and equal chance at the American Dream.

The people who say important parts of America are broken are right, and there’s no going back to the twentieth-century status quo. At the same time, serious problems require serious solutions. Nothing in our old political playbooks provides compelling answers to these new questions, but neither does jerking about impulsively and simply tearing things down. It’s our task to identify the true sources of our national decline and then reverse it with a flurry of thoughtful and serious national reform.

We’re not centrists, moderates, or even independents. We need a label of our own, one we can wear with pride. It should be a badge clarifying who is on our team for change, and who is not. It should unite our allies currently divided across the left and right around a fresh vision for the future. It should be a flag in a new and vibrant color that’s neither red nor blue. I’m eager to discover what this new identity will be. For now, what I know is we’re no longer conservatives or liberals but something different—Newists who believe in freeing ourselves from bad ideas and outdated dogmas so we can create something better for this new age.

What do you think we should call the Newists? Join the conversation in the comments.