Radical centrism

Based on Wikipedia: Radical centrism

The Political Philosophy Nobody Wants to Claim

Here's a curious thing about American politics: roughly forty percent of voters now identify as independent. Not Democrat. Not Republican. Just... somewhere else. And yet there's no major political movement that speaks to them—no party, no coherent ideology, no intellectual home.

Or is there?

Radical centrism is one of those ideas that sounds like a contradiction. How can you be radical and centrist at the same time? Isn't the center, by definition, the place where nothing much happens—where bold ideas go to die in committee, watered down until everyone can tolerate them?

Not according to its proponents. The "radical" in radical centrism doesn't mean extreme. It means willing to tear things up by the roots—the Latin word "radix" means root—and rebuild institutions from the ground up. The "center" doesn't mean splitting the difference between left and right. It means refusing to let either side own the solutions.

John F. Kennedy once called for "idealism without illusions." That phrase became something of a rallying cry for radical centrists, capturing their peculiar combination of ambitious goals and hardheaded realism about how change actually happens.

What Radical Centrists Actually Believe

If you corner a radical centrist and ask what they stand for, you'll likely hear something like this: Markets work, but they need referees. Government can solve problems, but it often creates new ones. The left has important insights about inequality and justice. The right has important insights about markets and personal responsibility. Neither side has a monopoly on good ideas, and neither side should have a monopoly on power.

This might sound like mushy compromise. It's not meant to be.

The journalist Joe Klein, writing in Newsweek in 1995, described radical centrists as angrier and more frustrated than conventional Democrats or Republicans. They weren't looking for the comfortable middle ground. They were looking for ideas that actually worked, regardless of which team proposed them.

Klein identified four things radical centrists agreed on: getting money out of politics, balancing the budget, restoring civility to public discourse, and figuring out how to make government actually function. Twenty-five years later, you could probably add climate change and healthcare to that list, though radical centrists would approach both through market mechanisms rather than pure government programs.

The Intellectual Family Tree

Where do these ideas come from? The philosophical roots run surprisingly deep.

Consider Aristotle's concept of the mean—the idea that virtue lies between extremes. Courage sits between cowardice and recklessness. Generosity sits between stinginess and wastefulness. The best path forward isn't always the most dramatic one.

Or consider Confucius and the concept of "ren," sometimes translated as benevolence or humaneness. It's the idea that good governance comes from balanced relationships and mutual respect, not from ideological purity.

The Renaissance humanists Erasmus and Montaigne both distrusted zealotry and valued practical wisdom over theoretical perfection. The American pragmatists William James and John Dewey argued that truth should be measured by consequences—by what works—rather than by adherence to abstract principles.

But radical centrism isn't just philosophy. It has political ancestors too.

In Britain, Nick Clegg—who led the Liberal Democrats and served as Deputy Prime Minister from 2010 to 2015—traced his political lineage through John Stuart Mill, the great philosopher of liberty; David Lloyd George, who built Britain's early welfare state; John Maynard Keynes, who revolutionized economics; and William Beveridge, whose 1942 report created the blueprint for the National Health Service.

What ties these figures together? They all combined progressive social goals with skepticism about centralized state control. They wanted to improve people's lives without creating bureaucratic monsters.

In America, the political journalist John Avlon pointed to a different set of ancestors: Theodore Roosevelt, who busted trusts and built national parks while governing as a Republican; Earl Warren, the Republican Supreme Court Chief Justice who presided over Brown versus Board of Education; Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the polymath senator who defied easy categorization.

The radical centrist writer Mark Satin had a more unconventional list. He pointed to Amitai Etzioni, the communitarian philosopher who argued that rights must be balanced with responsibilities. He cited Jane Jacobs, who revolutionized urban planning by actually observing how cities worked instead of imposing grand theories. He named Peter Drucker, who invented modern management thinking.

