Moderates: Who Are They, and What Do They Want?

[xchrom]

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/05/moderates-who-are-they-and-what-do-they-want/370904/

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It often seems there's no center in American politics anymore. Increasingly polarized camps on the right and left hold diametrically opposed, irreconcilable views on seemingly every issue.

And yet more than a third of American voters call themselves neither liberal or conservative but moderate, indicating a substantial chunk of dissenters from the left-right paradigm. Are they just confused? Are they closet ideologues with strongly partisan opinions but a distaste for labels? Are they politically disconnected? What, in short, is their deal?

The folks at Third Way, a Democratic think tank that urges moderate positions, decided to find out. They commissioned a poll of 1,500 American registered voters, asking detailed questions about a variety of issues to find out whether those who called themselves moderate were a distinct group and what sets them apart. The Democratic pollster Peter Brodnitz of the Benenson Strategy Group conducted the inaugural "State of the Center" poll last month; it carries an overall margin of error of 2.5 percentage points in either direction.

What the poll found is fascinating. Moderates, according to the poll, aren't tuned-out or ill-informed, but they tend to see both sides of complex issues—for example, they want the government to do more to help the economy, but they worry that it may be ineffective or counterproductive. They see both parties as overly ideological and wish politicians would compromise more. A plurality are Democrats, but they see themselves as slightly right-of-center ideologically, and one-third say they vote equally for Democrats and Republicans. And they are surprisingly young and diverse: Self-described moderates represent a 44 percent plurality of Hispanic and nonwhite voters and a 42 percent plurality of the Millennial generation.

[KG]

1. what do they want? gradual change. when do they want it? in due course...

[brooklynite]

15. Indeed we do...

...because sometime, demanding everything immediately gets you nothing. Better to achieve gradual progress and keep moving the goal posts, than to keep slamming into a brick wall.

[TransitJohn]

2. They're Reagan Democrats, otherwise known as Republicans. eom

n/t

[riqster]

3. People who prefer incremental change over violent revolution.

[m-lekktor]

4. yeah because violent revolution is the only option to the left of centrism.

i will keep my opinion on this topic to myself while i am still a low post count member lol! peace to you, riqster!

[riqster]

6. Moderates and centrists are not synonymous.

One is an approach, and the other a political philosophy.

And you are right, my definition was overly a simplistic.

[Bok_Tukalo]

5. Can't answer for all moderates but for myself, pragmatism instead of ideology

Although pragmatism is an ideology too .....

Let me think about this some more.

[JHB]

7. Direct link to the poll report

http://www.thirdway.org/publications/819

[MineralMan]

8. Moderates are the center.

Neither party can count on the moderates to vote reliably for that party's candidates. That one-third of voters actually do vote, most of the time, and they actually decide most elections.

I'm not a moderate, but I know a lot of moderates. I talk to them during GOTV efforts, and work hard to convince them to vote for Democrats, using actual information about candidates and their positions. Moderates will listen to what I have to say and, if I'm knowledgeable and can address their specific concerns on specific issues, they will vote for the candidate I'm supporting.

Moderates are suspicious of extreme positions on either side of any question. They don't like teabaggers and they don't much like people they think of as leftists. They want their lives to continue without interruption and without hassle. They're often concerned about issues but often also believe that those issues will not be resolved through elections, but will only be resolved over time.

Moderates are in no way revolutionaries. They're often pretty well-informed about issues and are pretty sure to go to the polls and vote, although their votes can't be counted on by either party. A lot of them read the local newspaper and watch the evening news, usually on one of the three major, long-lived networks. They have a good idea of what's going on, but try not to stress too much about it.

Their concerns are many, though, and are both economic and social in nature. When an issue is current, they tend to see it as important, but pay attention to both sides of the situation. In Minnesota, for example, medical marijuana is a current issue. Moderates tend to think it should be allowed, but worry about their kids smoking it more if it's not controlled well. Minnesota is a state full of moderates. In 2010, they elected a Republican majority in both houses of the state legislature. In 2012, they elected a Democratic majority after the Republicans went over the top on things like marriage equality, voting rights, and other issues. The moderates decided both elections, because they showed up and voted, as they do in most elections.

