How Things Are Going

Assignment: Gabe Fleisher, “Could There Be a Third Party for Moderates?” Wake Up to Politics (June 17, 2026); John Inazu, “Why ‘Moderate’ and ‘Centrist’ Are Usually the Wrong Labels,” Some Assembly Required (October 21, 2022)

If many Americans are less ideologically extreme than the loudest voices in public life, then why does our politics so often feel trapped between two hardened camps? Could a moderate third party close the gap between public opinion, party incentives, institutional structures, media narratives, and the lived experience of political exhaustion. Is considering a third party a useful thought experiment to consider why so many Americans feel politically homeless even when they may share more common ground than they assume? What if it’s not politically viable?

Today’s class turns from our individual perspectives and disagreements to the broader civic environment in which our disagreements take shape. Is moderation is a substantive political position, a temperament, a branding strategy, or a form of avoidance? We will also consider whether the problem is polarization among citizens, polarization among elites, the design of political institutions, or the habits of attention created by media and technology. Another question is whether learning to disagree as individuals even matters in a political culture that often rewards outrage, certainty, and factional loyalty more than judgment, coalition-building, or institutional repair.