Satin's favorite Founding Father was Benjamin Franklin—not for his politics specifically, but for his temperament. Franklin was, in Satin's words, "extraordinarily practical" and "extraordinarily creative," with an uncanny ability to "get the warring factions and wounded egos to transcend their differences."

The Name Itself

The phrase "radical middle" first appeared in 1969, coined by Renata Adler, a staff writer for The New Yorker. She introduced it in a collection of essays called "Toward a Radical Middle."

Adler was writing in the aftermath of the 1960s—a decade of assassinations, riots, and cultural revolution. She proposed the radical middle as a kind of healing radicalism, one that rejected what she saw as the violent posturing of both extremes in favor of "corny" values like "reason, decency, prosperity, human dignity, human contact."

What made it radical? Adler called for reconciliation between the white working class and African Americans—two groups that had been pitted against each other throughout the decade. In 1969, that was indeed a radical proposition.

A few years later, the sociologist Donald Warren identified what he called "middle American radicals." These were working and middle-class Americans who distrusted big government but also distrusted big corporations. They were suspicious of the national media and academics but also suspicious of the wealthy elite. They might vote for Democrats or Republicans or populists like George Wallace, but they felt politically homeless—represented by nobody.

Sound familiar? Warren was describing, in the 1970s, essentially the same demographic that would propel Donald Trump to victory forty years later. The difference is that radical centrists hoped to channel this alienation toward pragmatic reform rather than grievance politics.

The Third Way Confusion

In the 1990s, radical centrism got tangled up with something called the Third Way—and the two have been confused ever since.

The Third Way was the political project of Tony Blair in Britain and Bill Clinton in the United States. It meant moving left-of-center parties toward the center: accepting market economics, reforming welfare programs, being tough on crime. The British sociologist Anthony Giddens, who advised Blair, explicitly equated the Third Way with radical centrism.

Many radical centrists disagree. They see the Third Way as something quite different from what they're proposing.

The criticism is sharp. Third Way politics, they argue, was about "triangulation"—finding the politically safe middle ground between left and right. It was about splitting the difference, not challenging fundamental assumptions. It was about winning elections, not transforming institutions.

Nick Clegg, despite leading Britain's centrist Liberal Democrats, explicitly rejected the Third Way label. His longtime advisor Richard Reeves was even more emphatic in rejecting social democracy as a political tradition.

In America, Michael Lind—co-author of the influential book "The Radical Center"—accused the organized moderate Democrats of the Third Way of siding with "the center-right and Wall Street." This wasn't centrism at all, in his view. It was corporate capture wearing a centrist mask.

The distinction matters. True radical centrism, its proponents argue, isn't about finding the midpoint between two parties. It's about transcending the entire framework—drawing good ideas from left, right, and elsewhere, and synthesizing them into something new.

The Books That Defined It

The early 2000s saw a flurry of books trying to nail down exactly what radical centrism meant as a political philosophy.

Four stand out: Ted Halstead and Michael Lind's "The Radical Center" in 2001, Matthew Miller's "The Two Percent Solution" in 2003, John Avlon's "Independent Nation" in 2004, and Mark Satin's "Radical Middle," also in 2004.

The authors came from wildly different backgrounds. Avlon had been a speechwriter for Republican Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Miller had worked in Clinton's budget office. Lind was a foreign policy intellectual who had evolved through several political positions. Halstead ran a progressive think tank. Satin had helped draft the original Green Party platform—about as far from establishment centrism as you can get.

And yet their books converged on a common worldview.

First, they agreed that the problems facing America couldn't be solved by minor adjustments. The dials needed more than twiddling. Substantial reform was required across multiple domains—education, healthcare, political institutions, the economy.

Second, they agreed that solving these problems wouldn't necessarily require massive new spending. This distinguished them from traditional liberals, who often defaulted to "spend more money" as the solution to every problem.

Third, they agreed that solutions would have to draw from both left and right—and from outside traditional politics entirely. Neither party had a monopoly on good ideas. Neither party even had a majority of them.

