Your political views become centrist for your country.

[bagelman]

A witch or wizard casts a spell on your country and makes it so that you are politically centrist in relation to the political parties and people of your country, while your views are unchanged.

What does the next election look like and how does your country, and indeed the world, change?

Note that:

*The average intelligence of a typical voter does not go up (or down)

*Politicians who you dislike for reasons other than your ideological views are not negatively effected by your dislike of them.

*You can't directly change a country that is not your own.

*Most importantly, there is still competition within politics - your favorite candidate might be successful depending on how their views align with yours but they won't win unanimously. Unless of course your ideology doesn't support competition between ideas.

[Higgs]

Eh, it wouldn't change things a whole lot, maybe move the nation a tiny bit to the right but really not much.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

It will quickly lead to an intriguing paradox. The whole of society would shift leftward, becoming in favour of nuclear disarmament, a renewable energy plan, stimulus and basic income; but I, disturbed at becoming a moderate, would again shift leftwards to maintain my faux individuality, forcing society ever leftwards in a blood orgy that will bring about full commynism or something.

[DavidB.]

Lol, that would be quite the shocker for the Netherlands. I'm a bit confused by both parties and individuals having shifted though: if both have shifted, the elections result would probably look like last one, only with extremely different outcomes in terms of policy because everyone is a lot more right-wing on the economy. People will also be both slightly more libertarian when it comes to government intervention on social issues, which would make the next government ready to legalize not only marijuana but also XTC, yet be more conservative personally, which would lead to few people actually using marijuana or XTC. Regarding foreign policy, the next Dutch government would easily be more Zionist than the current Israeli government, declaring the PA a terrorist organization and declaring Judea, Samaria, and East Jerusalem inseparable parts of Israel, which would lead to massive boycotts from the Arab world - but they are as ideological as I, so people wouldn't care so much about that. (This is the hardest part to imagine... )

If parties stayed the same, not moving along with the individual preferences, then VNL, the Libertarian Party and the SGP would probably enter the next coalition under Prime Minister Joram van Klaveren, who would lead the country out of the EU and make it a free-trade haven, leading to enormous economic growth (which would be very welcome in order to maintain our wealth when boycotts are hurting the country ).

[NeverAgain]

I'd love being the moderate hero. Of course, I would be surprised how anyone could make me a centrist.

[Bigby]

Well, that makes the United States far more socially liberal, with prostitution, casino gambling, drinking at 18, and so on becoming the norm. That would also mean a more fiscally conservative nation with lower spending, foreign aid, taxes, and welfare. The "right" would become ultralibertarians, or Ron Paul types. The "left" would probably be the second coming of the William Jennings Bryan ideology.

Oh God, the Progressives and Tea Party of this sort of America would be frightening.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I guess the second round in 2017 would be between Hollande and Mélenchon...

Yup, even when shifted lefward, French politics still suck.

[dead0man]

Rainbows, puppies and Gary Johnson!

[tpfkaw]

Haha. Well. There'd be maybe a 25% chance of there being a next election, in that case.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Already a centrist so no change

[politicus]

Like others I have a hard time seeing how it would work if the parties automatically changed their positions, but assuming parties just try to adapt to the new environment:

It would cause a realignment in Danish politics. As the arch-populists they are DPP would swing massively to the left on green issues (especially renewable energy/climate, traffic and landscape planning) and also accept things like the establishment of public banking sector and start up loans for workers coops wanting to buy out employers/tax credits for employers leaving shares to workers in their will. SD would move to the right on immigration, law and order and education, become soft Eurosceptic and be more positive towards helping the establishment of a cooperative sector, the SD right wing would grudgingly accept a public banking sector with special focus on helping promising start-ups and the establishment of workers co-ops. Since DPP would drop "symbolism" and economic discrimination of refugees/migrants the two parties would be quite close on integration pursuing a soft assimilationist strategy with emphasis on increasing labour market participation and zero tolerance of Islamism. On other social issues DPP and the SD right wing would accept Nordic model on prostitution, casinos and public involvement in gambling would be closed, abortion would be limited, while hash and marijuana legalized. Welfare policies would remain mostly unchanged with some reversal of elements of the HTS era reforms and a 3 year unemployment benefit period. There would be higher estate and inheritance taxes and "green taxes", while income taxes for low incomes would be lowered substantially. The SD left wing would advocate a basic income and this would be an important internal cleavage in the party.

