The center cannot hold

It’s possible, Sides argues, to “drill down, down, down, down and identify a group of swing voters. But how big is that group really, and is that group a swing group in a chronic sense? Probably not.”…

There are at least two scenarios that could result in a reduction of polarization. The first is that if presidential losses pile up, the business wing of the Republican Party will try harder to marginalize the Tea Party wing and move the party back towards the middle.

The other, and far less likely, scenario is that the economically disadvantaged wing of the Democratic Party — the downstairs in the Democrats’ upstairs-downstairs coalition — gains ascendance, forcing relatively affluent social liberals, fearful of higher taxes, into the arms of Republicans and shifting the balance of power back towards the historic center.

The lack of real moderates means that the most likely course of events is a continuation of partisan confrontation, with Republicans holding their own in off-year elections and Democrats maintaining a fragile edge in presidential contests. The vestigial idea of a center up for grabs will continue to play a marginal role in legislative calculations and campaign strategies, but the dream of a moderate revolt against the parties will remain out of reach, exposed as an illusion.