Radical Centrism

About

Radical Centrism refers to the political ideology of not conforming to any of the left and right political parties, but adopting policies of both, in a more galvanized way. While third-party political groups exist, they are often lumped together into the same left or right ideology, such as Libertarian and Green party candidates. With politics becoming more about radicalization, radical right, radical/social liberalism, and Centrism became part of that as well. Radical Centrism is often in memes as either being demonized for not picking a side when both sides feel that the fate of the world is at stake or being smug at holding beliefs that make it more powerful than the strictly left or right pundits.

History

The term 'Radical Middle' that eventually grew into Radical Centrism was first said in a column in The New Yorker^[1] back in 1969, by Renata Adler. At the time, Radical Centrism was described as a being less about emotion and more about reason and good human character. Radical Centrists were known to be distrusting of big government, wealthy people, corporations, and news media. This definition of Radical Centrist began to change in the 1990s, where it was said by Marilyn Ferguson that it is "not neutral, not middle-of-the-road, but a view of the whole road" meaning that it takes a greater understanding of both sides to be part of it.^[1]

Online Presence

Radical Centrism found itself in the crosshairs of online and mainstream hate when the Bush vs. Gore 2000 election happened. In that election, Gore lost by a very small, razor-thin margin. A margin that wouldn't have existed if not for third-party candidate Ralph Nader. Because of the third-party candidate spoil, the left vs. right issue became more ingrained, with the middle road, or centrist options being more vilified. On November 6th, 2012, the Facebook page The Questionist^[2] posted a scene from The Simpsons in which the aliens Kang and Kodos have become the two picks for President, and saying that voting for a third-party candidate is throwing your vote away (shown below).

On April 29th, 2013, the Twitter account mullone^[4] posted an early example of a Political Compass meme, except as a horseshoe, a play off the political horseshoe theory, and called Radical Centrism the true bottom of it (shown below).

This was the general consensus while political positions began to harden even more heading into the 2016 United States Presidential Election where the online component was at the forefront for the first time in presidential history. Following the election, and with more people being unhappy with the election choices than before, an uptick in Centrism-focused content began to spread around. On November 7th, 2017, the Facebook group Radical Alt-Centrist Utopia^[3] was created, and their first meme was a picture of the Bogdanoff twins next to a political compass meme, except with the dot being in a 3-D space above the compass, claiming to be enlightened (shown below).

On August 18th, 2017, Funnyjunk user Elvoz^[5] created an original Radical Centrism meme that uses the manga panels from JoJos Bizarre Adventure to say that Radical Centrism can't be defeated in a political debate (shown below).

Search Interest

External References