The core axis would therefore be a SocDem/DPP alliance with both the bourgeois parties and the left wing in a difficult situation. The two parties might even merge at some point (but different party cultures would likely prevent this). Perhaps a relationship similar to the Coalition in Australia.

SPP would regain a bit of strength, picking up voters who were uncomfortable with the right wing turn of SD, while the Red Greens would become more isolated. I think SPP would accelerate their right wing drift on defence/foreign policy and adopt policies similar to the current SD. The Alternative would likely disappear as their policies would become more mainstream and be picked up by the SD left wing and SPP. Their combo is hard to radicalize without ending in eco-socialism, which is the Red-Greens prerogative. If they survive they might take up the position of their now expelled Integration Spokesperson Danish-Pakistani Muslim feminist Uzma Ahmed Andresen, that immigrants who do not accept gender equality and other Western core values should be repatriated.

To stay relevant the Liberals would adopt environmental policies similar to the current Conservative ones and become soft Eurosceptics, while the Conservatives would pick up DPP voters turned off by the party's move to the left (presumably there would still be some) and go full Eurosceptic. LA would become irrelevant and fall below the threshold as right wingers would basically all be culturally conservative and their environmental policies would be considered extremist.

Radikale would probably just die off. It would be hard for them to survive in this environment since centrist voters would have the opposite combination of policy positions than theirs and environmentalism would be so mainstream that it would be impossible to use as a vote getter for a centrist party. Although, perhaps they could survive as the only pro-EU party left. Since Denmark would leave the EU (after a referendum called by the government) there might be a few votes in this - especially if it has negative economic consequences.


First election:

Red Greens 10%
The Alternative 1,5%
SPP 7,5%
SD 30%
DPP 25%
Radikale 1%
Liberals 15%
LA 1,5%
Conservatives 8,5%

(KD wouldn't even bother to run as all their positions would be taken by others)

[DC Al Fine]

Ok let's see.

If the parties were to stay in place the left would have to die off entirely due to their abortion views. They won't have pro-lifers and I'd have abortionists treated as 1st degree murderers

But supposing the parties shift a bit...

The NDP would be drop their absolutist pro-choice stance but would still be the pro-choice, socially progressive party. The Liberals would look like a Catholic party, fiscally center to centre left.

On the right, the Tories would be somewhat more free market and their socon wing would have a bit more power, but they'd be very similar today. Christian Heritage would emerge as another major party with their very socially conservative platform and pro-family economics. The Libertarians would be Paulites and win a modest share of the vote.The Bloc would be nonexistent.

A 'base' result would be:

Conservative: 35%
Christian Heritage: 35%
Liberal: 20%
NDP: 5%
Libertarian: 5%

[DC Al Fine]

I just realized that if my views were centrist, Canada would be a Protestant Poland

[DavidB.]

If I may ask: how do you vote, Politicus? Conservative? KD? SD?

[Phony Moderate]

Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party wins the 2020 election with a 100 or so majority, defeating Yvette Cooper's Progressive Conservative Party. Meanwhile, the Freedom Party, led by George Osborne, gets a miserable 3% of the vote, not far behind the Liberal Democrats' (under Tim Farron) 5%. On the other side of the political spectrum, the Free Raspberry Ripple and Knickerbocker Glory Party gets a surprisingly high 9% of the vote; the cause of this is believed to be the anger about Jeremy Corbyn's refusal to pledge to nationalize the ice cream industry.

