WTF is a "Moderate" Anyway?

From time to time I hear people pining for reasonable "moderates", centrists, and bi-partisans to come together and solve the problems that our political parties won't.  These arguments are non-sensical, self-congratulatory, completely devoid of the political system we operate in, and in many ways...extreme.  There are many problems with the desire for "moderates", among them...

Moderates aren't that moderate

As mentioned in this piece by Ezra Klein, the policies moderates actually believe in aren't that moderate.  It's possible to be a "moderate" who believes in gay rights, supports internment camps for Muslims, wants universal health care, and wants to eliminate the IRS.  None of those policy positions are moderate, but by virtue of statistics, those voters would be considered moderates.

Even insofar as "moderates" exist in American politics, their positions are highly ideological, just not particularly partisan.  For example, there is a certain segment of both parties that embraces things like free-trade, education reform, entitlement reform, austerity, and exploitive immigration.  These are positions that are extremely neoliberal, corporatist, in many cases a divergence from the status quo, and not at all in the interest of most of the American people, but in the context of American politics "moderate".

Very few true independents exist

I'm registered as an independent and guess what?  99% of the time I vote for Democrats.  The only reason I'm not a Democrat is Vermont has an open primary so there isn't as much of a reason to affiliate myself formally with a party.  This isn't unusual either, most people who are registered as independents vote reliably for candidates of one party or the other.  The truly independent voter is completely unreliable and is nearly impossible for any candidate to form any kind of issue set around.

The "center" always moves according to who wins

The mystical center is a perpetually moving target.  On the outbreak of the Civil War, the center was pro-slavery or at least pro-not-doing-anything about slavery.  During the 1930's, the center was ambivalent to fascism.  During the 1950's the center was pro-segregation, rabidly anti-communist, and largely pro-New Deal.  In the early 1990's the center was pro-free-trade, pro-deregulation, and tough on crime.  In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the center was pro-intervention, pro-surveillance, and pro-low-taxes.  The point is, the center is always dragged one way or the other by the winners or by circumstances, but there is no discernable natural equilibrium in American politics.

The American political system was designed for two political parties

People often get nostalgic for the fantasy system of government that only exists in their minds.  The truth is politicians have always been ethically questionable, politics has always been bitterly contentious, partisan bickering has always existed, money has always influenced policy, and candidates have always been mean to each other.  Right now the system is arguably as open and democratic as it has ever been.  The system is just a poor design for the 21st century.

Our legislature is winner take all.  The majority gets to determine rules, move legislation forward for a vote, and form committees.  Parties get to determine who sits on committee, what legislative priorities are, fund candidates, and help with organization of campaigns.  The very structure of the system lends itself to two parties.  There is a reason third parties haven't lasted very long in American politics, they either fade away after a couple election cycles as the Reform Party did or they supplant an existing party as the Republican Party did in 1854 after the Whigs and Democratic-Republican parties dissolved.

A third party would likely lead to more dysfunction in government

It's awfully hard to imagine how a third party would improve the ability of congress to get anything done.  For example, if the Democratic party split into two roughly equal factions, how would they actually get anything on their agenda passed?  It seems like the only ones who benefit in that scenario are the Republicans and the same would apply if the Republicans split.  Perhaps if we had 10 political parties occupying congress then coalitions would be formed. I'm still not really sure how that would work in our system or how we'd even get there as a practical matter.

As for perhaps the most likely third-party scenario of a third-party president, what incentive would either party have in congress to work with him/her?

Many of the presidents widely considered "he best" weren't that moderate

• George Washington:  Embraced the radical idea of a rebellion against the biggest superpower of the day.
• Abraham Lincoln:  Fought a bloody civil war to preserve the union.  Later championed the abolition of slavery and the constitutionally questionable Emancipation Proclamation.  He was so radical that he was assassinated.
• Teddy Roosevelt:  Broke up giant monopolies and was a huge war monger.  Not moderate positions.
• Franklin Roosevelt:  By no stretch of the imagination was this man a moderate.  FDR was accused of being a socialist all the time and there were several coup plots against him.  He raised taxes dramatically, widely expanded the welfare state, attempted to pack the Supreme Court, and urged intervention against Germany at a time when the prospect of war was very unpopular.  He was so radical, a constitutional amendment was drafted and subsequently ratified to keep a president from serving for more than two terms.
• Ronald Reagan:  Ok I think Reagan was a terrible president, but he is still very popular with a giant swath of the population.  He most certainly was not a moderate.  Reagan kicked off his campaign by making a speech just miles from Philidelphia, Mississippi where three civil rights workers were murdered by saying "...I believe in states' rights and I believe in people doing as much as they can for themselves at the community level and at the private level..." Yes, states rights, in a place where people were murdered advocating for their rights against the state.  The implication is pretty obvious.  He helped usher in supply-side economics, a dramatic escalation in the cold war, escalation of the drug war, deregulation, and his administration illegally sold weapons to Iran.

While the above presidents were certainly not moderate, it's not to say that at times they weren't also pragmatic.  All of them made compromises achieving what they saw as a better outcome.  Even for what I believe is one of the best examples of a moderate president, Dwight Eisenhower, had many policies that would be considered radical today.  Ike expanded social security, was very anti-communist, enforced civil rights when it was considered a radical thing to do, and presided over a massive and expensive public works project in the interstate highway system.  Other "moderate" presidents could include Truman, Carter, Nixon, Clinton, and Obama, which again leads me to ask: "Moderates" WTF are you talking about?  Pardon me for suggesting that what you believe is moderate is exactly what you believe at this particular moment.

Don't hate the player, hate the game

Our system is awful, it is a truly bad design that when it has been tried in other countries has generally ended in a coup.  The problems arise because we have a bi-camel legislature, a popularly elected president, a judiciary, and state governments, all with their own level of legitimacy.  The only way that our government functions at all is through unwritten rules and tradition, weak parties, or a supermajority by one party.  Here's the problem with unwritten rules:  If they're unwritten then they aren't rules.

Parties aren't supposed to agree with each other, that's why they exist in the first place.  For years, the Democrats and Republicans had both liberals and conservatives in them which is the exception, not the rule among democracies.  For example, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed with both bipartisan support and bipartisan opposition.  Was the Civil Rights Act passed because of numerous moderates inhabiting our political parties?  No, it was passed because progressives existed in the Republican party who would later become Democrats and it was opposed by Southern Democrats who were only Democrats out of tradition, and would become Republicans a few years later.

The problem is that unlike many parliamentary systems where partisan gridlock merely means that nothing new gets done, in our system partisan gridlock may mean we don't even keep the government running at all.  We need a vote to simply pay the bills.

Change doesn't usually happen because everyone gets together and agrees on something.  Change happens because a critical mass of people and a vocal minority get together and drag everyone else along for the ride.  Change is contentious, disruptive, uncomfortable, and occasionally violent.  One thing is certain, change doesn't come because of "moderates".