Fourth, they emphasized that we had entered what they called an Information Age economy, with new possibilities that established political frameworks couldn't comprehend. The old industrial-age debates between labor and capital, between government and markets, were becoming obsolete.

Fifth, they observed that a plurality of Americans—not a majority, but a plurality—now identified as neither liberal nor conservative. These independents weren't apathetic. They were waiting for someone to speak to them.

Policy Without Purity

What would radical centrist policies actually look like? The four books offered a fairly consistent answer.

Start with fiscal responsibility. Radical centrists believe in balanced budgets, even if it means testing whether people actually need the benefits they receive. This "means-testing" of social programs is anathema to many on the left, who prefer universal benefits. But radical centrists argue that targeted help is both more effective and more sustainable.

Education reform is a priority, though the specific approach varies. Some radical centrists favor school choice and charter schools. Others emphasize equalizing spending across school districts so poor children don't get stuck in underfunded schools. Almost all agree that teacher quality matters enormously and that the current system doesn't do enough to attract and retain great teachers.

Healthcare should use market mechanisms but with strong government oversight. The goal, as Matthew Miller put it, is to "harness market forces for public purposes." This means creating genuine competition among insurers and providers while ensuring everyone has access to care. It's neither single-payer healthcare nor pure free-market medicine.

Jobs for everyone who wants to work. This might mean subsidizing private-sector employment for people who can't find jobs on their own, or it might mean creating public-sector jobs as a last resort. The key commitment is that anyone willing to work should be able to find employment.

Affirmative action should be based on economic need rather than race. This is one of the more controversial positions, likely to draw criticism from both sides. Traditional conservatives oppose affirmative action entirely. Many progressives insist that race-based affirmative action remains necessary given the history of discrimination. Radical centrists argue that class-based affirmative action would help more people who actually need help, including many people of color, while avoiding the backlash that race-conscious policies generate.

Global engagement matters. Radical centrists generally support international institutions and want to help developing countries build stronger middle classes. This distinguishes them from nationalists on both left and right who have grown skeptical of globalization.

The Institutions

Ideas need homes. Over the past two decades, several think tanks have tried to develop and promote radical centrist thinking.

In Britain, Demos emerged in the late 1990s as an influential voice for new thinking that defied traditional left-right categories. In 2016, a new think tank called Radix was founded explicitly as a "Think Tank for the Radical Centre." Its initial board included Nick Clegg, fresh from his time as Deputy Prime Minister.

In Australia, the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership, founded by Aboriginal leader Noel Pearson, developed distinctive approaches to Indigenous policy that emphasized both traditional culture and individual responsibility—combining progressive and conservative insights in ways that confused conventional political observers.

In the United States, New America—originally the New America Foundation—was started by Halstead, Lind, and others specifically to bring radical centrist ideas into the Washington policy conversation. It has since grown into one of the capital's more influential think tanks, with fellows who write regularly for major publications.

More recently, the Niskanen Center in Washington has attracted attention for what one commentator called a "manifesto for radical centrism." Founded by former Cato Institute scholars who grew disillusioned with libertarian purism, Niskanen explicitly tries to "incorporate rival ideological positions into a way forward."

The Journalists

Some of America's most prominent journalists have written from a radical centrist perspective, even if they don't always use the label.

Thomas Friedman of The New York Times is perhaps the most visible. His columns regularly call for breaking out of partisan categories, embracing both markets and environmental protection, and thinking pragmatically about what works rather than what sounds ideologically pure.

James Fallows, longtime correspondent for The Atlantic, has been identified as a radical centrist thinker, particularly in his work on American civic renewal and on how government actually functions (or fails to).

Fareed Zakaria of The Washington Post and CNN brings a global perspective that fits naturally with radical centrist internationalism—supportive of free trade and international institutions, skeptical of both protectionism and military intervention.

