The Center Can Hold: How Jews can rebuild a middle-ground politics (David Bernstein, June 9, 2026, Sapir)
The center is not a point on a graph. Most Americans, even today with the high number of political independents, identify with one of the two major political parties. On many concrete policy questions, that center is defined not by rigid ideology but by a blend of instincts. On immigration, for example, large majorities of Americans say immigration is good for the country, roughly two-thirds support a path to legal status, and yet many of those same voters also favor stronger border enforcement and reject permissive approaches. This “both/and” pattern — combining order and openness, rights and limits — appears in issues and reflects a more nuanced public than our polarized politics suggest.
The center can also be understood as a set of people, coalitions, and norms capable of sustaining pluralism. It includes citizens and leaders who may disagree on policy but who remain willing to engage despite differences, deliberate in good faith, and operate with a shared commitment to democratic rules. The political center, then, is not simply equidistant from the Right and the Left; it is the combination of both/and thinking and the civic capacity to translate that thinking into cooperation and governance.
American Jews have flourished in a system defined by liberal democratic norms: constitutional protections, equal citizenship, religious liberty, and a culture of pluralism. Our security has never depended on numerical strength but rather on the strength of the system itself.