Who's in the #AltMiddle?

People Who've Been Squished Out of the Left or Right

While the two major political parties in the United States continue to sling insults at each other, they’ve forgotten some very important people: voters in their respective parties who no longer care for either side. They see their once-favored party heading in the wrong direction, whether its because of identity politics, Christian nationalism, government spending, MAGA influence or a host of other reasons. They are disgusted enough to no longer affiliate with one party, but dislike the alternative enough to not switch sides.

According to Pew Research, “Roughly four-in-ten Americans (41%) have a very or somewhat favorable view of the Democratic Party, while even fewer (37%) have a favorable impression of the Republican Party.” Simply put, more than half of the voting population doesn’t care for either party.

Unknowingly, these malcontents have found themselves in the Alt Middle. This growing group is also referred to as the Exhausted Majority, mostly by the mainstream media, because they are fed up with the political tribalism polarizing the country, which by the way, is often intensified by the mainstream media.

In 2018, the organization More in Common set out on a year-long project in the United States to “better understand the forces that drive political polarization and tribalism in the United States today, and to galvanize efforts to address them.” The results of that project led to The Hidden Tribes of America. (You can download the full report here.)

As you can see from the chart above, the report suggests that the Exhausted Majority/Alt Middle represents a huge swath of the country. Still, this group is eclipsed by the Wings, which tend to be set in their very different values. The Wings also appear to garner more attention from the two major political parties.

From the report:

“The most dramatic difference between the tribes is that which arises between the Progressive Activists and the Devoted Conservatives. Devoted Conservatives believe that individuals need to be raised to be obedient, well behaved and hard-working. They take pride in the Judeo-Christian faith and American culture. They believe that their traditional values can transform flawed individuals into people of self-discipline, character and responsibility.

“Progressive Activists, who are at the opposite end of the spectrum, are skeptical of traditional authority and norms. They see those values as being established by socially dominant groups such as straight white men, for their own benefit. Progressive Activists seek to correct the historic marginalization of groups based on their race, gender, sexuality, wealth and other forms of privilege.”

The Exhausted Majority, then, seems more willing to give and take. Whether that’s through wisdom, apathy or something else, is not clear, but that giant section in the middle of the graph is where American politicians should be looking. As we know, that’s not really happening. And since it doesn’t seem like the Democrat and Republican parties want to change course anytime soon, conditions seem ripe for a third party.

Three people in politics who appear to get that are David Jolly, Christine Todd Whitman and Andrew Yang, but so far not many people are paying attention to them. They helped found the Forward Party earlier this year. (You can read the full party platform here.)

Yang says “the slogan - not left; not right; forward - speaks to tens of millions of Americans because there's actually a commonsense consensus on the vast majority - even all - of even the most divisive, polarizing issues in the country.”

Todd Whitman adds that this party speaks to the individuals who don’t take hard lines on issues, but rather seek common ground. “Most people don't want to do away with the ability to own firearms,” she says as an example. “But on the other hand, they don't think it ought to be wide open and everybody should have as many as they want, as young as they want.

Jolly recently tweeted that “those of you who love your country — Democrats, independents, and mainstream Republicans — we must be stronger, more determined, and more committed to saving America.”

The Forward Party is worth looking into for the Alt-Middle, but it’s not getting rave reviews in the media. Current Affairs laments the party’s “generic platform.” An opinion piece in The New York Times says the party “is bound to fail” because “the most successful third parties in American history have been precisely those that galvanized a narrow slice of the public over a specific set of issues.”

In other words, political pundits believe that the Forward Party is too wishy-washy to thrive. Critical readers will of course read the party’s platform and decide for themselves.

In the meantime, The Alt Middle/Exhausted Majority floats adrift in a sea of political miasma. The much-smaller but much-louder minority groups on either side garner most of the attention, while an ever-growing number of people squishes in the center. Where the Alt Middle will land, or if a third party will rescue them, is anyone’s guess at the moment.