Jun 3, 2026 · 52 min · 10 segments
Realignment Newsletter: https://therealignment.substack.com/ Realignment Bookshop…
Steve TelesGuest
Marshall KosloffHost
So one, you know, in some ways, I don't have a problem with a sort of philosophical idea of moderation, right? Uh, and again, one problem is there's lots of things that are, like, going underneath this label that probably ought to get distinguished, right? So my probably favorite philosopher is Michael Oakeshott, and I think of Michael Oakeshott, in a way, as a philosopher of moderation, right? He has this idea that what he calls the pole of faith and the pole of skepticism, which are a little bit of what we can think of as, um, the left and right, uh, should be understood at their best as being in what he calls a sort of magnetic tension, right? That they can kind of correct, um, the, the vices, uh, of each other, right? And so a properly organized polity, um, is one that has a sort of equilibrium between, between these two, right? And so the thing that that's produced at the level of the whole system is moderation, right? Um, and that's one of the reasons why our constitutional order forces people into deliberation, right? We don't have a parliamentary system where we just, you know, have one election, you add it all up, and then that party gets total dictatorial powers until the next election, right? Uh, which is a way to organize democracy, and it's got benefits, right? Um, but ours doesn't.
Um, and one story about what the problem with American government is, is we have a system that's designed to produce cross-party kind of governance in order to correct our, our vices and bring out our virtues, but we're trying to run it like a parliamentary system, right? And so a theory of what our thing is wrong is that we don't have that kind of moderation.
Now, it's not obvious that that moderation is produced by just having a bunch of people who themselves are moderate, which is a kind of paradox maybe.
Um, but you know, that's what at, at its best a system like ours of separation of powers, um, should do is provide the opportunity for that.
Now, again, that's mostly not what we're talking about when we're talking about moderation, right? When we're talking about moderation, we often talk about a particular strategy held by people who h- who are trying to run for office in highly competitive seats, right? And, um, there are, and well, I think we'll talk about more creative ways that people who are in those kind of places could run for office and organize what they do in government.
Um, but often what they try and do is, um, is have very low ask kind of, uh, policy packages, right? So I used to joke that the, um...
One way to think about what a lot of, uh, moderates do is take a really, really big problem.
So they admit that there's some really big problem, and then they come up with a solution that's massively subscale, right? It's nowhere near-
Or, or like a huge, um, uh, you know, sort of, uh, new kind of, um, leverage bond that you can buy to help whatever, right? Um, and so yeah, so they've, they've discovered a 20-footLike thing, and then they built a two-foot ladder, right? And that's what they call and we call moderation, right? And so, like that's one part of moderation is looking for like, always looking for something bite-size.
Um, the second thing that we often associate with one kind of moderation is, um, [lip smack] looking for, uh, things that are always have to be bipartisan, right? Um, because there's a theory that when people in those seats do things with the other party, that their voters like it, and they get rewarded.
Um, but-- And, you know, often, again, as we talked before, transpartisan legislating is a good thing.
But the reason to do it is because there's a thing you actually want to achieve that's at the scale of the problem that you're looking to deal with, right? Not just because you like the feels that are associated with doing transpartisan kinda things.
And then the last thing is moderation is associated with what I would call congressional individualism, right?
So moderates almost by definition are not part of anything else, right? They're not part of a group that is collectively trying to advance a vision of governance, and they're doing that by operating together and engaging in collective action.
And we've talked about this before, and sometimes you gave me a funny face when I mentioned that the classic version of this is education reform, right? But that was an actual thing that people who I think we would identify in some ways as moderates often working with people on other sides actually had a big governing program, right? They had a theory of what was wrong with a huge, big institution in society.
They were like carving out pieces of it to do like every year, right? They had a piece of that larger agenda for how you were gonna reconstruct an institution, and they were working together, right? They had caucuses.
They had other kinds of things where, um, they thought of themselves and, you know, they did things electorally, right? They created Democrats for Education Reform to help them get money to run for office to protect them from challengers, right? And so in s- in a way, right, I think the, the higher version of moderation has to get escape velocity from all of those three versions of what I'll think of as the lamer version of moderation.
