Seeking Center
When the Financial Times interviewed Vladimir Putin, president of Russia, prior to Putin leaving Moscow for the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, Putin celebrated national populist movements in western countries. He saw opposition to migration, multiculturism and open borders as proof that liberalism was “obsolete” and had “outlived its purpose.”
Troubled by the seemingly growing signs of extremism on both right and left, one can be excused for latching onto any hopeful signs of a re-centering of political thought and action. In reporting on the European Union Parliament elections in May, The Economist said, “Centrist liberals, not populists, gained the most power.”
While the long-dominant parties in European politics, the center-right European People’s Party (EPP) and the center-left Socialists & Democrats (S&D), lost seats, most of the losses were to liberals and greens, generally pro-European Union parties. Seats held by the grand coalition of EPP and S&D fell by 11%, from 55% to 44%; liberals and greens increased representation by 8%. The European Union’s Parliament’s three nationalist parties increased their representation from 21% to 23%. So, while the report characterized the trend as a fragmentation of the European party landscape, nationalist/populist gains were minimal. Nationalist parties in France, Austria and Denmark all lost ground relative to the last Parliament election in 2014.
Thankfully, there are groups of people of diverse backgrounds, nationalities and political persuasions who have organized to oppose extremist influences. For example, Renew Democracy Initiative (RDI) is an international organization of civil society activists dedicated to opposing the rise of authoritarian populists worldwide. RDI is chaired by Garry Kasparov, the world chess champion. A New York financier, Richard Horowitz, is president. RDI’s manifesto counts among its signatories journalist William Kristol, former president of Spain Jose Maria Aznar, Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., the German Marshall Fund’s Derek Chollet, authors Natan Sharansky, Erica Jong, Scott Turow and Beppe Severgnini and columnists Anne Applebaum and Max Boot.
The RDI manifesto clearly affirms its commitment to values supporting democratic government:
There is still a center in Western politics, and it needs to be revitalized— intellectually, culturally, and politically. The center right and center left are still joined by a broad set of common values, including respect for free speech and dissent, a belief in the benefits of international trade and immigration, respect for law and procedural legitimacy, a suspicion of cults of personality, and an understanding that free societies require protection from authoritarians promising easy fixes to complex problems.
The immediate need is to help restore political confidence and ideological balance to traditional center right and center left parties on both sides of the Atlantic. This does not require fundamentally “new” ideas. It requires fresh thinking about good ideas, a new way of arguing for sound principles of liberal democracy.
RDI does not deny the legitimacy of the problems expressed by advocates of illiberalism – income inequality, social immobility, terrorism, youth unemployment. But RDI rejects solutions that “range from the impracticable to the illusory to the immoral,” and the divisive rhetoric that rejects established facts. Along with sponsoring conferences and civic education courses, RDI provides support to governmental decision-makers from both right and left willing to cooperate on issues of national significance. It dedicates its programs and research to realizing a path to economic and political stability coveted by a broad majority across the free world.