Political center borrows from left and right

Instead of dividing the world into a simple left and right, one way of looking at politics in many Western nations since the end of the Cold War is that “the center” emerged to defeat its populist rivals on either side of it. In broad strokes, a portion of traditional left-leaning parties made their peace with capitalism as the Cold War ended. And some right-leaning parties, particularly the Tories in the U.K., but later also the Christian Democrats in Germany, ditched their commitments to social and moral conservatism. The Republican Party offered ineffective opposition to the center on moral and …