More in Common US

“There’s reason to think the constituency for this politics already exists. Its members are the people both transgressive poles have left behind: economically moderate but culturally traditional, socially liberal but wary of state power, pro-market but unwilling to abandon the vulnerable. They’re not centrists in the sense of splitting every difference. They’re cross-pressured voters whose combinations of views no longer fit neatly into either coalition. There are more of these people than our politics suggests. They appear smaller than they are because modern politics rewards intensity more than numbers. In low-turnout primaries and highly polarized environments, organized factions routinely defeat diffuse majorities. The result is a politics that systematically overrepresents the intense and underrepresents those whose primary desire is simply to get on with their lives. That’s the paradox at the centre of this coalition. The people who most want politics to occupy a smaller place in life are the least inclined to organize their identities around it.”