As a European, I usually see Americans being on either the right or the left of the political aisle. How common are centrists in your country?

39 comments

1. Most people are in the middle.

2. Actually, most Americans are centrists. It’s just that the radicals from either end of the political spectrum make the most noise…and tend to vote.

3. According to Wikipedia in 2021 over 1/3 of voters identify as moderates. Approximately 1/3 of Democrats, 1/5 of Republicans, and 1/2 of Independents.

4. Pretty common.

5. “Centrists” or as I think of it, people who are not to one extreme or the other, or don’t have a particular ‘party’ that comes first in voting, are way more common than not.

6. That’s the key part YOU SEE Americans that way, because you don’t notice the millions upon millions of people that don’t really care and just go about their day to day life

7. I think our primary system and social media rewards extremism. At least it always looks that way because they are the most motivated.

8. We’re called the “exhausted majority” (in the middle). Social media and cable news only feed off the extremes.

9. Common. For every devoted liberal or conservative, there’s someone who occasionally votes for the other side, or isn’t officially affiliated with either party and votes in general elections how they please.

10. Honesty most people I know are center aisle. They just want people to do what’s best regardless of what anyone believes. Although the people I do know that are either right or left and extremely one or the other

11. Most are in the middle- but that doesn’t make for dynamic sound bites, or news clips. It’s one of the reasons campaigns are non-stop. They are alllllll courting the middle voter. Those are the people that decide elections, will absorb responses from debate, really compare candidates.

    Don’t waste campaign energy on people in the extremes of either side. You will never convince a hard line repub to ever vote for a dem. Nor a hard line dem to vote repub. And a news clip of a field with ‘meh’ people isn’t compelling.

12. Americans are pretty much all on the right. Even our mainstream “leftists” are right-wing.

13. Welp, true centrists are hard to come by. But right/ left leaning centrists makeup most. Hardly anyone is full on hard one political direction, they are also the vocal majority, which is unfortunate.

14. You see them all the times they decide elections. You have 40% left 40% right then 20% independent.

    You never hear from them cuz they are drowned out by the loudest members of the other two.

15. Extremely. They’ll usually lean one way or the other to a slight degree, but they’re not straight ticket voters and are basically always the bloc that decides elections.

16. Almost everyone I’ve ever talked politics with was center left or center right. The far left and far right are the loudest but they are a minority.

17. Idk to be honest but where I live it usally you’re one of the other (I myself am an independent) I believe in America and her people over some dumbass politics I vote with who is going to be the best for America and her citizens

18. More common than you’d think.

    This is apparently how Trump got a foothold … the media only ever goes after people with extreme views left or right for their ratings. Middle-of-the-road people were completely ignored, their concerns not heard. So many, which were previous Obama voters, got annoyed and voted for Trump.

19. We call them “Democrats”.

20. Terms like “middle” and “centrist” as well as “right” and “left” are actually very incoherent and in a major state of flux these days. But if “centrist” means someone who basically wants to preserve the tenets of post-Cold War liberalism, then Joe Biden is much more of a centrist than a leftist. So was Barack Obama. So is Mitt Romney. They’re not uncommon at all and they have a lot of political sway.

21. I think they’re more common than people realize, the problem is, centrists get shit from both sides for not being 100% for them, so they don’t speak up

22. Most people are in the middle but lean left or right. We have vocal minorities on both ends of our political spectrum.

23. There’s a lot of non-voters. They’re probably the most centrist out there.

    Outside of that, most voters have a general loyalty to one of the major parties. In highly charged elections like most Presidential elections are, or incredibly low profile elections where the candidates and offices aren’t well known, they’ll default to that loyalty.

    But there are situations in which a voter will split their ballot. Indiana’s Democratic candidates for US Senate and Governor almost always perform better than whoever the Dem POTUS candidate is, which means that some very loyal GOP POTUS voters are splitting their ballot.

24. There’s two things.

    First, our parties are big tent so even “centrists” can fall into one party or another. I consider myself a centrist and I vote exclusively for centrist Democrats. I’m probably not far off politically from people who vote exclusively for centrist Republicans. Both of us look partisan and extreme based on the fact that we vote for one party over another but we’re both relatively moderate in our actual views.

    Second, a lot of people are moderate across the board and generally satisfied with the status quo, but care deeply about a few things. Most people, for example, are satisfied with the current state of abortion and gun laws BUT some people want to end/expand abortion access and some people want to reduce/increase gun laws. Therefore it makes sense for someone to appeal to abortion voters and gun law voters by campaigning on both issues even though the abortion voters don’t really care about guns and the gun voters don’t really care about abortion. The candidate ends up looking extreme even if the voters themselves are mostly moderate.