Moderates should never be ignored, because they often end up deciding who wins elections. Instead, they should be talked to by GOTV activists who are armed with accurate information about candidates and who can show the moderates that their individual interests will be best served by the Democratic candidates. If you ask them what their individual issues are, they will tell you. Then, it's up to you to help them understand where the candidates you support stand. They will listen. They will go to the polls, reliably, and they will vote as they see fit. It's up to us to help them decide to vote for the candidates we support.

Moderates tend to take a long view of most important issues, but look at both positive and negative aspects of most positions.

Moderates think. Moderates listen. Moderates vote. If you're involved with GOTV activism, you can get them to vote your way if you're informed and articulate.

[Fumesucker]

10. Then I submit that when one party is clearly crazy moderates are half crazy

Most people who call themselves moderates don't even know which party controls either the House or the Senate or what the difference is in their powers, they don't know who their Representative is and they don't know who their Senators are.

Most Americans don't know those things and if you're wishy-washy enough to fall for Republicans half the time you're either stupid or not paying attention or deliberately voting against your own self interest or all three. Mostly I think it's not paying attention but cutting through the squid-cloud of stupid thrown up by the M$M is ridiculously hard. You have to un-learn people a bunch of stuff before you can even start trying to talk to them reasonably.

It's not what you don't know that will hurt you so much, it's what you know that isn't so.

"That gun's not loaded" BOOM!

THUMP.

[MineralMan]

11. I think you underestimate moderates.

They're better informed than you might think, and actually think before voting. That's why elections tend to swing back and forth between the two major political parties. Moderates vote and they vote based on whatever information they have. They cannot be relied upon to do anything but vote. How they vote depends on what information they have and how it is presented.

GOTV efforts should focus strongly on this group, frankly. They will vote, but how they will vote is unpredictable. It's up to us to convince them that voting for Democrats is a good idea.

Are they wishy-washy? Yes. Does that matter? Yes. If we ignore the moderates, we can be sure that the other side is not ignoring them.

[Fumesucker]

12. Swinging back and forth between head trauma level crazy and not-crazy doesn't seem smart to me

It takes genuine effort to find out even a small portion of what you need to know to be an informed voter.

Again, the M$M lies constantly both by commission and by omission about practically everything you can think of, if people are getting their "news" from the M$M without filtering and critique they are sadly misinformed indeed.

[MineralMan]

14. The thing is that it's our responsibility to inform them.

That's what we need to be doing, in my opinion. They're going to vote. I want to convince them to vote for Democrats.

I don't start by maligning them. They are who they are. I start there.

You will do as you please, of course. I'm about winning elections, and moderates vote. I deal only with situational realities and outcomes. We have the system we have, and it's not likely to change anytime soon. So, that's what I have to work with.

[Fumesucker]

16. I talk to people quite a bit..

Trying to let them know the gun actually is loaded so to speak.

A difficult message to get across when the M$M says it's fine to go ahead and floss your teeth with your Smith & Wesson metaphorically speaking.

Trying to unlearn people is harder than trying to educate them in the first place.

[MineralMan]

20. Either way, if the goal is to win elections, our job is

to get moderates to vote our way. And winning elections is always my goal. I'm all about outcomes, since I've seen how things change when outcomes go the other way. We need less of that and more of the right outcomes. Revolutionary changes take decades to happen, it seems.

[Fumesucker]

9. "Liberal" has been demonized by both parties and "Conservative" is demonizing itself as we sit here

Of course a lot of people don't want to take either label.

[frazzled]

13. I think these labels are stupid and counterproductive

As we can see from DU itself, those of us who self-identify as "liberal" or "progressive" have wildly differing opinions on any number of topics. I have a feeling the same might be said of people who self-identify as conservative. That would leave the "moderates" just about as diverse and inconsistent as the extremes.

Several things are at play here:

(1) Americans don't tend to have a consistent political philosophy, if they have a philosophy at all.

(2) The way people vote often--most often--has almost nothing to do with how they feel about specific policy or ideological issues. For instance, the vast number of Americans believe abortion should be legal to some degree. Yet large numbers of these people will still vote for Republicans who espouse the abolition of Roe v. Wade.

