Few would deny that we are living through a period of political and geopolitical transition. Transitions always bring with them an element of turmoil. Today, power relationships across the globe are shifting, often in surprising ways. We sometimes fail to realize that even the descriptive vocabulary we use to define politics has shifted, adding to the confusion.

When we refer to a party, politician or political thinker as being on the “left” or “right,” what does it mean? Americans are no longer even sure what political, economic or moral principles the label Democrat or Republican stands for.

Most people agree that President Donald Trump belongs to the right wing of US politics, and even the extreme right. But pundits and demographers alike have noticed that his electoral victory in 2024 was due in part to the fact that many on the left of the Democratic party supported his candidacy. The fact that Robert Kennedy Jr., who initially sought to challenge Joe Biden within the Democratic primaries, joined forces with Trump and helped him to victory reveals the degree of blurring of the traditional distinction between left and right.

More telling are the attempts the media have recently made to describe personalities consistently identified with an uncompromising left — Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi or Russell Brand, for example — as right-wing. This is mainly the work of Democrats who prefer to hold a monopoly over the terms “left” and “progressive,” even when they embrace policies most Europeans would describe as center-right.

Trump himself was no stranger to this confused system of labeling when he qualified Biden Democrats as “radical left” and even “communist.” A buzzword in the form of an insult will always produce a stronger, more immediate effect than a nuanced discussion of principles, policies, facts or reasoned conclusions.

In France, equivocation about left and right may be less pronounced, but it exists as well. Because it is a multi-party system in contrast with the binary logic of US politics, there is more room for nuance. But when you consider that the majority of voters who four or five decades ago voted for the Communist Party, deemed far-left, now vote for the extreme-right, the confusion is as real in France as in the US.

If left and right now lead to such confusion in nations as culturally contrasted as the US and France, surely we expect one thing to remain reasonably stable: the center. But even that notion has become ambiguous.

Attempting to assess the political standing of Emmanuel Macron, the publication Le Monde last week featured an article whose title translates: “The ‘extreme center’, an extremism that can lead to authoritarianism.”

Today’s Weekly Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Extreme center:

A supposed safe place in the middle of the political spectrum that rather than attenuating the risks associated with extremes concentrates with the gravitational force and capacity for annihilation of a black hole in the cosmos.

Contextual note

Although mention of the idea of “extreme center” in contrast with a moderate center dates back to 1980, Le Monde cites the work of historian Pierre Serna who, in 2005, examined the concept in some depth. According to Le Monde, “this concept designates individuals, groups or parties claiming to be in the center of the political spectrum, with a fluctuating ideology and whose extreme character refers to the intolerance they show towards their opponents and their use of strong executive power.”

The comforting notion of reasonable people seeking a position at the center and avoiding the extremes should, at least theoretically, correlate with a focus on the interests of “average people,” “the middle class” and the “silent majority.” But Serna demonstrates that the extreme center consciously cultivates intolerance of anything that deviates from the status quo. This becomes doubly dangerous for democracy when trends towards increasing inequality of wealth spawned by the normal practice of financialized capitalism combine to define the status quo as an oligarchic system run by the moneyed elite.

The extreme center will seek first to dismiss and then to vilify as extreme any position or even idea that calls into question the status quo. The concern with security quickly becomes the obsession with protecting any and all of the institutions representing the status quo. Any critique of the established order can be branded extremist.

Interestingly, Le Monde quotes Emmanuel Macron’s own use of the term, following the first round of the 2022 presidential election. “Three-quarters of voters,” according to Macron, “voted for three projects. An extreme right-wing project… an extreme left-wing project… and an extreme-center project, if you want to qualify mine as such.”

One of the characteristics of an extreme center, according to Serna, is the aptitude to change one’s vest whenever convenient and to speak out of both sides of one’s mouth. “Once in power, they tend to rule the country with an iron fist, repressing their opponents to stay in power.” When Macron applied the term to his own movement, he was certainly ignorant of the historian’s description.

Historical note

The political activist and writer Tariq Ali exploited the idea of extreme center, a concept he analyzed in detail, when he published his 2015 book, “The Extreme Centre, A Warning,” followed in 2018 by a second edition: “The Extreme Centre, A Second Warning.” He develops his analysis in the context of United Kingdom politics, in the period just before and shortly after Brexit. He also looks closely at the European Union and NATO.

He notes in particular that in Western democracies, mainstream parties, regardless of their traditional left or right affiliations, converge to serve the interests of the market and uphold shared neoliberal policies. This means that the notion at the core of democratic ideology, that people can choose and manage their system of governance, has been mechanically replaced by a trust in market forces. Markets decide; markets legislate, even if they need human robots (legislators) to carry out the formal task.

Extreme centrists will always consider the marketplace as the true geographical “center” of politics, though they generally refuse to acknowledge the logical corollary, that this can only happen to the detriment of the demos in democracies and even the human princes, governors, benevolent dictators or philosopher-kings that dominated traditional, pre-democratic political thinking.

Macron famously aspires to be a “Jupiterian” autocrat and, as a super-technocrat who understands marketplaces but famously fails in his rapport with actual people, the former Rothschild banker is well placed to play king of the gods in a super-centrist world. The gods over which he reigns are the forces of the marketplace.

In 2021, The Jacobin interviewed French MP Danièle Obono, who explained her vision of Macron’s hold on power. “The last four years have seen a form of radicalization. But from two different points: from both the far right and the extreme center, which has grown into an annex of the far right. We see this when we consider Macronism as a political force, as a form of power, both in its antisocial dimension and in its anti-ecological dimension.”

Macron’s extreme centrist mandate may end soon, possibly even sooner than the official deadline for a new election in 2027. Most commentators believe that the confusion within his now twice rejected centrist coalition leaves the door open to the person who has become his now traditional rival on the extreme-right: Marine Le Pen. But, of course, Le Pen earned her apparent legitimacy by distancing herself from her extremist father, the late Jean-Marie, and innovating with a new hybrid ideology: that of an extreme-right party that embraces an extreme centrist culture.

Apart from the blow to Macron’s narcissism, the current president may well feel more comfortable with Le Pen at the Elysée Palace than any of the other possible successors on the left, right or even no man’s land. For the latter, I’m thinking of Dominique de Villepin, who could rise above the establishment crowd as the providential choice of the electorate. A more likely scenario, if Villepin does emerge, is that he will be blocked, if not emasculated by the Israeli lobby, more discreet, but possibly just as influential in France as in the US.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of Fair Observer Devil’s Dictionary.]

[Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.