Following the election, the Progressive Conservatives decide that they need to appeal more to the 'centre ground' and therefore elect the former Green MP Caroline Lucas as leader.

[VPH]

Hmmm, if I was centrist...

On social issues none of the parties would really change much. The GOP would probably be more pro-immigrant, pro-gay marriage, and less attached to the NRA but that's it in that regard.

Economically, things would severely change. Lord... The Greens would probably be a new-left Marxist party and they would be much stronger. I could see the Dems being right around where I am but socially more liberal. There would be no corporate money in politics and there would also likely be a universal healthcare system. The GOP's far right element would probably split off and remain around, albeit weak. The Libertarians might also gain a bit on FoPo issues. I could see things turning into a European-style system.

Green Party-12%
Democratic Party-43%
Republican Party-35%
Tea Party-6%
Libertarian Party-4%

[politicus]

If I may ask: how do you vote, politicus? Conservative? KD? SD?

I stubbornly voted KD until it became completely ridiculous doing so (and a bit after that) and was a member until 2012. I didn't vote last time because I was in Tonga and there isn't a Danish consulate or any other way of voting, but would have voted for the Alternative - simply to get an unorthodox business friendly Green party in to set a new agenda on some issues - and for lack of an alternative . Would have been more positive if Uzma Andresen had been allowed to craft their integration and immigration policies, and if they had avoided stereotypically leftist foreign policy and crime prevention policies.

No one comes close to my combination of views.

Even without taking "value issues" into account Danish leftists are mostly public sector interest groups and I am focused on creating a broader ownership of businesses and some alternative to the established financial sector - which is considered "far left" (despite not being anti-business as such).

The Conservatives are the only centre-right party which has an environmental policy that doesn't rule them out a priori, but is currently in a sad state and are too far to the right on economics/welfare under Pape, who is also going soft on zoning laws (previously a main difference to the Liberals). I voted Conservative in the last municipal elections despite not really liking them, because the SocDems in Copenhagen have had the Lord Mayorate forever and I consider it a goal in itself to get them out (camaraderie, nepotism, entitlement, inefficiency etc.).

I would generally prefer a centre-left government to a centre-right, because a centre-right government is unlikely to do anything - or at least anything efficient - about most of the issues where I am conservative (incl. education) and would instead go to the right on issues where I am leftist. Whereas the centre-left actually is greener and less anti-poor people + the Social Democrats block big swings to the left on most of the issues where I am on the right.

tl;dr: I am politically homeless.

[RFayette]

Social conservatism would be de rigeur, especially when it comes to abortion so both the left and right would be firmly behind an abortion ban.  If my political views were "centrist, I'd presume the population was largely conservative Protestants and Catholics.

So we have:

Left-wing:  most of the establishment GOP and centrist Dems like Pryor Webb, etc. with some tweaks on foreign policy/military spending and a slightly more generous welfare state
Right-wing:  Ron/Rand Paul, a lot of tea partiers (though they would be somewhat less interventionist),  lots of "far-right" viewpoints (such as banning contraceptives for unmarried couples, making it much harder to get a divorce, etc.) would be held here to some extent.

[Zioneer]

Well, Utah would become a social democratic paradise, for starters, and Mormons overall would be pretty liberal, I think. And there'd be a lot more progressive (or newly "centrist") Mormon candidates running.

Also I'm kind of wishy-washy on some issues, so the US as a whole would go back and forth.

