I’m not sure what the word for it is, but a ‘more civil discourse’ is the goal, I think the means is to focus on the details of policy disagreement and move away from the grand narratives. People are passionate and hateful about ‘trickle down economics making the rich richer’ or ‘socialists taking control over the economy’, but if you distill things down to the particular policy or philosophical differences, we arrive at things easier to discuss more dispassionately:whether fiscal policy is necessary to escape a liquidity trap; whether a monopsony exists in manylabor markets; whether the government allocates capital more or less efficiently than markets, etc.

The passion and hatred largely comes with thinking about things in the context of the grand ideological narratives; focusing on the crystalline Philippe technical components is more productive.

More centrist than that it is impossible to be. So I dispute the notion that the country is becoming more polarized. Only that Misters Krugman and Cruz are being pushed to the fringe.

Would Paul Krugman have the following he does if he were moderate?

Would readers of the WaPo reward it for being even-handed?

Would celebrities bring attention to themselves by being moderate?

Do lots of people use social media to share thoughts that are moderate?”

Japan has talk radio, intellectual hacks, partisan newspapers, clueless celebrities, and social media. Yet none of those things have impact it the way they have impacted us.

These items can only enhance real problems. If the problems don’t exist in the first place, there is nothing to enhance. The moderate desire is to ignore problems or offer token solutions that don’t work.