Democrats Are More Concerned About the Political Middle Than the Middle Class.

 Will someone please think of the Centrists?

After months of wrestling with the decision of whether to run for reelection for a third term in the swing state of Michigan, Sen. Gary Peters took a pass.

At a moment when Senate Democrats are grappling with how to win back voters they lost to Trump in 2024, Peters was the first of at least three Senate Democrats who have opted against running for another term in the Senate, citing in part the changes to a body that used to be much easier to make deals in.

“I will say, over these last few years, it gets harder every single year,” Peters said in an interview in his Washington office last week. “The middle is disappearing.”

The retirements of the three Democratic senators – Peters of Michigan, Tina Smith of Minnesota and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire – illustrate the challenges Democrats face out of power. They also reflect the broader problems of the institution, which had already grown less collegial and productive even before it allowed President Donald Trump’s new administration to usurp its authority on everything from spending to tariffs.

The senators leaving aren’t the same. Smith is proudly liberal, while Peters and Shaheen skew decidedly more toward the middle. Shaheen is a decade older than Smith or Peters and has been in the Senate longer. But all three have been instrumental in quietly toiling away on bipartisan negotiations and have earned a reputation for working across the aisle and away from the spotlight.

They’re leaving a more divided place where the middle of both parties has been eroded and each year, big bipartisan legislation seems a more elusive goal.

“It’s not just gotten more partisan, but the base has gotten to the point where, if you work with the other side, that’s considered by some to be a negative character, character trait of what people are doing. And, and that’s a really bad position for us to be in,” Shaheen told CNN.

It's nice to think that there are still truly "middle of the road" politicians out there who care about "getting things done" more than "playing partisan politics." Never mind that Peters, Smith, and Shaheen voted against that oh-so radical idea to allow railroad workers to strike back in 2022. "They're centrists, bro; they care about the middle!"

Well, the political middle at least. Centrists in Congress are the political equivalent of that co-worker that wants everyone to get along at the company party, even if certain people are just diametrically opposed to one another. Sometimes, people are just too different to be buddy-buddy; sure they should be cordial but they are not just going to agree on a lot of things. 

It's a shame that these centrists/moderates don't have the same desire regarding the economic middle. According to the Pew Research Center, due to a combination of slow income growth and demographic-related disparity, the share of Americans who are middle class has shrunk since the 1970's. And considering that even the minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25/hour since 2009, I'm guessing that there was no sudden bout of partisan behavior that led Congress to it's current state. As the CNN story says, these guys have collectively been around long enough to show voters a real example of unity by legislating on behalf of so many people with different backgrounds, beliefs and politics, yet share a common social-economic struggle. 

But, you know, it's easier to complain how Trump's presence has made everyone meaner.