25. Folks like us don’t like to talk politics, at least publicly, because extremists are kinda annoying. Any attempt to add nuance or give another perspective is seen as enemy behavior and means you’re advocating for the other side

26. I wouldn’t say that everyone is centrist necessarily, but I think most Americans are generally teetering between left and right like wtf is happening.

    There are very few people that are extreme left or right that are loud, excessive, and annoying all the way around, that get seen and heard more , so that’s the look from the outside.

27. My dad is a independent/centrist and so was I for the majority of my child/teenage years. I used to be a centrist till a side started being way more in that direction than I much liked them to be. It pains me, that the “centrist” position I took 6 years ago is now considered “far-_____” today. I still believe a common ground for politics in today’s America but for now, neither side’s helping.

28. The vast silent majority. I think the number is 60% of the population.

    You don’t hear from them often because the toxic left and right wings attack everyone, and politics just aren’t that important.

29. Centrists are extremely common. We are just quieter and don’t get media attention as a result.

30. Lmao America has a left?

    I thought it was all right? Like you charge people money to use ambulances….and people agree with this!

31. Most Americans are centrists, leaning a little bit one way or the other. The loudest, most visible folks on the opposite ends of the spectrum are really the minority

32. I’m a centrist. We’re rare.

    One reason is because one major party is opposed to most civil rights and the other is into “freedom,” so there aren’t many people who don’t affiliate.

33. Complicated question with a lot of good points raised here.

    “Where is the middle?” is a valid question that nobody will likely agree on. What’s moderate and reasonable to me might be blood-boiling extremism to somebody else. If you’re like me, you might hold beliefs on different topics that people on either side would label as extreme.

    To me, the bigger thing is that anger and fear motivate voters and sell commercial time. You’re not going to generate anger and fear by highlighting that we’re all more alike than we are different and we’d likely agree if we just talked reasonably.

    Gun control is a great example. Most people I know on the left own guns and are in favor of reasonable restrictions and closing loopholes. Most people I know on the right also own guns and agree that closing loopholes and mandated training is reasonable.

    But there’s a problem. What I just described doesn’t stoke anger or fear. People aren’t going to run out and vote or stay tuned through the commercial break if my point above is presented.

    Now let’s twist it up and say that evil baby-eating, sissy-pants, leftists want to confiscate your guns and kill your children. THAT works.

    Conversely, we can say that people on the right are heartlessly callous and don’t care about all the children and adults killed in senseless gun violence. Maybe throw in some buzzwords that would surely trigger an auto-mod on here. THAT works.

    Humans also have an ingrained tribal mentality that favors demonization of people outside our chosen group.

    To me, the problem seems pretty simple, but the tribalism makes a solution pretty tricky. Add the fact that lots of people make a ton of money keeping us angry and scared.

34. I don’t claim a party. They can all fudge off.

35. The left is intolerant to centrists because of their illogical “if you aren’t with us, you’re against us” attitude.

36. Lots of Americans like to pretend to be centrists and label themselves as middle of the road moderates and independents. Some people think describing themselves as such means they are above the fray and just want to have a good functional government. It’s all nonsense. Most people are not in the middle. It’s a lie we like to tell ourselves (and you’ll see in the comments here) for some reason. Most people fall on either the right or left of the political spectrum and most people vote for one party (Democrat or Republican) consistently, rarely switching between parties, which is what a true centrist would do. And don’t even get me started on the people who identify as socially liberal but fiscally conservative.

37. As a european, you should recognize that we dont have centrists. We have those on the right (Democrats) and those on the far-right (Republicans).

    The only centrists are basically AOC and Bernie Sanders, who are right on the center mark, which far-right republicans consider “far-left extremism” of course, to them, anything left of hunting the poor for sport is considered too far left.

38. Honestly, the entire American political system is actually very far right compared to most other developed nations.

    The right in the USA thinks the left is bordering on communism, while the reality is that the Democrats are comparatively fairly right-wing compared to most other governments.

    It’s an extremely polarized system, which is unfortunate.

39. I’d guess 60-80% of people are either centrists/moderate or apathetic (even if they’re registered to a party.) “Why can’t we all just be reasonable and talk to each other?” Doesn’t sell newspapers though.