question: why do people have centrists?
comment: Centrist is just another word for having a variety of views regardless of where they fall on the left right spectrum. The extreme left and right hate centrists because they're both purity cults which demand perfect adherence to their side and anything outside of that is blasphemy.
passages: Section::::Usage by political parties by country.:Australia.
  
  There have been centrists in both sides of politics, who serve alongside the various factions within the Liberal and Labor parties.
  
  The Australian Democrats is the most prominent centrist party in Australian History. The party had representation in the senate, from 1977 through to 2007, frequently holding the balance of power in the that time. Formed by Don Chipp, on a promise to “Keep the Bastards Honest,” it was known to have represented the “middle ground.” The party regained registration in 2019.
   A late-2011 Gallup poll of Americans' attitudes towards government reported that 17% expressed conservative views, 22% expressed libertarian views, 20% expressed communitarian views, 17% expressed centrist views and 24% expressed liberal views.
   Section::::Usage by political parties by country.:United States.
  
  Independent candidate H. Ross Perot garnered nearly 19% of the popular vote in the 1992 presidential election. His "get under the hood" campaign focusing on balancing the budget has been one of the most successful centrist efforts in U.S. history, but he did not carry a single state in the Electoral College. He went on to form the Reform Party and run a second time in the 1996 presidential election with less success.
   Journalist and political commentator E. J. Dionne wrote in his book "Why Americans Hate Politics", published on the eve of the 1992 presidential election, that he believes American voters are looking for a "New Political Center" that intermixes "liberal instincts" and "conservative values". He labelled people in this centre position as "tolerant traditionalists". He described them as believers in conventional social morals that ensure family stability, as tolerant within reason to those who challenge those morals and as pragmatically supportive of government intervention in spheres such as education, child care and health care, as long as budgets are balanced.
   Neither the Centre Democrats (a now defunct centrist political party) nor the Liberal Alliance (a political party founded as a centrist social liberal party, but that now is a classical liberal party), both of Denmark, are rooted in centrist agrarianism.
  
  Section::::Usage by political parties by country.:Pakistan.
  
  Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), founded by Imran Khan, claims to be a centrist political party. Following the general election of 2013, PTI emerged as the second-largest political party in Pakistan by number of votes. In July 2018 it won the general elections of Pakistan and Imran Khan, its chairman, became Prime Minister.
   Section::::Usage by political parties by country.:Netherlands.
   Centrists in the two major U.S. political parties are often found in the New Democrat Coalition and the Blue Dog Coalition of the Democratic Party and the Republican Main Street Partnership of the Republican Party. Outside of the two major parties, some centrists inhabit the Libertarian Party and independent candidacy movements, such as The Centrist Project co-founded by Charles Wheelan.
  
  Section::::Further reading.
  
  BULLET::::- David S. Brown, "Moderates: The Vital Center of American Politics, from the Founding to Today." Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2016.
   Dana Milbank, writing in the "Washington Post", remarked of modern communitarians, "There is still no such thing as a card-carrying communitarian, and therefore no consensus on policies. Some, such as John DiIulio and outside Bush adviser Marvin Olasky, favor religious solutions for communities, while others, like Etzioni and Galston, prefer secular approaches."
   In early 2019, difficulties and party clashes regarding Brexit caused a number of Labour and Conservative MPs to leave their parties, forming a pro-European group named The Independent Group. They later announced their intention to register as a formal party named Change UK" The party has been identified as centrist by most sources, with Change UK MP Chris Leslie describing the party as "offering a home to those on the centre-left." Former Change UK MP Chuka Umunna joined the Liberal Democrats shortly after the formation of the party after disappointing results in the 2019 European Parliament election. He gave the reason there is "no room for two in the centre ground"
   Section::::Usage by political parties by country.:South Korea.
  
  There are Bareunmirae Party, Democratic Peace Party and Evergreen Korea Party in the centrist political parties, advocating centrism in South Korea, though these parties are dissidents from the two mainstream parties, the liberal Democratic Party and conservative Liberty Korea Party.
  
  The Bareun Party insists on "Centrist conservatism" and is close to liberal conservatism.
   A radical centrist perspective can also be found in major periodicals. In the United States, for example, "The Washington Monthly" was started by early radical centrist thinker Charles Peters and many large-circulation magazines publish articles by New America fellows. Columnists who have written from a radical centrist perspective include John Avlon, Thomas Friedman, Joe Klein, and Matthew Miller. Prominent journalists James Fallows and Fareed Zakaria have been identified as radical centrists.
   France has a tradition of parties that call themselves ""centriste"", though the actual parties vary over time: when a new political issue emerges and a new political party breaks into the mainstream, the old centre-left party may be de facto pushed rightwards, but unable to consider itself a party of the right, it will embrace being the new centre: this process occurred with the Orléanism, Moderate Républicanism, Radical Republicanism and Radical-Socialism.
  
