We can all agree that Americais extremely politically divided. However, the problem doesn’t come from going too far right or too far left. The problem instead lies in being too centrist.

The far left and far right of the country need to band together over their shared hatred of centrists. On a macro scale, both the far left and far right have much more in common with each other than they do with the more moderate parts of their parties. Both sides view an exclusive group of people as the reason that the country is the way that it is. For the far left, this group would be billionaires. For the alt-right, this group would be the coastal elites. They both seek a drastic change to the current system and are willing to do what it takes to get there. The main attractive quality to these extremes is that they actually get stuff done and have firebrand voices advocating for them. The centrist wings of the two parties are the ones to continue the neoliberal and neoconservative policies of mass surveillance, free trade and continued military expansion. Whereas, surprisingly, both the far left and the far right want to curtail all of these. Both Ron Paul and Bernie Sanders have advocated to abolish the CIA and dismantle the Patriot Act, both are strong non-interventionists when it comes to foreign wars and both had strong objections to NAFTA and other free trade acts.

The center-left and center-right of the country can’t manage to do anything to benefit people. The centrists of the left are too caught up in identity politics to get $2000 stimulus checks passed even with a majority. When the Biden administration was asked what they were doing to help small businesses, President Joe Biden’s press secretary said, “First and foremost he nominated a woman to lead the small business administration” and didn’t say what they were doing to address the issue. While having women in positions of power is awesome, I would rather they focus on fixing the issue at hand instead of deflecting to the identity of their appointees and calling it a day. The centrists of the right-wing are too caught up in means testing stimulus packaging and making sure that the system can’t be exploited. Which in theory sounds like a good idea, however, the situation at hand is far too dire to try to weed out social parasites and screw over people that need the stimulus. The amount of fraud in social programs isn’t even that high, and most criticisms against them using fraud as the main argument are trying to tear down the social program rather than honestly trying to prevent fraud. Both centrist wings of the parties are obstructionist and actively screw people over.

If the fringes of both parties work together in opposition to the center, they could get so much more done and could overcome the decades of neoliberal and neoconservative rule on majority politics. While I disagree vehemently about most of the things the far- right advocates for, that doesn’t mean we can’t still work together on the stuff we do agree on. Right now is the time for the far right and the far left to unite in opposition to the center to hold the current center-left administration accountable and advocate for meaningful changes to the country. After we’ve accomplished these changes and have successfully overcome neoliberalism and neoconservatism, the former fringes of the party will be able to get stuff done for the American people instead of engaging in obstructionist bullshit.