The Washington Monthly, founded by Charles Peters, has for decades served as a kind of house organ for radical centrist thinking, publishing authors who draw freely from left and right in search of practical solutions.

In Britain, The Economist has positioned itself as explicitly radical centrist. A 2012 editorial declared in bold type: "A new form of radical centrist politics is needed to tackle inequality without hurting economic growth." A follow-up essay argued that the magazine had always operated "from what we like to call the radical centre."

More recently, Bari Weiss, who founded the online publication The Free Press after leaving The New York Times amid controversy, has described herself as a "radical centrist." In 2025, she was named editor-in-chief of CBS News—suggesting that radical centrist voices are finding mainstream institutional platforms.

The Criticism

Not everyone is impressed.

The most common criticism is that radical centrism is just centrism with better branding—that its policies are only marginally different from what conventional moderates have always proposed. The "radical" label, critics say, is marketing rather than substance.

There's something to this. Many radical centrist policy proposals—means-testing benefits, using market mechanisms with government oversight, balanced budgets—are fairly conventional center-left or center-right positions. The radicalism lies more in the process (willing to challenge both parties) than in the outcomes (which often end up looking like compromise).

A deeper criticism comes from both left and right: that centrism of any kind is actually a form of conservatism. By insisting on "realistic" and "pragmatic" approaches, centrists implicitly accept existing power structures. They might tinker at the margins, but they never challenge the fundamental distribution of wealth and power in society.

From the left, the argument is that radical centrists are naive about how change happens. Real reform requires building political power, not proposing clever policy solutions. You don't get universal healthcare or climate action by finding the perfect synthesis of left and right ideas. You get it by organizing, mobilizing, and winning political fights.

From the right, the argument is that radical centrists are just liberals who are embarrassed to say so. Look at their priorities—climate change, healthcare access, international cooperation—and you'll find a conventional progressive agenda dressed up in moderate language.

Some observers take a more charitable view. They see radical centrism less as a coherent ideology and more as a process—a way of bringing together polarized people and groups, catalyzing dialogue, and generating fresh thinking. Even if the specific policies aren't revolutionary, the willingness to listen across partisan lines might be valuable in itself.

The Futurist Dimension

One strand of radical centrism comes from an unexpected direction: futurism.

In the 1980s, Marilyn Ferguson wrote about the "Radical Center" in terms that had little to do with conventional politics. For her, it was about holism—seeing the whole picture rather than getting trapped in partial perspectives. "The Radical Center," she wrote, "is not neutral, not middle-of-the-road, but a view of the whole road."

This connects to a broader critique of left-right categorization itself. Many radical centrists argue that the left-right spectrum is a relic of the French Revolution—literally, it comes from where people sat in the National Assembly—and has little relevance to 21st-century problems.

Think about climate change. Is environmental protection left or right? In theory, conservatives should want to conserve the natural world. In practice, the issue has become tribal, with environmentalism coded as liberal regardless of the substantive arguments.

Or think about technology. Is regulating Big Tech a progressive cause or a conservative one? Both Elizabeth Warren and Josh Hawley have called for breaking up tech monopolies. The issue doesn't fit neatly into traditional categories.

Radical centrists argue that many of the most important challenges we face—climate change, artificial intelligence, healthcare costs, education reform—don't map cleanly onto left-right categories. What's needed is not a point on the spectrum but an entirely different way of thinking about problems.

Beyond Policy: The Personal Dimension

Some radical centrist writers have extended the concept beyond politics into questions of how individuals should live.

The African-American intellectual Stanley Crouch called himself a "radical pragmatist" rather than a radical centrist, but the impulse is similar. He wanted to affirm "whatever I think has the best chance of working, of being both inspirational and unsentimental, of reasoning across the categories of false division."

Note the phrase "categories of false division." For Crouch, the problem wasn't just partisan polarization in politics. It was a broader human tendency to force complex realities into simple binary categories—black and white, left and right, us and them.

