The Bad Faith of Enlightened Centrism
Their style of anti-politics is a surefire path to long-term Republican domination
Local dinosaur James Carville recently went on The Bulwark podcast with former George HW Bush aide, Bill Kristol, and basically admitted what many on the left had long suspected.
“I would be disappointed if it comes in at 225 House seats. That would almost be—I would rather the Republicans keep the House by five than the Democrats to win by five because if that happens, they’re hostage to the DSA (Democratic Socialists of America).”
This struck me as Bad Faith™. If you are reading this, and you read Denny Carter's blog on Carville last week, you know we serve the truth about bad faith primarily coming from the right. I thought this would be a great opportunity to turn The Eye of Sauron onto a group that has been irking me since the aftermath of 2024: The enlightened centrist.
For those that are blissfully unaware, Carville, 81, was the architect of the Democratic Party’s resurgence in the 1992 election. He ushered in the neoliberal Democratic era of political triangulation. His strategy threw out the New Deal era strategy in favor of Democrats adopting Republican-lite policies, particularly around crime (putting lots and lots of people in color in prison for minor infractions) and economics. He made his entire career turning Democrats against the New Deal and the Great Society.
It worked in 1992. In 1994, Democrats suffered the worst midterm loss of the century, giving Republicans both chambers for the first time since the Eisenhower administration. A lot of the current Democratic leadership in Congress came up in the cursed Carville era. If you’ve wondered why a lot of Democratic Party leaders are obsessed with political atrophy, this is why.
Denny Carter
Choosing these Republicans over the leftist part of your own big tent gives away the whole game. They would rather live in opposition than do anything that could upset the mythical median voter. They spend their time chasing this middle that, to be clear, does not exist. The enlightened centrist pundit looks into Ohio diners and sees the people for whom they want to appeal – the voters who would love to end civil rights for transgender people but also would like Medicare subsidies, if it's not too much to ask.
Like the feckless, spineless popularists, the enlightened centrists look to polling data for their convictions, rather than standing up for something, anything. “Sorry, trans rights aren't popular, they must be lit on fire."
This idea of only doing things that are currently popular with voters has caught on with self-described centrist pundits in the aftermath of the 2024 election. It's nothing more than a model of anti-politics, requiring no effort to convince voters there are better ways to go about things.
“Kamala was too woke, we have no choice but to abandon our own convictions and morals and adopt Republican policies.” The problem these people are running into is that the DSA has popular positions and, as of June 2026, is more popular among Democrats than congressional Democrats. In that Strength in Numbers poll, the three most popular politicians are: Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, and Zohran Mamdani. In that top three, you have a generationally talented politician, and two loud and proud DSA leaders.
The people yearn for the socialists and their policies. The enlightened centrist simply refuses to see this.
The poll test warriors and enlightened centrists among us have caught the car. Universal Pre-K, something that would unburden families everywhere from the insane and prohibitive costs of daycare/preschool, polls in the 80s among Democrats and in the 70s nationally. Universal healthcare is also polling big among Democrats in a recent survey, including in competitive districts. If these things are so popular and polling well, among bipartisan groups, wouldn’t our enlightened centrist tastemakers be clamoring for Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer to put them front and center? Fewer things would remedy the cost of living more than those ones.
Denny Carter
I try not to be a pessimist, but something tells me the Carville-bred leaders in the Democratic caucus aren’t going to magically adopt these into their platforms for 2028 and beyond, despite the dramatic popularity at a time when affordability is the only word they seem able to muster out of their consultant trained mouths.
In a slight bit of fairness to Carville, he isn’t rejecting the Democrats winning a large majority, just a small one that theoretically could allow a small number of members to hold some bills hostage. However, the faith remains bad. When the Democrats had the most narrow trifecta in American history from January 2021-January 2023, it wasn’t AOC, Rashida Talib, or Bernie Sanders who destroyed Biden’s Build Back Better agenda (universal Pre-K, paid family leave, etc.). It was conservative members of the Democratic Party: Jared Golden, Josh Gottheimer, Kirsten Sinema, and Joe Manchin. Every accusation is a confession and so on and so forth.
The Carvilles of the world are how we got into this mess, mistaking cowardice for pragmatism. The enlightened centrist does not care about protecting anything or anyone other than capital and its benefactors. The Big Tent doesn’t include you if you want to actually be pragmatic.
The old guard wants to lead from the back. They want to be told what to do. That’s why they are happy to cede the political narrative to their Republican daddies. It takes guts to do the right thing. It takes guts to lead. Your voters will follow you if you actually lead them by fighting for things and not just against them. FDR didn’t have a secret sauce to getting the New Deal through. He fought for it and he was rewarded for it electorally many times over. The next FDR is currently a card carrying DSA member, not a cowardly and ineffectual Blue Dog or Third Way member. It will be someone who sees through the bad faith of the enlightened centrists and actually leads the party with morality and strength.
