Published at 17:37 on 28 June 2026
A group of centrist Democrats just released their manifesto of sorts.
Upon hearing that news, I set out to judge its relevance to the moment we find ourselves in. I did not set out to either condemn or endorse the manifesto, merely to judge it on its own merits.
The issue of paramount importance in today’s USA is to first arrest the process of democratic decline, then to reverse that process. No other policy is remotely so important. Yes, that goes for pet lefty issues like single-payer health care: not as important as arresting the democratic decline (Japan and many Western European countries have universal health care without strictly following the single payer model; by most reasonable measures, their systems work).
Therefore, I set out to judge the manifesto on this basis: does it list democratic decline, and the imperative to turn it around, as at least a prominent issue of concern? This I determined before I laid eyes on it. It must address this issue. It must address it explicitly. It must address it prominently. Being able to tease it out from a list of other priorities is not good enough. There is an elephant in America’s civic living room and that elephant must be openly and explicitly discussed as a major priority. (Ideally, it should be discussed as the paramount priority, but I do not demand perfection. I merely wish for a degree of basic awareness that lays a foundation by which the centre and the left might be able to unite against the right.)
I did the above to insulate, as much as possible, my own political bias from affecting my analysis.
How did the manifesto hold up to the resulting analysis? Not very well. There are nods to concepts like “honest government,” “public institutions” that should be “accountable,” taking a stand against “lawlessness,” and “national renerwal.” Arresting, then reversing, democratic decline can be teased out from these principles, since it is basically a prerequisite for truly honouring any of them. But that is not enough. The problem, and taking a stand against it, must be stated explicitly. Sadly, it is not.
By contrast, an entire section — the first section, the most prominent one — is spent on defending capitalism and taking a stand in favour of it. Here is the list of titles and subtitles in that document, in order, just to give an idea of the priorities of its authors:
- Growth, Competition, and Broad Prosperity
- We are capitalist, not socialist.
- Safety, Security, and Human Dignity
- We want safety, not lawlessness.
- Fiscal Discipline
- We are responsible, not reckless.
- Government That Works
- We believe government should solve problems, not create them.
- Free Speech, Respect, AND Common Purpose
- We want safety, not lawlessness.
- Confident Patriotism and National Renewal
- We are proud, not ashamed of America.
None of these explicitly mention the issue of democratic decline and the imperative to combat it. None of them. Worst of all, perhaps, is the final one.
Honestly, you are proud, not ashamed, of America right now? This sort of begs the question as to what sort of national behaviour it would take to induce shame, if shame is not induced by electing a felon to the highest office in the nation, funding genocide, starting wars, state-sponsored acts of terrorism on the high seas, extrajudicial persecutions inside one’s own borders, etc.
Shame is not a bad thing, not necessarily. Shame can serve a useful purpose of prompting internal self-reflection and change. Shamelessness, by contrast, has never traditionally been considered a virtue, except by the most violent and degenerate regimes in history.
None of what I have written in the past few paragraphs is particularly left-wing stuff.
Wouldn’t something like “We want to be proud of America again” or “We want an America we can be proud, not ashamed, of” be a far better final point to make?
No, those are not particularly left-wing points. But this is a document written by centrists. Expecting leftism from non-leftists is an unreasonable expectation. What is reasonable to expect is to see political preferences engaged within the parameters of observable reality. I do not see that happening in this manifesto.
Now a digression onto something more explicitly left-wing. It does not escape my notice that while this document has nothing explicit about arresting democratic decline and preserving a free society, at front and centre, in the most prominent place in the document, comes preserving capitalism.
Documents are created by deliberate, conscious, human effort. I cannot therefore consider it mere accident that taking an explicit stand for capitalism is listed in the most prominent place of this document. The only reasonable conclusion is that the manifesto’s authors consider this to be of paramount importance. Moreover, it is also only reasonable to conclude that democratic decline, and the preservation of basic freedoms and liberties, are considered relatively unimportant matters.
The manifesto’s authors do not, in other words, care very much about preserving any of the principles of what is commonly called an open, free society, but they care very much about preserving capitalism. Capitalism matters. A lot. Liberty, not so much.
Do you understand, centrists, that an incompatibility between capitalism and liberty has historically been one of the paramount motivating factors for individuals to align themselves with the non-authoritarian left? In other words, far from refuting leftist concerns, this document reinforces them.
It would have been one thing to explicitly say you wanted both liberty and capitalism. Us leftists would have disagreed on the latter, but the former would have been a point of agreement on which to base an alliance. Instead, this document gives us nothing. And that matters (assuming, that is, you want some sort of alliance between the centre and the left).
And it is not just the left. I rather suspect that most Americans are by this stage not big fans of Trump’s masked ICE goons. Polling by reputable firms that show Trump now decidedly underwater on immigration policy are consistent with this thesis. Likewise, the Epstein files coverup has widespread unpopularity, yet the word “Epstein” appears precisely nowhere in your manifesto. I could go on and on with similar examples.
On many issues of concern to Americans, you are silent. You said your piece, yet you chose silence on key issues, including the most important issue of them all.
The manifesto exhibits virtually everything I dislike about the Democratic Party establishment, and it does so in spades. It demonstrates conclusively that said establishment is a willing co-participant in, and not an oppositional force against, the USA’s ongoing process of democratic decline.
Do better, centrists.
Do better, or be consigned by the forces of history to history’s dustbin.