[Ebowed]

What a terribly amusing and illogical scenario.  I would love to see the conservative and liberal parties determining whether the best approach is to criminalize the act of fishing, or merely the production, sale, and distribution of fishing gear.  Should you be allowed to grow a grass lawn on your roof, or not at all?  Should the guaranteed annual income be around $20,000, or closer to $40,000?  Should cemeteries be replaced with public housing, or forests?  Should D.C. gain statehood without interfering with other states, or should we keep it at 50 by combining the Dakotas?  A lot of tough questions, indeed.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

I could actually imagine a plausible scenario where my views would become "centrist". Here's a rough sketch of the history of the state where my views are "centrist":

The People's Republic of the DFB, a country spanning North America from the southern extremities of  Chihuahua Desert to the prairies of the Lakota Nation, from California to Louisiana is known throughout the world as a den of radical dissent. The People's Republic was originally carved out of the territorial holdings of the Spanish crown after decades of struggle in the late 18th Century. Inspired by the American Revolution, Crypto-Jewish farmers and alienated mestizos on La Frontera allied themselves with indigenous peoples to forge a new nation based on an odd form of federalism. Over the coming decades, The Republic of the DFB was beset by a number of challenges, first and foremost the threat of American expansionism but the Republic managed to maintain its independence by shrewdly allying itself with Britain, which had a vested interest in combating American expansionism after the loss of Canada.

After forging a relationship with Britain, the DFB Republic managed to attract capital investment in attractive mine-holdings and railroads to transport gold, silver and copper to the coast. It also set out to attract migrants who were offered free plots of land so long as they produced a certain amount of yields, some of which had to be exported. During the period historians now describe as The Age of Capital (1848 - 1890), the DFB Republic grew in its might, attracting droves of Jewish, Spanish and Italian immigrants to the growing cities of San Antonio and San Francisco. It also attracted droves of escaped slaves from the South before the American Civil War in 1875. Protected by Britain, the DFB Republic was shielded from the rapacious attitudes of the United States.

Still, the DFB Republic was beset by yawning inequality and increased labor unrest, which led to a rupture in the traditional party politics between the Liberal Party, representing wealthy mine-owners, hacendados + their poor peons and factory owners and the Radical Party, representing escaped slaves, small land-owners and the indigenous. The Socialist Party swooped in and began agitating for an increased class of proletarians and slowly cannibalized the Liberal Party's peon constituencies. As the Great War beckoned, the DFB Republic was at a fracturing point between the forces of the old order and the sprawling class of proletarians, largely defined by various immigrant heritages.

I could go into more detail if requested but the ultimate outcome is a seizure of power by Liberal strongmen, which is met by a popular uprising in the early 1900s. After this, there are a number of reforms that redistribute land from hacendados to the agricultural laborers, that nationalize the mining industry, the oil industry and that allow for very advanced worker protections. From this point forward, the party system is characterized between the Radical Party, which finds a niche among increasingly forward-thinking, secular entrepreneurs, academics, small-farmers, and the Socialist Party, which contains to dominate among proletarians.

The People's Republic of the DFB is characterized by its unusually accepting attitude towards refugees, immigrants and the indigenous, who have self-governance rights. It's known as a haven of "cosmopolitan" values, embraced nearly uniformly. It's also unusually secular for the Americas. On economic issues, the People's Republic has a high-level of state intervention but the Radical Party remains a forceful advocate for market reforms with a humane face.

The Radical Party argues for shifting state-intervention towards market-reforms that would loosen strict labor regulations and full employment mandates in favor of a universal income of some sort. The Radical Party supports decreased tax rates and introducing a market-component to the ownership of the oil/mining industries.

The Socialist Party in 2015 is fighting a rear-guard action against the Radical Party and simply wants to maintain the status quo against "neo-liberal" reforms. The party is quite similar to "21st Century socialism" of Evo Morales sans the populist rhetoric. It never experienced a "Third Way" turn, which makes it out of place among Socialist International parties in any other developed nation but has ceased to forcefully advocate against "rupturing with capitalism", instead favoring maintaining strictly proscribed markets, which served the People's Republic of the DFB quite nicely, largely due to huge oil windfalls and an impressive tech sector.