This connects to a growing literature on political dialogue and personal action. Books like "Winning the Race" by linguist John McWhorter explore how ideological frameworks can become prisons, preventing people from seeing clearly or acting effectively.

McWhorter argued that many African Americans were negatively affected by what he called "therapeutic alienation"—a cultural stance that made victimhood central to identity. Whether you agree with his specific diagnosis or not, the larger point is that political frameworks can shape how individuals see themselves and their possibilities.

Anne-Marie Slaughter, in "Unfinished Business," applied similar thinking to gender. She argued that both traditional conservatism (women belong at home) and certain strands of feminism (women should succeed on men's terms) were inadequate frameworks. What was needed was a rethinking of work, family, and care that drew on insights from multiple perspectives.

The Strategy Problem

Even if radical centrist ideas are compelling, how do they win politically?

The four foundational books identified several possible strategies. One was to build a new political majority out of disaffected voters, enlightened business leaders, and young people. Another was to support independent candidacies and third parties. A third was to work within the major parties to shift their direction.

None of these has proven particularly successful.

Third parties in America face enormous structural obstacles: winner-take-all elections, ballot access restrictions, the absence of proportional representation. Ross Perot in 1992 won nearly twenty percent of the vote and zero electoral votes. More recently, the Forward Party, founded by entrepreneur Andrew Yang with explicitly radical centrist goals, has struggled to gain traction.

Working within the major parties faces a different problem: both parties have become more ideologically homogeneous. The moderate Republicans who might have been receptive to radical centrist ideas have largely been driven out of the party. The Democrats have moved left, with little appetite for means-testing benefits or market-based solutions.

Political process reforms—like ranked-choice voting, which allows voters to express preferences among multiple candidates without "wasting" their vote—might help. Alaska and Maine have adopted ranked-choice voting for some elections. But these reforms are difficult to pass precisely because they threaten the two-party duopoly.

The result is that radical centrism remains more influential as an intellectual current than as a political force. Its ideas show up in think tank reports, magazine columns, and policy proposals. They rarely show up in winning campaigns.

What's the Opposite of Radical Centrism?

To understand any political philosophy, it helps to understand what it defines itself against.

The obvious answer is political extremism—the far left and far right. But radical centrists would say their real opponents are less ideological than temperamental. They're opposed to what you might call partisan mindset: the tendency to evaluate ideas based on who proposed them rather than whether they work.

They're also opposed to nostalgia politics—the belief that solutions lie in returning to some earlier arrangement, whether the New Deal welfare state (for the left) or the pre-1960s social order (for the right). Radical centrists tend to be future-oriented, focused on emerging challenges rather than historical grievances.

And they're opposed to what Mark Satin called the "mushy middle"—the kind of centrism that simply splits the difference between two positions without any independent analysis. True radical centrism, he argued, requires doing the hard intellectual work of figuring out what actually works, which might mean siding entirely with the left on some issues and entirely with the right on others.

The Relevance Today

Does radical centrism matter in an age of intense polarization?

On one hand, the conditions that gave rise to radical centrist thinking have only intensified. Political independents are now the largest group in the American electorate. Trust in institutions has collapsed. Neither major party commands majority support. The problems radical centrists identified—broken education systems, unsustainable healthcare costs, political dysfunction—remain unsolved.

On the other hand, polarization has made cross-partisan synthesis harder than ever. Each side views the other as not just wrong but evil. Compromise is seen as betrayal. The political center has become a no-man's-land, shot at from both directions.

Perhaps radical centrism's greatest contribution isn't a set of policies but a set of questions. What if the best ideas don't all come from one side? What if ideological purity is less important than practical results? What if we evaluated policies by whether they work rather than by who proposed them?

These remain radical questions. The fact that they're rarely asked in our political debates is perhaps the best argument that radical centrism still has something to offer.