Centrism Is Always a Performance of Political Narcissism

Centrism is a dance, and it always serves rightwing politics

What Centrism Actually Is

Centrists. There’s an arrogance that goes with centrism that has to be addressed. Centrists always tend to show up as if they know what’s best — perfect center — no matter what. They like to make a lot of assumptions about your stance, and others. And they like to announce they are centrists too.

Centrists usually show up and act like everyone who isn’t them are on equal extremes. They act like, for example, the political left and the political right are the same equal things, as if they are looking at it as if all things exist on an equally-distanced binary where they can count equal footsteps to each.

Centrists look at your political positions without comprehension of power differences, intentions, and other aspects of sociology, economics, etc.

People who state they are centrists are annoying, and I never placed a finger on why until now.

A Dance

Each time someone tells me they are a centrist, I’ll tell them that their position isn’t a real position, and their position is a dance. A performance.

Centrism isn’t a true political stance; it’s a performance. A dance.

Let me explain.

First and foremost, if one were to prioritize equal-centered positioning between two points on the political spectrum, true political values fall by the wayside. You cannot say you hold particular political values dear if you value your perfectly centered position over actual values.

One of the hardest things for a centrist to answer is what do they believe.

If you champion your centered position over political causes, especially other people’s beliefs, then you believe in nothing. You believe in your placement and argue from your spectrum placement only. This is why centrists typically argue for everyone to meet at the center, regardless of what that entails, versus actually taking a political position on something. They argue to meet at the center, without any understanding of what’s found at that center, or what that center is.

The flaw in this is that there are things that are actually right or wrong, just and unjust. There are times when the center is wrong and categorically stupid.

The center is not the answer; justice is.

The Real Reason Centrism Don’t Look Right

The biggest issue with centrism is the fact that if you are a die-hard centrist, and that an equal-distanced position on a political spectrum is that important, then you have to chase a side in order to keep that equal-center distancing between two points. Check figure (a) above.

In figure (a1), you have your center placed in that ever-so-important center between two political binaries, left and right, respectively. In (a2), the political right runs further to the right, becoming the extreme rightwing. At (a3), the centrist must shift to the right in order to uphold that equal center positioning, because that’s ever-so fucking important. Finally, at (a4), the centrist is now where the political right once was.

Centrists in America, are essentially soft rightwing politics. They talk and act like it. Centrists are our passive-aggressive political right.

The Truth of Clinton Era Politics

In this example graphic I’ve constructed above, I characterized the political right as the ones who took a sprint to the far right edge, the far rightwing, to the extreme right. Sure, in the last ten years this looks accurate, but this is not exactly true.

Let me explain.

What if I told you it was a few, or many, from the left who run towards the right? What if I told you that theoretically, this act by folk on the political left forced the political right to shift further to the right?

This is the story of Clinton — Bill Clinton. He was president of the United States in the 1990s, of the party of the American political left (Democrats), and his social politics relied mostly on emulating the behaviors of those on the right (Republicans). This is because Republicans ran America in the decade prior. Figure (b) illustrates what really happened.

Long story short: during the Clinton era, Clinton’s politics shifted the Democrats towards the center. Center-right (b2). This, in theory, forced the right-wing oriented political party, the Republicans, further to the right. In theory, the Republicans, GOP for short, might have felt that they need to shift farther right just to have a political identity different from Democrats. The two American political parties cannot occupy the same space.

Whether you agree with the theory, it doesn’t matter because the material effect of this shift actually happened.

When people talk about Clinton and Biden with their racist policies? They are talking about that shift to the right where Clinton-era Democrats figured that they had to emulate the worst policies of Republicans in order to win elections.

Still, look where centrism lands. Did you think the “centrist” is going to stand still? And become the new left?

Centrism always serves the political right.

Conclusion

There is always a measure of arrogance with centrism because in playing a middle ground, one often presumes they are the best of both worlds. The problem with this reasoning is the fact that it exists on a binary, and sometimes there’s more than two choices, more than just two ideas. The centrist would then assume there’s only a binary — a dichotomy — when there isn’t one.

Another point of arrogant stupidity is when the centrist assumes your position, assumes where your information comes from, or assumes who you voted for. Centrists always assume you don’t know something, as if you don’t study “the other side”. Centrists will often assume your political party, when in many cases you might not even have one (because they think in binaries).

In the end, in America there’s the stat quo, which is dishonest, unbalanced, and unjust. Then there’s progress, which fights for equality, equity, honesty, and justice. The centrist exists in the realm of the stat quo, therefore, the centrist exists to protect conservatism. The centrist is the conservative’s vanguard.

“First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action;” who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a “more convenient season.”

Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.” ~ Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from a Birmingham Jail, 1963

If you find the centrist annoying, it’s probably because they have been vexing civil rights politics for a very long time. Martin Luther King, peace be upon him, has spoken on the centrist at great length, calling them “the moderate”.

The centrist is certainly more devoted to order than justice.

The centrist prefers negative peace — compliance — over positive peace, which is the presence of justice and harmony.

The centrist often tone-police the progressive justice seeker, “agreeing with the goal”, but never agreeing on the method, or the time and place.

When the method they prefer is used, they also ignore it.

The centrist equates the defensive posture of protecting one’s self to an act of offensive violence.

The centrist is allergic to specificity when it comes to the language of civil rights protest, often arguing to speak without an eye on the issue.

The centrist will argue, what about the veterans? When it has nothing to do with the veteran.

The centrist, doesn’t know how to be an asset on the field.

The centrist, is the moderate.

The centrist is also a coward.

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