It is no secret both political parties dance to the tune of their fringes. That fact is an unfortunate consequence of our primary system in which partisan voters get to pick their party’s nominee. The system rewards partisanship and limits the strength of moderates because about 80 percent of eligible voters don’t vote in primaries, only the most politically tuned-in people do.
Neither party has anywhere near a majority of the electorate. Gallup found that only about a third of voters identify with each party. (To be exact, in July Republicans had 30 percent and Democrats had 28 percent.) Independents make up a larger share (40 percent) of the electorate than either party. The exact figures fluctuate but except for the growth of independents there hasn’t been a material change to this mix in more than 20 years.
It has long been said that if either party made the decision to marginalize its fringe and make a play for the middle, that party would probably have a majority for a generation. Most partisans are going to stick with the party even if it becomes more moderate because they hate the other party more. There would be a net gain as the party picked up more unaligned voters from the middle than it lost from its fringe.
I wonder if Democrats under Kamala Harris have finally figured that out.
If you listen to the Republicans, you’ll hear that Kamala is a communist and the most radical candidate since ever. But this is what Republicans say about every Democrat from AOC to Kyrsten Sinema.
The truth is that Harris has embraced some radical positions. Back in 2020, Harris supported Medicare For All and was one of only three Democrats to oppose a Trump-era bipartisan compromise that would have funded a border wall in exchange for a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers. She also favored a ban on fracking and decriminalization of illegal border crossing among other policy stances.
Further truth is that Harris has reversed many of these positions. A few days ago Chris Cillizza posted a list of “nine areas in which Harris has shifted views or her current position is unknown.”
Last week, Kamala even reduced her proposed capital gains tax from Biden’s proposed 40-percent rate to 28 percent. The plan still only affects households with an annual income of $1 million or more.
Harris is predictably catching flak from both her own party and the Republicans for the changes. Progressives don’t like to see her moving to the center and Republicans don’t like to see her moving away from unpopular positions that are easy to attack. I think that both of these points of view miss the mark.
While there is some value in being consistent in your principles, rejecting bad or mistaken ideas that we used to hold is underrated. It’s dumb to hold onto a bad idea just because we have thought that way in the past. That doesn’t allow for learning and growth. A sign of maturity is being able to say, “I was wrong and I changed my mind.”
Kamala’s shift is a victory for conservatives and should be seen as such. The change in the Democratic platform represents moving the Overton window from the fringe progressive left back towards the center. This is a good thing.
Critics claim that Kamala’s rebranding as a centrist is a hoax. Maybe they are right. I’m skeptical of anything a politician tells me that I can’t personally verify.
But the important thing is that it doesn’t matter if it’s a hoax or not. Harris’s shift is a de facto admission that the American electorate is not progressive. If she is elected president, it will not have been on a platform of far-left radicalism that she then must try to implement but on far more modest and moderate goals. That’s also a good thing because it makes a post-election shift to the left more difficult.
Does Kamala believe in her new, centrist policies? I don’t know and I really don’t care. I doubt that most politicians really believe what they tell you they believe. I don’t believe that Donald Trump is pro-life, for example. Politicians tell you a story to get elected. Maybe that will be consistent with their actions after taking office and maybe it won’t.
What I do care about is how Kamala will govern. I don’t want her to enact hard-left policies, subvert the Constitution, and attack our national institutions. If she does implement some much-needed bipartisan legislation and helps to build a consensus to bridge the partisan divide, so much the better.
What’s to keep Harris from becoming “Kamala the Kammunist” after January 20, 2025? Self-preservation.
One thing that almost all politicians seem to care about more than anything else is getting re-elected. I think that Kamala may realize that President Biden erred in running as a moderate Not Trump and then pursuing (and mostly failing to implement) radical progressive policies.
If she has been watching, Harris may understand that in this closely divided nation, progressive Hail Mary wish lists are almost certain to fail. Any gains are going to be through running plays that pick up inches rather than deep passes straight into the end zone. And small gains that are popular with independents are more likely to result in Kamala’s re-election in 2028 than failed legislation that is popular with the left but scary to the center.
Consider that a president and a senator represent different constituents. As a California senator, Harris could be expected to embrace more left-wing policies than she might as president. California is simply more liberal than the country as a whole, but a president represents the entire country. If they don’t realize the difference, they won’t be successful.
Granted, Trump has also made attempts to move toward the center. However, Trump’s shift has been largely limited to abortion and Project 2025, and he has been inconsistent even on those points. A revolt from the pro-life faction of the GOP forced Trump back to the right and there is considerable overlap between the authors of Project 2025 and the Trump campaign.
A core difference between the parties is that MAGA seems to have a much stronger hold on the Republican Party than progressives have on the Democratic Party. This, and the fact that Democrats are united in the face of a potential second Trump presidency, makes it easier for Democratic candidates to move to the center.
We have seen this recently in other areas aside from the Democratic Party’s new Kamala-driven platform. Democratic primary voters fired two members of the progressive “Squad” and Bloomberg recently described how AOC, who survived her primary, “is getting too mainstream for her progressive base.” Hamas sympathizers were sidelined at the Democratic National Convention while the parents of an American hostage took center stage. (Sadly, the body of Hersh Goldberg-Polin was recovered last week.)
On the other side of the aisle, JD Vance is refusing to repudiate Tucker Carlson’s elevation of Nazi apologist on his internet show. Marjorie Taylor Greene and others have become more mainstream within the GOP without moderating their views.
The point here is that Democrats are taking steps to marginalize their radical wing. Republicans are elevating theirs.
I can hope that the Democratic movement is a long-term shift that is being brought about by the influx of former Republicans into the party. I predicted a long time ago that if the Republican Party exiled its moderates the result could very well be to move the Democrats back toward the center. Maybe that’s what we are seeing here. If that’s true then it helps that people like Harris aren’t hard-core ideologues but are pragmatic enough to accept the changing attitudes within the party.
Moderation is a good thing. And if both parties meet in the middle then we might actually get some good stuff done for the country. For instance, we might pass an immigration reform bill to secure the border if the election helps to marginalize the radicals who oppose any compromise.
Republicans have a tendency to label every Democrat as a radical socialist. Sometimes they are right, but often they are wrong. In two recent examples, John Fetterman and Kyrsten Sinema were both tagged with the socialist label and subsequently became Republican favorites when they bucked their party and stymied the progressive agenda.
I think they may be wrong about Kamala Harris as well. If I’m right and the Republican finger-pointers are wrong, it would be a very good thing for the country.
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