The sham of American "centrism"

But what Schultz means by “centrist” is most definitely not what almost everyone else means when they report dissatisfaction with the two major parties. The vast majority of Americans who don’t fit into either party box aren’t neoliberals — they’re populists, the exact opposite of “socially liberal but fiscally conservative.”…

This is the “silent majority” that actually matters. But Schultz can’t see its members, because their worldview is so far away from the ambient neoliberalism that thrives among big-city cosmopolitans such as himself. Schultz is simply projecting, assuming that voters are dissatisfied with the two-party system for the same reasons he and his fellow elites are. But as Drutman’s research makes clear, there are two kinds of voters who can feel unrepresented by the major parties. The disposition that calls itself “centrist” tends to locate itself in the neoliberal quadrant — even though voters in the populist quadrant are far more numerous and just as underrepresented by the two-party system.