Feb 22, 2026 · 26 min · 13 segments
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.diabolicalliespod.com If you pay attention to political commentary, you’ll often hear a few pieces of conventional wisdom: — America…
So to me, centrism does a few things.
It tends to inadvertently favor the way that things mostly already are.
It tends to imply that slow change is inherently preferable.
But overall, what's interesting about this concept and the way it's often used is that there is no coherent hallmark of this belief system the same way that there is for conservatism or leftism, which both tend to have more coherent ideological underpinnings.
So...
You just noted that I cannot actually really even think of who would I point to as a centrist politician.
What would be a typical centrist belief?
Okay.
So it's like kind of this idea of, well, yeah, I want that thing, but obviously there should be limits.
Right, like women should be able to get abortions, but only if they've been raped by a masked intruder, and only if they somehow were raped by a masked intruder and then caught that pregnancy at like two weeks in.
It's like a centrist position.
So to start today with a little bit of diabolicalized recreation, we're going to talk about pundit brain, because the most relevant— centrist voices in society i think are not the politicians but the pundits they exist in the media ecosystem more than they exist in the political system and they tend to be left-leaning so i'm sure you could rattle off a bunch of centrist pundits that embody this ethos the ones that came to mind for me that i want to spend a little bit of time with are jonathan shate and matt iglesias and later ezra klein because he's kind of i was just
about to say where do you where do you place him
He's, like, more centrist now, but not in the same way that these two are, in my opinion.
But
also, like, I think that you and I both respect and have learned a lot from Ezra Klein, and I don't think that MLK would have viewed Ezra Klein as an ally.
Mm-hmm.
Friend,
but not an ally.
Continue.
Because I think what you'll find is, like, he was not always this way.
That
So to me, centrism does a few things.
It tends to inadvertently favor the way that things mostly already are.
It tends to imply that slow change is inherently preferable.
But overall, what's interesting about this concept and the way it's often used is that there is no coherent hallmark of this belief system the same way that there is for conservatism or leftism, which both tend to have more coherent ideological underpinnings.
So...
You just noted that I cannot actually really even think of who would I point to as a centrist politician.
What would be a typical centrist belief?
Okay.
So it's like kind of this idea of, well, yeah, I want that thing, but obviously there should be limits.
Right, like women should be able to get abortions, but only if they've been raped by a masked intruder, and only if they somehow were raped by a masked intruder and then caught that pregnancy at like two weeks in.
It's like a centrist position.
So to start today with a little bit of diabolicalized recreation, we're going to talk about pundit brain, because the most relevant— centrist voices in society i think are not the politicians but the pundits they exist in the media ecosystem more than they exist in the political system and they tend to be left-leaning so i'm sure you could rattle off a bunch of centrist pundits that embody this ethos the ones that came to mind for me that i want to spend a little bit of time with are jonathan shate and matt iglesias and later ezra klein because he's kind of i was just
about to say where do you where do you place him
He's, like, more centrist now, but not in the same way that these two are, in my opinion.
But
also, like, I think that you and I both respect and have learned a lot from Ezra Klein, and I don't think that MLK would have viewed Ezra Klein as an ally.
Mm-hmm.
Friend,
but not an ally.
Continue.
Because I think what you'll find is, like, he was not always this way.
That
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