Paramount Skydance CEO has repeatedly cited the statistic when laying out the approach that CBS News and potentially CNN would take
During an early March appearance on CNBC, the Paramount Skydance chief executive, David Ellison, cited a statistic he has come to rely on when laying out his editorial approach for CBS News and, potentially, the cable network he has made a deal to own, CNN. The young media mogul said the networks will prioritize reaching “the 70% of Americans and really around the world that identify as center-left, as center-right”.
The idea of an unaddressed center ground is a powerful talking point. In a world of increasingly partisan politics, Ellison’s promise to address the unheard, silent majority packs a punch – and fits nicely with the approach of one of his most high-profile lieutenants, the heterodox commentator Bari Weiss.
Unfortunately, it appears that Ellison’s 70% figure is not supported by publicly available polling data on the ideological orientation of Americans.
A recent YouGov survey – conducted last fall and published in January – found that only 40% of US adult citizens identify as “center-left”, “center” or “center-right”, not 70%.
Polling published by Pew that was conducted last year similarly puts the number at 41% (including those who self-identify as “Lean Democrat”, “No Lean/Refused”, “Lean Republican”), while Gallup data puts the percentage of Americans who identify as Republican-leaning independents, non-leaning independents and Democratic-leaning independents at 45%, which the company said was a “new high”.
Bernie Sanders is a “Democratic-leaning independent”. “Independent” is not a synonym for “centrist”.
It’s propaganda. The guys a propagandist.
david ellison’s centrist is a lot different from actual centrist though
It doesn’t matter anyways because most people will always claim to be “in the middle” because the people to either extreme are always loudest.
You poll them on policies, and suddenly everyone is a “far left extremist” for wanting safety nets and basic standards for human existence.
You ask right/center/left at face value, and the answers will always be about the same despite what’s going on in reality.
You poll them on policies, and suddenly everyone is a “far left extremist” for wanting safety nets and basic standards for human existence.
Former coworker kept saying he was republican, but he disagreed with them on a fundamental level about nearly every social issue, including guns.
He was all for anything and everything about collective bargaining, the workers uniting against management, but god forbid you use the “U” word.
Agreed every day about this social safety net needs expanded, that program needs better funding, more programs like this or that should exist for people in need, but once the dreaded “S” word comes out, suddenly everyone is a commie. Cause you know how socialism is actually communism and all that.
Kinda it. Everyone thinks their position is just average common sense. You only really get to the point of saying “I’m pretty far ____” if you’ve been actively alienated by others but just dug in your heels instead of changing your mind.
I suspect most people who don’t have political thought as a large part of their identity don’t really have a well integrated worldview with good internal consistency. Few enough active political thinkers do, after all! It might not be that useful to describe everyone in aggregate along a spectrum.
I suspect most people who don’t have political thought as a large part of their identity don’t really have a well integrated worldview with good internal consistency
Nope, we’re built for us/them thinking.
Loads of people “don’t care about politics” but really care about other shit.
They were born into a family/community that was heavily one or the other, and they’ll stay that way no matter what.
Like, that’s the crux of it.
It’s not an accurate representation of someone’s policy positions. Which is why when we poll that, we get vastly different results.
It’s just the human brain doing what it evolved to do: commit to “us” and ignore “them”.
It’s not a bug, it’s a feature, and why there’s no other modern homind close to us.
We can’t stop it from happening, because it’s fighting human nature. So we have to socialize kids when very young so that they don’t set “us” along maladaptive lines.
That’s why the racists leading “the right” are always bitching about “woke culture” in kids shows, because that is hands down the most effective plan to stop bigotry. Without it, bigotry is the human default.
Just like a dog won’t chase cats if it was around them as a puppy. We need to show kids that even if someone doesn’t look/act/sound/whatever exactly like us, they’re still “us”.
Otherwise the kid will think of groups they weren’t exposed to as “them” instinctively, and it’s a lifelong conscious effort to remember “everyone is us”.
Which is why white American boomers get racist when drunk/tired/old, they’ve had to put in effort this whole time, and can’t always do it.
They weren’t socialized as kids to be around other groups, they grew up during segregation
To put it more directly, anyone with a political ideology based on having a position relative to two or more other positions seems constantly so desperate to appear like an enlightened, balanced thinker while also having a political that’s nearly entirely worthless. They’re great at voting against stuff but their spines are jelly and it’s so fucking hard to get them to commit to fuckin’ anything.
And it carries over in their lives! Trying to get a hard opinion out of them on anything is so hard! They’re so scared of being “wrong” that they constantly half-ass everything they do and I’m so tired of it. Just commit to something, please!
(Maybe we need to start running actual super far left parties in the world to centralize regular leftist parties to get these people to finally behave lol)
Maybe we need to start running actual super far left parties in the world to centralize regular leftist parties to get these people to finally behave lol
Yes, entirely unironically. It’s a negotiation technique called “anchoring”.
They’re so scared of being “wrong” that they constantly half-ass everything they do and I’m so tired of it. Just commit to something, please!
If you’re in the u.s., give them a small break. Only business owners and corporation havers are allowed to have political opinions that contradict another’s. Unless you’re a lucky peon who has a dick of a boss and they let you mouth off at work, then you can have a political opinion.
But that’s just it, the US had this strong pro-labour stance, so much momentum, and then they threw it all away and now it’s about what your boss “lets” you do.
