Why a Centrist Candidate Won’t Win the Presidency
In today’s divisive political climate, there isn’t much appetite for middle ground
As the U.S. political scene transitions from the midterms to the beginning of the 2020 presidential contest, one of the most pressing questions is whether any meaningful middle ground remains in the political spectrum.
This will certainly be a question for Democrats to consider in their primaries, but it’s recently emerged as a key concern as a result of Starbucks founder Howard Schultz announcing his availability to run for president as a centrist independent.
We must ask: Exactly what does an avowed centrist believe in these days?
One of the traditional ways to be deemed a “centrist” is to call yourself a social liberal and a fiscal conservative. But where does this leave you? You don’t gain any libertarian votes because you believe in moderate gun control and some reasonable degree of federal taxation. You lose the Religious Right because you believe in a woman’s right to abortion and LGBTQ rights. You lose the mostly older, mostly pale, mostly male voters who are obsessed with sending all the immigrants back to wherever they came from and slapping a wall right behind them.