I urge you all to read this fascinating New Yorker article from back in 2004 by Louis Menand: "The Unpolitical Animal: How Political Science Understands Voters: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/08/30/040830crat_atlarge?currentPage=all

In it, you will find that people don't vote rationally at all. They don't necessarily vote for the people whose policy views are consistent with their own views on individual policies. And this has been consistent for a long time:

The data were interpreted most powerfully by the political scientist Philip Converse, in an article on “The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics,” published in 1964. Forty years later, Converse’s conclusions are still the bones at which the science of voting behavior picks.

Converse claimed that only around ten per cent of the public has what can be called, even generously, a political belief system. He named these people “ideologues,” by which he meant not that they are fanatics but that they have a reasonable grasp of “what goes with what”—of how a set of opinions adds up to a coherent political philosophy. Non-ideologues may use terms like “liberal” and “conservative,” but Converse thought that they basically don’t know what they’re talking about, and that their beliefs are characterized by what he termed a lack of “constraint”: they can’t see how one opinion (that taxes should be lower, for example) logically ought to rule out other opinions (such as the belief that there should be more government programs). About forty-two per cent of voters, according to Converse’s interpretation of surveys of the 1956 electorate, vote on the basis not of ideology but of perceived self-interest. The rest form political preferences either from their sense of whether times are good or bad (about twenty-five per cent) or from factors that have no discernible “issue content” whatever. Converse put twenty-two per cent of the electorate in this last category. In other words, about twice as many people have no political views as have a coherent political belief system.

More studies cited in this article will knock your socks off ... and definitely put to the lie any conclusions that one might attempt to draw from polls like the one cited in the OP. Please read it and let me know what you think.

[woo me with science]

17. They are not "moderates." There is nothing moderate about what is being done to this country.

They use that word to court actual moderates by pretending that's what they are, but this is no centrist movement. This is a top-down infiltration of our party, bankrolled by the right-wing, corporate one percent.

Indefinite detention, "kill lists" and drone wars, spy centers and mass surveillance targeting Americans, assaults on journalists and whistleblowers, propaganda and smear machines, internet IDs and handing the internet to corporations, military drones in American skies, coordinated violent crackdowns against peaceful protesters, strip searches for any arrestee, bailouts and settlements for corrupt banks, corporate education and energy policy, and austerity budgets in an economy that has already impoverished its middle class.....

These are not moderate or centrist positions. Not by a long shot. They are extreme corporatist, neocon, and police state policies, not "centrist" or moderate at all.

The relevant battle is between the 99 percent and corporatists in both parties pushing the extension and expansion of all these policies we loathed under Bush.

[Throd]

18. I'm a flaming moderate.

I have been criticized from people on both the left and right as:

1. Too stupid/ignorant to have an opinion.

2. Too spineless and just wants everyone to like me.

3. An elitist who likes to think he "is above it all".

And about 100 other negative things.

[octoberlib]

19. 'They vote equally for Democrats and Republicans'

Anybody who can vote for the racist, misogynistic, homophobic Republican party is not a Democrat.

[JEB]

21. There is a time for moderation, but not now.

Some cling to moderation as one of the last vestiges of our fading humanity. The opposition does not value moderation. They rightly see it as weakness.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

22. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice. Thomas Paine

"Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost." John Quincy Adams

[MisterP]

23. we all know the RW's "extreme" stances--but what are the left's supposed ones?

Sanders' return to a rough pre-neoliberal economics but with post-developmentalist insights thrown in? gay marriage? not attacking countries? the gun control, green energy, HSR, cheaper school, taxation on the rich, Medicare Plan E, reasonable tariffs, regulation, marijuana, torture prosecution, good pay, and an end to spying that 70-90% of the country consistently wants (or is "more than okay" with) but gets kiboshed at every level by corpos and a dysfunctional legislative system that denies it's dysfunctional?

what's the "other extreme" they're always saying they're "charting a middle course between"?

sometimes they lamely use "extreme left" for "wholeheartedly and vitriolically for whatever the Dems want"--which ain't left! (even if some "launder" or "bluewash" conservative (typically economic) policies by pointing to leftish (typically social) policies)