But they won’t even have those discussions outside of work. I have a theory that it’s because if they’re progressive outside of an exploitative power dynamic then it’s much harder to handle if when it’s happening. It’s like their lives are in constant justification of why being taken advantage of is “actually normal” and why they say shit like “that’s life” or “in an ideal world…”. Easier to submit than fight*.
*Clarification: “fight” here could literally even just be voting progressive since that’s a completely secret thing. I’m not saying we gotta be raging at our bosses or trying to imply that everyone is in a place they can even speak honestly, safely.
“Nepotism-Hire David Ellison says that his daddy says he can do whatever he wants.”
The real DEI
Different meaning of Equity in that case.
The E stands for “Earn” in this scenario.
It stands for Elitism.
Ah. Today in “CEO said”…
We do not give a fuck.
And by “centrist,” he means rightwing.
The sound of a man wanging away at the overton window with a crowbar.
according to Gallup’s data from 2025, more than half of Americans – 54% – identify as either Democrats or Republicans, with another 35% characterized as “Republican-leaning independents” or “Democratic-leaning independents”. Pew data has the number of self-identified Republicans or Democrats at 59%.
Ok, but what does that mean? “Republican” and “Democrat” are not ideologies, they’re political parties. And very broad parties, at that. Because of our de facto two party system, both parties usually try to be “big tents.” So neither party ever has exclusively one ideology.
What is the guiding ideology of the Republican party (or rather, what was it before the party became the cult of Trump)? What is the guiding ideology of the Democratic party? I think it used to be Neoliberalism, or “Third Way” Liberalism. But what is it today? Is it still Third Way Liberalism, like during the Bill Clinton era? Or is it more traditional Social Democracy?
In a lot of ways, the Third Way was meant to be a compromise between Neoliberals and Social Democrats, but are either of those sides willing to compromise today? Should they compromise? It seems to me there are aspects of Neoliberalism and Social Democracy that are mutually exclusive. For instance, Neoliberalism usually wants lower taxes, but Social Democrats want a strong social safety funded by a progressive tax system, which usually means higher taxes, at least for income earners near the top. Well, taxes can’t be both lower and higher at the same time, so which is it? You can compromise and just lower taxes a little, and have a smaller safety net, but while compromise seems like a good idea, it usually just ends up with watered down policies that no one is fully happy with.
So where are the majority of Americans, ideologically? Is there a majority ideological consensus? If so, what is it?
So where are the majority of Americans, ideologically? Is there a majority ideological consensus? If so, what is it?
The majority of Americans are non-ideological in that they either align with the ideology of the state or have an incoherent hodge-podge of heterodox ideas.
You’re probably right. So if most Americans are either non-ideological or heterodox, what would the orthodox ideology be?
Currently in flux, but it has been neoliberalism. Trump’s second term has been shifting the orthodoxy towards neoconservative fascism. When I say that someone is non-ideological what I mean is that they do not have a personal commitment to any particular ideology, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have an alignment. People who don’t have ideological commitments often align with the state and have a loosely connected set of orthodox views, and if they don’t then they instead have a loosely connected set of heterodox views.
I agree. I wonder what will follow. Neoconservativism and Fascism are both failed systems. It’s only a matter of time before they fail this time, too. I wonder if the failure of Neoconservativism/Fascism will lead to so many crises that there will be a collapse of the current global order, specifically US hegemony. Could that lead to the Chinese model becoming the new preferred paradigm?
And as far as here in the US, well, maybe when this is an over there won’t be a US anymore. But if there is, I wonder what the next dominant ideology will be.
I wouldn’t dare speculate lest I end up as crazy as Professor Jiang.
Lol, yeah he’s quite the prognosticator. He also seems to be getting pretty popular, which I think is a little concerning.
Look man, we have a right wing party and an ultra far right wing party…1/3 of us think the right wing party is so far left it’s either communist or “national socialist” and majority of the rest of us consider that right wing party to be reasonably left/progressive. You really can’t figure out where we lean ideologically?
“Right-wing” isn’t an ideology. I agree that most Americans are right of socialism, and probably even social democracy, but that encompasses a lot of ideologies.
Republicans means “faithful lackeys”, Democrats means “money-loving hoes” and leaning means “what swindles their votes”.
Overall, the study is a guide on how to mislead voters into picking the “right” candidates.
Or so I’m guessing.
by who’s standards of ‘centrist’?
American standards being between dem an gop?
yeah. fuck that.
between american politicians and europoe? maybe?
It’s 68% if you assume a normal bell curve and define centrist as within 1 standard deviation of the mean. These assumptions, of course, are not based on evidence, but they do support the claim.
Which has nothing to do with politics or the political label “centrist” in reference to 2026 America…
Like, you can’t just cram anything into a normal distribution and claim “the middle is the most popular!” Even if that’s the lie James Carville and Hillary Clinton have been using to sell neoliberalisk for 30+ years.
Like, that might be the justification he’s trying to use here, but it’s total bullshit.
LOL, I’d love to know what the “centrist” position really is on a whole host of issues.
I think few people think they’re reasonable and not extremist, even when they are relative to the Overton window.
Like, the guy who wants to deport all immigrants thinks he’s a centrist because he doesn’t want to kill them.
If someone says they are centrist, they are actually far-right.
