What Does It Even Mean to Be a Moderate?

I’ve long protested against the scourge of imprecision in American political shorthand, including when it comes to delineating ideological gradations on the left. In the Trump era, it seems, what passes for moderate can actually be extreme, what is extreme can plausibly pass as moderate, and protecting moderation may require acting immoderately. Another academic, Richard Carr, reminds us that “moderate” can also be a verb—truly moderate politicians, he argues, “moderate” between the preferences of their own partisans and those of the wider electorate, and between the past and the future—as well as an adverb. Today, perhaps the foremost image of a moderate is that of a centrist on a left-right spectrum. In a swing state, they say, it is the moderate over the progressive who wins.