Demographics:
-5% Asian
-5% MENA
-10% indigena
-10% Black (largely descendants of runaway slaves)
-20% European (immigrant stock)
-35% Mestizo
-10% Jewish

I'm not sure why I typed this up but I find the idea of a state where my views are "in the center" to be quite unthinkable. I'm far too radical on many "post-materialist" issues for this country to exist so I had to invent a country that's unusually accepting of "cosmopolitan" values.

[Cranberry]

This is definetely an interesting thought experiment. The centre ground in Austria is clearly far to my right, so things would have to change drastically, however unplausible that may be.

Begining with the party system, the big parties of the right of centre (ÖVP, FPÖ - I don't think NEOS would ever be a thing in this), turn into some obscure far-right fringe coalition group, that may or may not include some christian and/or blatant neo-nazi parties.

The SPÖ in its present incarnation would very much be the big party of the centre right, maybe taking in some less-xenophobic splinters from the present FPÖ; the party would probably be around the current consensus of societal issues, and probably also around its current economic programme - something in between third way and post-war social democracy, to speak in more or less meaningful terms.

The centre left would be encompassed by a broad eco-socialist coalition of the Greens and all the small left wing parties, Pirates, KPÖ, etc, so quite a bit to the left of the current views of the Greens, both on issues regarding the society and economy, with a strong environemntal focus. They will probably advocate for some sort of transition from capitalism; democratic ownership of companies, for example.

The remaining spot on the left is taken up by some marxist, probably also a good deal anarchist, force.

Both large blocs are generally very pro-european, though the Green bloc not really supportive of the EU in its present incarnation. The end goal of both would probably be some sort of unified, European federal state. 

Generic election results could look like that:

Right Bloc (ÖVP, FPÖ, CPÖ...) - 5%
SPÖ - 35%
Green Bloc (Greens, KPÖ, Pirates...) - 40%
various left-wing groups - 10%   

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

I think it'd be
Greens 40%
Democrats 40%
Republicans 20%

The Democrats would be too liberal for the Republicans to vote for. The Democrats would need to stay liberal enough to not lose to the Greens that the Republicans wouldn't consider voting for them.

[Clark Kent]

Bernie Sanders would be out of a job, for one.


On specific issues:

Abortion: I believe that abortion should be banned in all cases except when the mother's life is in danger. I suppose this would make the left support banning abortion in all cases except rape, incest, and when the mother's life is in danger, and the right to support banning abortions in all cases.

Euthanasia: Also banned

Gay marriage: Pretty much the same as in real life

Healthcare: Obamacare would be left-wing, total privatization would be right-wing

Economics: Bill Clinton on the left, people like the Pauls on the right

Welfare: Food stamps on the left, nothing on the right

Death penalty: Would be abolished, I suppose


Socialism would be as despised as Nazism is in real life.


Democrats would be Blue Dogs, establishment Republicans would be centrist, and the Tea Party would be center-right. The Libertarian Party probably also gets a pretty big boost.

[MyRescueKittehRocks]

In terms of social issues, the states would be stronger and the federal government would be weaker. Marriage would be in the purview of the church and not the state while the government would do civil unions for the nonreligious crowd (no gay marriages in most states). Racially, the maxim of MLK would rule.

No TSA but instead Israeli style security policies at airports, bus stations, railways and such. Consumption tax rather than income tax and a 5% tariff on foreign goods (except with nations that we have free trade and respect for our workers deals)

Foreign policy: While still maintaining a vibrant and strong military, we prefer diplomatic solutions to issues relating to our national security/liberty interests

Immigration: border fence (yup), modernized Ellis island communities (definately) automatic citizenship  for folks rescued from slavery of any kind

ISIS: the Christian brothers of the North (Russian being Eastern Orthodox and America being the representative of the Evangelical Protestant wing of the church) working with Assad (who actually respects his Christian citizens) (rather than America opposing Assad)  and all constitutional aid given to the Kurds

 
I like Kent's idea too minus the gay marriage and death penalty assessments