I have always considered myself a devout centrist. I am a self-registered Republican who has voted Democrat. Most of my closest friends are ardent Trump supporters, though I personally loathe him. I am a Jew who loves Israel, but not enough to absolve it of the atrocities it has committed in Palestine. Even my steak order follows suit: medium, please.
For the past eighty years, centrists have ruled the US. Eisenhower, the staunch Republican, continued New Deal spending and promoted gradual civil rights reform. Reagan, despite dramatically cutting taxes, continued expanding Social Security and Medicare. Clinton, the pro-business, free-trade Democrat, expanded social welfare programs such as the Earned Income Tax Credit. Growing up, I looked to these American leaders as exemplars of competence, steady governance, and political savviness. In school, I even learned about a theory that practically guarantees their perpetual existence: the “Median Voter Theorem,” which presumes that winning candidates regularly adopt centrist policies to maximize voters.
Centrist politicians are now becoming an endangered species globally. France’s Emmanuel Macron spent 60 days searching for a moderate prime minister for his fractured parliament. In the UK, Sir Keir Starmer—now derided by critics as “Two-Tier Keir”—is saddled with abysmal approval ratings even while commanding a sizable majority in the House of Commons. Modi, Erdoğan, Netanyahu, Orbán, Milei, and Bukele… these successful leaders from around the world hail from the far edges of the political spectrum, not the center.
Centrist politicians are dying off because radicals have moved from the fringes into the majority, unburdened by the old constraints of social unacceptability. In Germany, for example, the CDU governs in coalition with its traditional center-left rival, the SPD, not out of ideological harmony
but because radical factions have grown too large. Today, the technocratic leader who once brokered consensus through people-pleasing and pragmatic dealmaking can no longer bring opposing sides into the same room.
This phenomenon is not unprecedented. After the fall of the USSR, Boris Yeltsin proved unable to manage the rise of communist and nationalist forces within Russia. Rather than forging a coherent governing vision, he defaulted to halfhearted measures that satisfied no one and ultimately benefited oligarchs. Keir Starmer shows a similar pattern today: hard on immigration, then conciliatory, then hard again. The result is an incoherent immigration policy that alienates left-leaning voters while failing to appease the right.
The clearest example of this failure was Joe Biden, who promised to govern as a “president for all Americans.” His signature spending bills were diluted to appease the right yet still fueled inflation, estranging voters across the political spectrum. In an age of polarization, centrism feels like a political glitch, yielding paralysis or toothless compromise and forcing us to ask whether it has become a dead end rather than a governing strategy.
I would have declared centrism obsolete, were it not for the incredible popularity of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. In January 2025, Trudeau’s Liberal government was polling at just 23 percent; within a year, approval had neared 60 percent under Carney’s leadership. His opponent, Pierre Poilievre—often branded the Canadian Trump—had enjoyed surging popularity before Carney assumed control of the party. Carney won not by chasing populism, but by doing the opposite: openly acknowledging his party’s failures and advancing a bold, principled agenda—standing up to President Trump on foreign policy, investing in Canada’s natural resources to generate jobs and revenue, and cutting red tape in a bureaucracy-bound Liberal government.
Centrists around the world should study Carney’s success and draw clear lessons from it. First, they must be honest about past failures: pretending an inflation-ridden economy is healthy does not work. Second, centrists must be bold and confident agenda-setters by advancing a clear vision for the future and pursuing it decisively; inconsistent measures no longer suffice. Finally, centrists cannot defeat radicalism by imitating it; their strength lies in rejecting overcorrection and holding fast to their values, which may not win universal agreement but will earn more respect than short-term political dishonesty.
Centrism does not mean preserving the status quo; rather, it is revolutionary, breaking the political deadlock in a polarized era. As an aspiring leader of tomorrow, this is the kind of resolute, honor-bound approach I intend to pursue. So, to my fellow centrists: do not despair. There is still a path back. After all, if you can persuade a diner to settle for medium steak, you can get voters to meet in the middle, too.