So I, uh, took a couple notes, um, and some of these intersect with what you said.
So one, you know, in some ways, I don't have a problem with a sort of philosophical idea of moderation, right? Uh, and again, one problem is there's lots of things that are, like, going underneath this label that probably ought to get distinguished, right? So my probably favorite philosopher is Michael Oakeshott, and I think of Michael Oakeshott, in a way, as a philosopher of moderation, right? He has this idea that what he calls the pole of faith and the pole of skepticism, which are a little bit of what we can think of as, um, the left and right, uh, should be understood at their best as being in what he calls a sort of magnetic tension, right? That they can kind of correct, um, the, the vices, uh, of each other, right? And so a properly organized polity, um, is one that has a sort of equilibrium between, between these two, right? And so the thing that that's produced at the level of the whole system is moderation, right? Um, and that's one of the reasons why our constitutional order forces people into deliberation, right? We don't have a parliamentary system where we just, you know, have one election, you add it all up, and then that party gets total dictatorial powers until the next election, right? Uh, which is a way to organize democracy, and it's got benefits, right? Um, but ours doesn't.
Um, and one story about what the problem with American government is, is we have a system that's designed to produce cross-party kind of governance in order to correct our, our vices and bring out our virtues, but we're trying to run it like a parliamentary system, right? And so a theory of what our thing is wrong is that we don't have that kind of moderation.
Now, it's not obvious that that moderation is produced by just having a bunch of people who themselves are moderate, which is a kind of paradox maybe.
Um, but you know, that's what at, at its best a system like ours of separation of powers, um, should do is provide the opportunity for that.
Now, again, that's mostly not what we're talking about when we're talking about moderation, right? When we're talking about moderation, we often talk about a particular strategy held by people who h- who are trying to run for office in highly competitive seats, right? And, um, there are, and well, I think we'll talk about more creative ways that people who are in those kind of places could run for office and organize what they do in government.
Um, but often what they try and do is, um, is have very low ask kind of, uh, policy packages, right? So I used to joke that the, um...
One way to think about what a lot of, uh, moderates do is take a really, really big problem.
So they admit that there's some really big problem, and then they come up with a solution that's massively subscale, right? It's nowhere near-
Or, or like a huge, um, uh, you know, sort of, uh, new kind of, um, leverage bond that you can buy to help whatever, right? Um, and so yeah, so they've, they've discovered a 20-footLike thing, and then they built a two-foot ladder, right? And that's what they call and we call moderation, right? And so, like that's one part of moderation is looking for like, always looking for something bite-size.
Um, the second thing that we often associate with one kind of moderation is, um, [lip smack] looking for, uh, things that are always have to be bipartisan, right? Um, because there's a theory that when people in those seats do things with the other party, that their voters like it, and they get rewarded.
Um, but-- And, you know, often, again, as we talked before, transpartisan legislating is a good thing.
But the reason to do it is because there's a thing you actually want to achieve that's at the scale of the problem that you're looking to deal with, right? Not just because you like the feels that are associated with doing transpartisan kinda things.
And then the last thing is moderation is associated with what I would call congressional individualism, right?
So moderates almost by definition are not part of anything else, right? They're not part of a group that is collectively trying to advance a vision of governance, and they're doing that by operating together and engaging in collective action.
And we've talked about this before, and sometimes you gave me a funny face when I mentioned that the classic version of this is education reform, right? But that was an actual thing that people who I think we would identify in some ways as moderates often working with people on other sides actually had a big governing program, right? They had a theory of what was wrong with a huge, big institution in society.
They were like carving out pieces of it to do like every year, right? They had a piece of that larger agenda for how you were gonna reconstruct an institution, and they were working together, right? They had caucuses.
They had other kinds of things where, um, they thought of themselves and, you know, they did things electorally, right? They created Democrats for Education Reform to help them get money to run for office to protect them from challengers, right? And so in s- in a way, right, I think the, the higher version of moderation has to get escape velocity from all of those three versions of what I'll think of as the lamer version of moderation.
So I, uh, took a couple notes, um, and some of these intersect with what you said.
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