The Majority of Democrats Aren't Leftist or Centrist

On January 6, Don Trump, Jr. made the stakes perfectly clear for the Republican Party. 

Cringe pic.twitter.com/1Sf1AY8dtl

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 6, 2021

He was right. The GOP is now Donald Trump's Republican Party. Dissenters like Rep. Liz Cheney are denounced and demonized. The governor's race in my home state of Minnesota is a perfect example of how that's playing out. In a state that was once known for moderate Republican governors, not one of the five candidates running in the 2022 GOP primary was willing to denounce Trump's big lie about a stolen election. 

On the other hand, it has become almost impossible for journalists to talk about members of the Democratic Party without identifying where they stand on a bifurcated political spectrum. The two options go by various names, but are usually denoted by "progressive/moderate" or "leftist/centrist."

To the extent that Democrats like Sen. Joe Manchin and Rep. Josh Gottheimer have claimed the mantle of "moderate" or "centrist," with Senator Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez covering the "progressive" or "leftist" position, where does that leave a Democrat who:

• supports the Build Back Better Act,
• fights for voting rights, even if it means eliminating the filibuster,
• focuses on expanding Medicaid in states that haven't done so, 
• recognizes the need for criminal justice reform,
• prioritizes the need to address climate change by advocating for renewable energy sources, 
• rejects the notion of defunding the police because it creates a false choice at a moment when departments need to be reformed,
• advocates for common sense gun safety measures,
• champions the cause of both labor unions and entrepreneurs,
• supports border security and comprehensive immigration reform, and
• fights unapologetically for women's equality and reproductive rights?

Here's what's interesting about that list. They are the positions embraced by the vast majority of elected Democrats - including the president and vice-president. 

With such small majorities in both the House and Senate, Democrats who have different policy positions have the power to stop Democrats from advancing that agenda. They are the ones who garner attention from the media. So all we hear about is the dissension between the progressives and the moderates. 

Since we don't have a name for the majority of Democrats who embrace the list of policy positions above, they either become invisible or journalists struggle with where they fit on the left/center divide. As an example of the latter, take a look at a recent column by Astead Herndon titled, "Left and Center-Left Both Claim Stacey Abrams. Who's Right?" He refers to Abram's positioning as a "carefully calibrated strategy" that will be tested in her run for governor in 2022. 

Moderates and progressives sparred in Washington throughout 2021, frustrating a White House struggling to achieve consensus on its priorities and continuing an ideological debate that has raged in the party for years...[A] review of Ms. Abrams’s policy statements and television advertisements, and interviews with political figures who have known her for years, reveal a leader who has carefully calibrated her positions, making a point to avoid drifting into one Democratic lane or another.

The so-called "lane" Abrams inhabits is the same one embraced by a majority of elected Democrats - which is why so many of them wanted her help on the campaign trail in 2020. Herndon could write similar columns about two other Georgia politicians: Senators Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff. Neither of them align significantly with either Manchin or Sanders. Is that because they're making a calibrated effort to avoid the left or center lane? Or is it simply because they align with the majority of their party?

None of this is to suggest that there isn't dissension among Democrats. That happens because, unlike Republicans, they're not a cult and actually have a governing agenda. But conflict is what drives media coverage, so it is the dissenters that garner all of the attention. 

That presents a skewed portrait in which the majority of Democrats aren't even given a position on the bifurcated political continuum. If I had my way, we'd call them pragmatic progressives. The name, however, isn't important. We simply need a way to recognize the existence of the majority of Democrats.