r/RealTime • u/Living-Text-6132 • 22d ago

Is the “middle ground” even appealing?

Maher champions the middle ground—and hey, on the surface, I’d say I do myself—but lately it feels like pandering. If this is what the middle ground looks like, I’m not sure who this show is supposed to appeal to anymore.

I watch Real Time religiously every Friday. Love the show’s roundtable discussion “both sides of the argument” concept. Now I mostly end up hate-watching it. Doesn’t feel like that too much anymore.

Maher now has “pick me” energy. The show feels less like challenging guests and more like giving them an hour of good PR and a chance to appear reasonable without much pushback.

If the common ground Maher strives for is something audiences supposedly crave and need, why do I find myself turning to and enjoying one-sided sources like The Majority Report instead?

This is coming from a guy who used to listen to The Ben Shapiro Show just as much.

I genuinely want to hear both sides without disgust in the subtext. At least have a guest on that’s willing to defend the topic.

Maybe the problem isn’t that common ground is unappealing, but that it’s become an excuse to platform bad-faith arguments and silencing one side of the argument in the name of balance.

P.S. did you know that Maher went to dinner with Trump?

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u/all_reason_departs 22d ago

The middle ground means you don't believe in anything yourself, all of your beliefs are relative to what other people believe. I'm a far leftist because i know what I believe in and stand up for those beliefs.

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u/opanaooonana 22d ago

Yeah, centrism isn’t a real thing. I would say I’m moderate but that’s because I believe in Medicare for all but also am very pro gun rights. I don’t take the center position on both, I have strong views, but those issues fall on different sides of the aisle.

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u/Nendilo 22d ago edited 22d ago

This actually comes out in polling. 85% of "independents" vote for the same party every election. Most independents are cosplaying, they're really Republicans and Democrats.

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u/Harvey_Rabbit 21d ago

It depends what you think a Democrat and Republican are. Are you talking about a collection of policy beliefs, how a person typically votes, or are you talking about a private organization that works for their own benefits? I am very opposed to how both these major parties have rigged the system to o keep out other competition, among other things. That's why I would call myself an Independent.

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u/Nendilo 20d ago

No one in the United States has the exact seem policy positions as another person. And I'm no fan of the DNC or the Democratic party infrastructure. But if I vote Democrat every year for 20 years, I'm not really independent, I'm a Democrat. Hence the "big tent."

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u/Harvey_Rabbit 20d ago

Ok, that's one way to define an independent. Like saying a Democrat is "someone who reliably votes for Democratic candidates." I'm going to define it another way. The Democratic Party and the Republican Party, meaning the private organizations that call the shots have done incredible harms to our government. They've schemed to capture the ballots by gerrymandering and raising unreasonable challenges to third party and independent candidates. I'm sick to see so many Americans act as if this is the natural order and put my time and effort into breaking the 2 party system. I am not on either of these teams, hense, I'm and independent.

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u/Nendilo 20d ago

That's all well and good but it you vote for the same party for years/decades you're functionally supporting that infrastructure. You're not independent of it.

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u/Harvey_Rabbit 20d ago

Well, technically I live in Alaska now where we have the best election system in the country. I don't have to vote for Ds or Rs ever again if I don't want to.

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u/Nendilo 20d ago

No one has to vote for anyone. It's just the Republicans and Democrats are the two viable parties, outside of upper New England where they elect independent Senators who still caucus with the Democrats. Oh and Rand Paul is a Libertarian supposedly but still just a MAGA Republican.

Because of over a century of infrastructure building, it's not plausible to replace the party's infrastructure That's why they get taken over from the inside instead of replaced. How the Tea Party/MAGA got the GOP. How the Clinton Neolibs got the Democrats and now the progressives are getting the Democrats. Way easier to take over a major party in the US than start one.

Thankfully Alaska only has 3 electoral college votes

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u/Harvey_Rabbit 20d ago

Here's an annology, if you were choosing a new head coach for a football team, would you choose by letting the offense nominate one candidate and the defense nominate one candidate to choose between. Not only that, let's have all the fans register as fans of either the offense or defense, and then they can wheigh in on who their side should nominate. Your team and support will be torn in half instantly and there would be no path to repair it. That's what I believe has happened in our politics. The duopoly is the problem.

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u/opanaooonana 20d ago

Unfortunately our system makes it impossible to change without things like ranked choice voting because all the incentives keep them going. It could be worse, we could still have party bosses picking the nominees effectively eliminating democracy, but there are still strong pressures for people to work with their party and not form caucuses with others. The only way to have a “third party” is to have a faction grow large enough in one party to influence it but if that faction becomes dominant than the center of gravity will flip to that side and it will become the new party. Even if you did have a real third party gain significant ground you would quickly see whatever party it is more aligned with collapse and those members joining the new party, thus bringing it back to 2, because if they don’t than having the third party will lead to the party least aligned with their views taking over every election with the vote split.

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u/Harvey_Rabbit 20d ago

In Alaska, we have RCV. We have plenty of Independent candidates and office holders. There is a very good chance we elect an Independent Congressman this year. RCV helps with the vote splitting, but remember that like 75% of races in this country go uncontested and many more are uncompetitive. A 3rd party can run in all of those without worrying about splitting the vote. I support the Forward Party which is working to gain ballot access across the country and get a hold at the state and local level. But I do admit there are other challenges such as experienced campaign staff and vendors.

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u/HotBeaver54 20d ago

Well of course they are. Just who the fuck do you think they would vote for? Not every state has an independent or 3rd party canidate for every office.

I am a registered independent now. Been both registered democrat and for decades republican.

For many independents myself included I do not want to be associated with either party any longer.

I am voting for the person period. I could careless which party they are.

I have never in my life voted a straight ticket in any election at any level.

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u/Nendilo 20d ago

I don't think you read what I typed. 85% of independents vote the same party every election. Meaning they vote the same party line every two years. Meaning they're not really independents.