Essential Reading in The New York Times
To beat authoritarianism, you need to win elections. Centrists do it best.
This past weekend, millions of Americans gathered in cities across the country to protest the Trump Administration. But in order to put up a real opposition to Trump, Democrats need to win. In the 2026 midterms, winning will require them to regain a House majority and win the popular vote by as many as 5 points, depending on redistricting.
The reality is that right now, Democrats lead on the generic ballot by only 1.5 points. At this point in the cycle in 2017, Democrats led by 9 points.
Beating authoritarianism requires a centrist approach as I discussed with Yair Zivan on The Depolarizers podcast. That means Democrats need to change their approach. And fast.
Along those lines, I was excited to see The New York Times Editorial Board today make the case that centrism is the antidote to authoritarianism:
The situation is different now. Anybody who views Mr. Trump as a threat to American values and the national interest, as this editorial board does, should be rooting for an opposition that can defeat him and his MAGA allies. Indeed, moving to the center would enable Democrats to confront him more aggressively and effectively because voters would see them as credible. To take one issue, most voters disapprove of Mr. Trump’s immigration policies — and nonetheless trust his party on the issue more than they trust Democrats. A more moderate Democratic Party would be better positioned to combat his outrageous violations of civil liberties.
The Times analyzed moderate House candidates, which they defined as candidates backed by WelcomePAC and our allies like the Blue Dogs and New Dems. They compared those moderate candidates to progressive candidates backed by groups like Justice Democrats. Their findings: Moderates over-performed.
In the Senate, the story is similar:
Senate candidates running on centrist messages often overperformed their party’s presidential nominees. This group includes the four Democrats who won states that Mr. Trump also won last year: Ms. Baldwin, Mr. Gallego, Ms. Rosen and Ms. Slotkin. It also includes Republicans like Ms. Collins, John Curtis in Utah and Larry Hogan, who lost a Senate election in Maryland but ran far ahead of other Republicans on the ballot.
The antidote to authoritarian right-wing extremism isn’t authoritarian left-wing extremism. It’s centrism. And as the Times piece emphasizes:
Ultimately, moderation is about respect. Politicians do not need to heed every bit of public opinion. They can sometimes attempt to forge a new consensus. But they cannot dismiss views held by most Americans as uninformed and insist that one day the ignorant masses will come around. When politicians try that, voters usually choose an alternative, even a destructive one. Today that destructive alternative has arrived. The antidote is a creative, re-energized political center.
We could not agree more.