  Currently the most notable centrist party is La République en marche !, founded by Emmanuel Macron; who was elected as President of France in May 2017.
   A similar Gallup survey in 2011 included possible centrist/moderate responses. That poll reported that 17% expressed conservative views, 22% expressed libertarian views, 20% expressed communitarian views, 17% expressed centrist views, and 24% expressed liberal views. The organization used the terminology "the bigger the better" to describe communitarianism.
  
  The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, founded and led by Imran Khan, is considered the first political party in the world which has declared communitarianism as one of their official ideologies.
  
  Section::::Comparison to other political philosophies.
   Some influences on radical centrist political philosophy are not directly political. Robert C. Solomon, a philosopher with radical-centrist interests, identifies a number of philosophical concepts supporting balance, reconciliation or synthesis, including Confucius's concept of "ren", Aristotle's concept of the mean, Erasmus's and Montaigne's humanism, Vico's evolutionary vision of history, William James's and John Dewey's pragmatism, and Aurobindo Ghose's integration of opposites.
   Livable Netherlands was originally a centrist political movement of local grass-root parties with an anti-establishment touch similar to early D66. However, the party entered in 2002 national parliament with a right-wing populist programme based on security and immigration as the major issues.
   In the 2010s, Spanish radical centrist Albert Rivera reportedly cited Italian politician Matteo Renzi as a soulmate.
  
  Section::::Radical centrist political action.:Netherlands.
   For Trotskyists and other revolutionary Marxists, the term "centrist" in this sense has a pejorative association. They often describe centrism in this sense as opportunistic since it argues for a revolution at some point in the future, but urges reformist practices in the meantime. Libertarian socialists and anarchists also tend to view any reformism as political opportunism because they view reformism as being incapable of effecting structural changes to social organization.
   Other observers feel radical centrists are misreading the political situation. For example, conservative journalist Ramesh Ponnuru says liberals and conservatives are not ideologically opposed to such radical centrist measures as limiting entitlements and raising taxes to cover national expenditures. Instead, voters are opposed to them and things will change when voters can be convinced otherwise.
   The following authors have communitarian tendencies in the philosophical sense, but have all taken pains to distance themselves from the political ideology known as communitarianism, which is discussed further below:
  
  BULLET::::- Alasdair MacIntyre"After Virtue"
  
  BULLET::::- Michael Sandel"Liberalism and the Limits of Justice"
  
  BULLET::::- Charles Taylor"Sources of the Self"
  
  BULLET::::- Michael Walzer"Spheres of Justice"
  
  Section::::Academic communitarianism.
   The only national party that defends itself as a centrist party is Citizens, whose platform is been increasingly perceived as right-wing by the Spanish citizens as the Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas surveys show. In April 2018 Ciudadanos obtained a 6,77, when ranging political parties from 1 to 10, where 1 was farthest left and 10 its equivalent in the right. It first entered the Cortes Generales in 2015.
   Another concern is passion. John Avlon fears that some centrists cannot resist the lure of passionate partisans, whom he calls "wingnuts". By contrast, Mark Satin worries that radical centrism, while "thoroughly sensible", lacks an "animating passion" – and claims there has never been a successful political movement without one.
  
  Section::::Radical centrism as dialogue and process.
   One study analyzed over 30,000 tweets on Twitter regarding the shooting of George Tiller, a late term abortion doctor, where the tweets analyzed were conversations among pro-life and pro-choice advocates post shooting. The study found that like-minded individuals strengthened group identity whereas replies between different-minded individuals reinforced a split in affiliation.
   In March 2011, Nick Clegg, the-then leader of the Liberal Democrats and Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, stated that he believed that his party belonged to the radical centre, mentioning John Maynard Keynes, William Beveridge, Jo Grimond, David Lloyd George and John Stuart Mill as examples of the radical centre that preceded the Liberal Democrats' establishment in 1988. He pointed to liberalism as an ideology of people and described the political spectrum and his party's position as follows: "For the left, an obsession with the state. For the right, a worship of the market. But as liberals, we place our faith in people. People with power and opportunity in their hands. Our opponents try to divide us with their outdated labels of left and right. But we are not on the left and we are not on the right. We have our own label: Liberal. We are liberals and we own the freehold to the centre ground of British politics. Our politics is the politics of the radical centre".
   Income has been suggested as another dividing line: in the EU referendum, the bottom fifth of UK earners overwhelmingly voted for Brexit (68% Leave, 32% Remain) while a large majority of the top quarter voted against Brexit (39% Leave, 61% Remain). However, Trump performed better with middle class voters than with either the highest or lowest earners and, although a small wealth effect was seen among French voters, this disappeared when controlling for education.
   Some have suggested that radical centrists may be making false assumptions about their effectiveness or appeal. In the United States, for example, political analyst James Joyner found that states adopting non-partisan redistricting commissions, a favorite radical-centrist proposal, have been no more fiscally responsible than states without such commissions. In 2017, "The Economist" wondered whether Latin Americans really wanted to hear the "hard truths" about their societies that some radical centrists were offering them.
  