Where’s the “Center”?

and which center? In a piece in the Wall Street Journal Gerald F. Seib reports that President-Elect Joe Biden is optimistic about crafting compromises with the Congress:

In fact, in a conversation with a few columnists on Wednesday, Mr. Biden delivered a resounding declaration that the political center is alive and well, that he resides there, that he’s always been there, and that he’s going to govern from there. “I believe that [in] the country, in both parties, the center of gravity has moved to the center and center-left,” he said.

Moreover, Mr. Biden insisted that there are enough Republican lawmakers prepared to meet him in the middle that he can get things done in an evenly divided Congress where he won’t have the kinds of Democratic majorities some of his predecessors enjoyed.

“Part of it is that Republicans are beginning to realize that there is a center that has to be responded to,” he said. “And the Democrats are beginning once again to pay attention to our base, which has been my base my whole career: working-class folks, Black and white, people who are busting their neck, and all they’re looking for is just a shot. And I think there is a center there.”

Actually, there are multiple centers. There’s the center of the Republican Party which is far to the right of where it was during most of Mr. Biden’s Senate career, there’s the center of the Democratic Party which is to the left of where it was when he was vice president, and there’s the actual political center of the country.

As I wrote in one of my earliest posts on this site, everyone occupies the center of their own particular world and, consequently, imagine themselves to be much nearer the political center than they actually are. I find that very few people have any idea where the center actually is. I calibrate my own views at least once a year using the questionnaire at the Political Compass. I drift around the very center, sometimes a tiny bit up, sometimes a tiny bit down, sometimes a tiny bit left, sometimes a tiny bit right but always quite near the center. As validation of that I’m accused of being a rightwing nut and a leftwing nut on a pretty regular basis. I think I’m so much in the middle I can be used for calibration. If you think I’m a leftwinger, you’re probably pretty far on the right; if you think I’m a rightwinger, you’re probably pretty far to the left.

I’m skeptical about the president-elect’s confidence but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he’s right but I still doubt it. We’ll see.