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The New Centrism?

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Have you noticed that CNN has been offering multiple “town hall” presentations of the Libertarian and Green Party presidential candidates?

I think this is not only great for the Libertarians and the Greens, but also good for the country — and I hope it proves good for CNN.

When the Cable News Network started, it was the only player in its league. Then Fox News pulled away its right-leaning viewers. MSNBC followed, offering a safe space for the far left. And there remains the center-left of the rest of major media.

So CNN has to distinguish itself. Why not appeal to those left . . . out of the political process?

By opening up to libertarians and radical environmentalists, CNN may bring in more viewers. And temper its well-known bias.

With the libertarians, though, CNN may really be just appealing to the new center.

Which is now libertarian . . . -ish.

Surely, with Trump harrumphing from the apparent “right” and Hillary Clinton dominating the neo-con left — and Dr. Jill Stein trying to soak up the far left — moderates need a voice.

And with moderate libertarian Gov. Gary Johnson and libertarian-leaning centrist Gov. Bill Weld, there does exist a reprieve from the scary extremes. Surprised? Well, that is precisely the case Johnson and Weld make. They pitch themselves, as Walter Olson perceptively argues in Reason, as “the ‘sane’ choice, the ‘responsible’ and ‘adult’ ticket . . . campaigning not on fear and anger but on a positive message of problem-solving.”

More of that, please.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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6 replies on “The New Centrism?”

The voter will never elect a Libertarian pressident. More conservatives than liberals will switch and vote Libertarian with the result being an advantage for Hillary. We are witnessing the final end of the USA given us by the Founding Fathers. We the voters are parading ourselves into the gas chambers.

Mr. Bernbaum steals my thunder! Exactly my thought about vote-swiching from Trump to Johnson. How could we imagine that CNN would not have this objective?

I believe personally that Trump, for better or worse, is going to win the election. What this means though is that the public will finally learn about the Libertarian Party during the presidential debates and find that they have more in common with it than they think. Trump will at least slow down the gaping 20 trillion dollar wound and hopefully that will slow down the collapse to get through the 2020 election and a real libertarian president and vice president.

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