Quote Originally Posted by Philippus Flavius Homovallumus View Post
Passivity implies inclination without action - rather I would say the inclination is weak, very, eak, and this is the cause of the perceived passivity.
This is elitism. You assume the natural state of the ordinary citizen is to not have strong political commitments, rather than that most people are confused, bored, enervated, or alienated by the political circus and lack the time or education to engage with it.

Here in the UK it's often the case that two parties are generally palatable in a given region or constituency and you can see wide swings election to election.
Again, this is something you would have to develop empirically. To say that people trend one way or another is not to say that it has always been so, or that it must always remain so. It wasn't like that in the US until our lifetimes, and not all at once. It depends on characteristics of the electorate, the parties, and the issues of the day. In the United States today, it is so. I can't claim to know what's going on in Chile or Lebanon - i haven't checked.

Centrism is a political ideology in the way that agnosticism is a religion. It has
Lol no. It's more like Scientology.

no real central tenets
Hatred of "populism," which entails minimizing democratic input in governance and institutions while maximizing the stability of established actors, especially business. Deregulation, privatization, tax cuts, reliance on conservative economic and sociological expertise. Hostility to criticism of elite persons from below. There's a reason why in the present day it is so frequently identified with intellectual libertarianism and small-c conservatism.

no systematised program for implementation
The general theory of centrist governance is to advance minimally-disruptive (to stakeholders) policy and build out a bespoke coalition "from the center." I know it's what Bill Clinton and Obama explicitly maintained going into their administrations. It was a resounding failure. Practically what centrist intellectuals and policy makers are more concerned with than any policy agenda is neutralizing the influence of the "extremes." Look at Larry Summers telling us that high tax rates on the wealthy are bad because instead of donating to charity the wealthy will support fascism (more).

no great thinkers.


Very few people are going to be in the dead-centre, it is true, but life-long political ideology is not a trend in Europe the way it is the in US. In fact, it seems doubtful it is even an historical trend in the US.
Life-long ideology? As in, you think people outside the US don't tend to form and maintain political orientations durably? What is your evidence for this? I'd be surprised if the matter has even been studied in the English language.

Every party in the UK Parliament has a majority of MP's who are in favour of the EU - the two major parties are currently being led by their respective Eurosceptic wings at the behest of the historically Eurosceptic sections of their respective electorates.

Corbyn and Johnson probably hate each other, and their supporters almost certainly do - a realignment under such circumstances seems unlikely. Rather, it seems we are seeing a paradigm shift within British politics similar to the one which led to the creation of the Welfare State - another momentous event which did not lead to a political realignment.
The realignment in the American party system (well, the 20th century realignment) took place over two generations, though of course it was immediately obvious to any observer by the end of the 1960s. I'm not prepared or equipped to assess early raw evidence in the UK. I'm sure the presence of national parties and the Liberal Democrats (whom I assume British voters interpret as "between" Labour and the Conservatives) complicates the picture. But don't be shocked if it turns out permanent shifts in voting behavior emerge in the medium-term.

There has been something like it happening across the Western world (at least UK, US, France) however, as explored by Thomas Piketty in his latest work. I don't care to look it up for you, but basically the mainstream soc-dem/center-left parties have gradually absorbed the educated and professional classes from the conservative/center-right parties while losing some of their original "working class" base over that time period.

OK fine, here it is. I've barely looked at it to be honest, who has the patience. You may want to skip to the graphs near the end. The ones simultaneously mapping 20 elections are visually hideous.