Looking for the Political Middle in 2024

Most people would agree that today’s news media are polarized, leaning either toward extreme progressive or extreme conservative positions. It seems pretty believable that financially-vulnerable, online media operators might seek clicks at the expense of moderate, fact-based coverage, especially when you realize that moderate, fact-based coverage could produce news that would be similar to competitors, and, possibly, boring.

It is commonly stated that American voters are polarized, however we have argued that most Americans actually prefer positions in the political middle. This is supported by the work of a Stanford researcher Morris Fiorina who cited many opinion surveys as well as the fact that an increasing number of Americans describe themselves as “independent” from either political party.

It makes total sense that news media would be more extreme than the average person who has little to gain from taking extreme positions. My own experience is that most of my friends are non-violent, reasonable, and moderate … very different from the strident extremists we see and hear on our screens.

If you are still with me on this, here is a further observation that fits with the things I have been saying. These days, if a person appears in public life and takes a moderate position, s/he is often attacked by the media as being extreme.

How could that be? It’s simple. An extreme leftist is likely to see a moderate person as being “far right”, while an extreme right person can easily see a moderate person as “far left”.

When I was a kid, many Democrats saw Ike (Dwight Eisenhower) as a conservative, while the John Birch Society saw Ike as a “pinko” who consorted with Communists. Since it is easier to be objective about the past, I think many people would accept Ike as being a great example of a guy who was usually in the political middle. In 1952, both parties wanted to nominate him as their candidate, because he was very popular, and had never belonged to either party.

Since things are in a kind of mess today, let’s return to the present gradually by making a second stop in time, when another moderate guy was running for President. It is easy to forget that, with Clinton and Bush as candidates of the two major parties, Ross Perot was leading in the polls in June 1992 with 39% of the vote.

Suddenly, in July 1992, Perot withdrew from the Presidential race citing threats against his daughter related to his candidacy. Due to his erratic moves, Perot’s popularity took a hit, but he later resumed his candidacy, bested Clinton and Bush in televised debates, and received 19% of the popular vote. It is easy to imagine he would have polled nearer to the 40% he commanded in June, had he not withdrawn in the middle of the campaign.

To further Perot’s bond fides as a moderate, according to surveys, 20% of his support came from self-described “liberals”, 27% from self-described “conservatives”, and 53% from self-described “moderates”. In another stunning analysis, when asked for whom they would have voted had Perot not run, 38% said Clinton, and 38% said Bush.

If one recalls, Perot’s campaign organization was called United We Stand America, and he took the position of an outsider who demonstrated competence as a leader in business who could get results, in contrast to his political opponents who could talk big and get elected, but were unable to balance a budget or get anything done. Perot’s position resonates today as we watch career politicians describing big problems they will address if elected, but, which, somehow, never get solved.

Returning to the present, if there is a person in the public eye who is reminiscent of Ross Perot, that person would be Elon Musk, also a centrist, who has been a registered Democrat, and says he voted successively for Bush, Obama, Clinton, and Biden. Like Perot, Musk routinely criticizes politicians for financial bungling and not getting things done. As a businessman myself, my guess would be that most businessmen see most politicians as financial bunglers who can’t get things done.

Musk has been quoted as saying: “My preference for the 2024 presidency is someone sensible and centrist. I had hoped that would be the case for the Biden administration, but have been disappointed so far.” Subsequently, Musk has stated on multiple occasions that he would support Ron DeSantis, should he be a candidate in 2024.

So, here is a good question. Why does Elon Musk see Ron DeSantis as “sensible and centrist” when legacy, corporate media exemplified by the NY Times, and including The New Republic, Vanity Fair, and The LA Times say that DeSantis is “worse than Trump”.

Here comes my punch line. Are you ready? Because the legacy media are pretty extreme left-wing and DeSantis is in the middle, they see him as extreme right wing.

Musk, a moderate with no particular political agenda, sees DeSantis for what he is … “sensible and centrist”. This is just a theory, but I do believe that Musk, like Perot, or any business man, would be attracted to a politician who has a track record of actually getting things done. This is borne out by the content of anti-DeSantis editorials, which essentially say that DeSantis is worse than Trump, because DeSantis is competent and gets things done, while Trump is not so bad, because he is disorganized and incompetent.

I don’t think I have presented enough evidence to convince a reader whether Ron DeSantis is actually a moderate – “sensible and centrist” – as Elon Musk and I believe. My suggestion is that you read all (or part) of the DeSantis book, The Courage to be Free, and decide for yourself. My personal take is that this book is pretty consistent with DeSantis public speeches, and every word was probably written by DeSantis himself. (He did go to Harvard and Yale.)

Please do not decide whether DeSantis is moderate, sensible, good, bad, or “worse than Trump” based on what you read, see, or hear from the legacy media. Just read some of his damn book.

Categories: Commentary, Culture, Politics