What would you consider to be a good “middle-ground” political party?

29 comments

1. I’ll let you know if one ever exists.

2. Honestly? A sane iteration of the libertarian party. (I am not a Libertaria and probably would not vote for what I’m laying out, I just think this is the most likely possibility.)

   Civil liberties, replacing a lot of welfare with UBI, and a non-interventionist foreign policy. Its a platform that would speak to many people IMO, and wouldn’t really push anyone’s buttons.

3. You could just do what i do, vote for the individual that lines up the most with your most important issues. I think the dogmatic followings for democrat/republican is the root of a lot our issues today.

   Websites like this help

   https://www.ballotready.org/

4. Log Cabin Republicans after they got removed from the GOP.

5. Democrats in the United States.

6. Andrew Yang and the [forward party.](https://www.forwardparty.com)

   Their slogan is “Not left, not right, forward”

7. A healthy selection of political parties in the US would likely require wider adoption of alternate approaches, like ranked choice voting, that encourage moderate candidates. Arizona has RCV; you could take a look at [what is developing there](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/25/arizona-third-parties-2024-elections).

8. I had some hope for the New Whig Party. It seems to have curled up and died.

9. The Rent is too Damn High Party

10. Just remain neutral & vote for people not based on labels but what they stand for that’s closest to your beliefs. I try voting for the most neutral options or the one that helps people the most.

11. The middle ground between the right and the far-right would be…the far right.

    No thank you.

12. Democrats are the closest we have, but I wouldn’t call that “good”.

13. The Democratic Party is the middle-ground in American politics.

14. The average Democrat is hardly “left,” and the average Republican is a right wing extremist, so, the Democrats are a centrist option. Our problem is not that we have two extreme parties. Our problem is we have one extreme party.

15. A good start would be a socially liberal, fiscally Conservative Party.

    Essentially libertarian-lite.

    Otherwise, whatever Biden is.

16. There simply isn’t one in the US. At least not a significant one.

17. There isn’t.

    The two big parties are so successful and so ideologically broad that they suck up all the political energy in the country. Practically any aspiring candidate who can actually play well with others and get stuff done will join the Democrats or Republicans. Consequently the small parties may have high ideological purity, but they’ll lack governing ability. Usually their party conventions are entertaining though.

    The good news is that there are usually moderate candidates in the big parties. The bad news is voting for a moderate to some degree also empowers their same-party extremists.

18. Moderate Democrats

19. I can give some examples in Europe, but bear in mind that comparing left-right between different countries with different political histories can be an apples-oranges situation.

    In Dutch-speaking Belgium, Open VLD is center left, CD&V is center-right.

    The Liberal Democrats in the UK appear center left.

    FDP in Germany is center right.

    VVD in the Netherlands is pretty dead-center

    Venstre and the Moderates seem to be just on opposite sides of the middle in Denmark.

20. I hope for some kind of stink that causes people to clamor for an in-between party. A party that eschews the extremes of both sides: eg, we believe in regulation, but recognize it can get out of control; we believe taxes should be as low as possible but allowing a strong safety net; we believe people are more important than the kangaroo mole rat but acknowledge that if we don’t all work together to protect the environment we’re screwed.

    Our biggest problem is that the primaries are dominated by the most doctrinaire among us. Get away from those people and common sense can gain some traction.

21. Honestly, the Democrats… their policies are pretty sane/even handed, look to lift people up and make lives better vs. the GOP that’s trying to ban anything that isn’t white, straight, Christian. Sure, there are fanatics in both parties, but one side is pushing for things like free college and healthcare while the other is ranting about Jewish space lasers and pizza fetish dungeons.

22. I know this is a naive and unrealistic thing to say but I would be curious to see a party that is dedicated not to pre-existing ideology (which is often cast in stone and unresponsive to voters) but instead to following opinion polls. Base the entire platform on analyzing many opinion polls on many different topics and advocating to implement anything with more than a 55/45 split.

    Obviously this would have drawbacks and problems involved. But at the moment we exist in a crazy system where only the most ideologically committed voters get to set the terms of everything because they’re the only ones who reliably vote in most elections.

23. We don’t need parties to tell us who to vote for. None of the party positions have much to do with their actual policies anyway.

24. None until campaign finance laws are improved to reign in election spending and dark money in politics is solved. Which begs the question what to do when the two parties stop responding to the will of the people.

25. Doesn’t exist these days.

26. I tend to vote for the libertarian party in local elections since they align more with my political views and local elections are easier for a third party candidate to win, at a national level unfortunately it’s not an option since certain opinions I have are not respected by one party so voting for the other is a necessary evil even if I don’t align with them on every issue, damned if you do damned if you don’t.

27. In my experience, there’s actually about 3 or 4 political groups that make up each of the 2 dominant political parties in the US. There are democrats who are genuine communists and there are democrats that are socially liberal but favor more financially conservative approaches. The same is true for Republicans as well.

28. America is a right leaning nation. Our government killed/exiled people who would be on the left. While there are honest to god leftists in our country they have no power anywhere.

    Because politics changes the “middle ground” changes as well. Current middle ground is pretty far right in America.

29. * Explicitly pro markets, but with some support for regulations and a minimal social safety net.
    * For border enforcement and reasonable caps on immigration numbers, but also streamlining immigration procedures and a guest worker program.
    * In favor of economic support for rural communities and investment in rural infrastructure, agriculture, and hospitals.
    * In favor of a progressive tax structure, but with a top marginal rate well below historical highs.
    * In favor of market-based climate solutions like a carbon tax, or tax incentives for consumer electrification (of cars, appliances, etc).
    * Support for universal health coverage, but without eliminating the private healthcare industry or private health insurance industry.

    tl;dr: The Democratic Party.