> the Left's common enemy is the Right, and vice versa

The common enemy of both is the moderate in the middle who prefers rational discussion to confrontation.

I don't think moderates favor rational discussion so much as they disdain conflict.

In my experience, a moderate is a conservative in all things that effect them, and a liberal for anything else.

Most moderates I know revile anything that might effect change, until it effects change. And once the change is implemented, they bristle at anything that might change that.

No political block gets to claim the province of rationality in a world where political disputes are as much about values as they are about coherent policies.

There’s research showing (at least in the US) that the “archetype” moderate, who believes all things in moderation, is basically nonexistent. Moderates instead are made up of people who have perhaps a few “moderate” views, but mostly have a roughly even mixture of left-wing and right-wing views, with no particular combinations being particularly common.

A hypothetical moderate might believe all of the following:

* Gay marriage should be illegal

* Abortion should be legal

* Firearm rights are important

* Taxes on large businesses and wealthy people should be much higher

* NATO should be scrapped

* The USA should bomb Iran and Syria

* Free markets are good

* Free trade is bad

This person has too many strong and politically diverse viewpoints to consistently back either major US party, and ends up voting based on whichever candidate most effectively signals alignment with the small number of policies the “moderate” voter currently feels most strongly committed to.

It’s easy for someone to come across as a “moderate” if they have a different primary motive for policy preference. A devout catholic might believe that both abortion and firearm ownership should be strictly forbidden, which is hard to fit into either party platform. Someone with a commitment to individual liberty might support gay marriage, unrestricted abortion access, drug legalization, free markets, free trade, and low taxes; very hard to reconcile with a party platform.

> In my experience, a moderate is a conservative in all things that effect them, and a liberal for anything else.

While obviously a generalization, this is very insightful. I never thought of this before, and I admit I might be a moderate.

Moderate center prefers status quo and dislikes confrontation. But, it does not actually prefer rational discussion, rational discussion only sometimes favors statis quo.

Which is why center is loosing alot. Except in presidential elections, IMO both Biden and Obama are center by any reasonable definition. Even Clintons were center, but she lost, so.

This has very much become the case, and what a wide centre it has become - I’d have said I was left wing until the poles pushed so far apart I fell into the central void.