Why Political Pluralism Matters

Everything is better in 4D

Photo by Marek Studzinski on Unsplash

I was a bit rough on conservatives last week, so I’ll take (friendly) aim at my progressive friends this time.

As a radical moderate I like to look for spaces where people have double standards: places where their standards for the other “team” differ from their standard for their own.

It’s in those spaces that radically moderate approaches can help clarify what’s going on and chart a path forward.

One area we see clear double standards is in the progressive commitment to diversity. Progressives support cultural, religious, racial, and ethnic diversity but - by and large - are suspicious of (or even actively reject) viewpoint or political diversity.

It’s always puzzled me that the progressive commitment to diversity and pluralism does not extend - particularly in academia - to political pluralism more broadly.

Do the benefits of pluralism somehow dry up when it comes to political principles? How and why would that be the case?

Given the blood that’s been spilled at the feet of religious, ethnic, racial, and cultural differences, it can’t be the case that political differences are too dangerous or fraught to contend with.

So what it is about political pluralism that progressives struggle with?

Why We Fear Political Diversity

There are a lot of reasons the left dislikes political diversity, but a lot of it comes down to overly expansive definitions of harm along with a particular view of history as progressive in nature.

For progressives, unlike (usually) for conservatives, there’s a “right” side of history. This has roots in both Hegel and Marx, but the theoretical foundations don’t matter as much as how it shows up in our modern discourse.

If you view history as moving forward and leaving some people and some viewpoints behind, there’s no point in engaging with viewpoints that are on the “wrong” side of history.

After all, those will be gone soon enough, right?

But of course we know they’re not gone because human nature isn’t progressive in that sense.

Dismissing people’s beliefs and values as outdated or archaic is neither engaging with them in good faith nor a way to build bridges or create alliances that will help solve problems the left cares about. It also flames polarization, because now there’s no middle ground to work in at all. You’re either on the right side of history or the wrong side and that’s that.

This mindset has also been counterproductive for the left as a whole. If you constantly tell people they’re “problematic” or “privileged,” they’re unlikely to want to engage with you or work toward common goals.

On the other hand, progressives also dislike political pluralism because of peculiarly leftist definitions of harm.

I often hear friends on the left say that they won’t engage with bigots or racists or people who deny their humanity. That’s a good line to draw in theory, but in order for it to work we have to be really clear about what constitutes bigotry, racism or denial of humanity. And many progressives are not great about drawing that line clearly.

Progressives are - predictably - pretty expansive when it comes to defining harm.

Harm now means anything from actual physical harm to a conversation in which someone feels uncomfortable. I’ve had students claim that having to lay out a position they disagree with in an essay constitutes harm of some kind. I’m never sure if they’re hoping to avoid doing work or actually making a principled argument. Either way, I’m not buying what they’re selling.

Even folks on the left find this exhausting, because it turns inward, creating a kind of Olympics of suffering within progressive movements that undermines real political progress on areas progressives care about.

This failure to engage with ideas that may cause harm creates a number of downstream problems (maybe even harms!) of its own.

The first is that expansive views of harm exacerbate polarization. Because we no longer have a clear working definition of harm progressives can argue that they won’t talk to anyone who doesn’t share their specific beliefs about race, gender, sexual orientation, Gaza or any number of other issues because doing so would cause them harm or contribute to harming marginalized communities or whatever other kinds of harm they’re worried about that day.

Once we take most uncomfortable conversations off the table it’s not only really hard to engage with anyone in a curious and honest way.

It also activates our toxic tribalism brain. We revert to zero sum, fight or flight, and black and white thinking. Once we’re in harm mode, it’s harder to think rationally about what the other side believes and see their perspective.

Politically, the left ends up shooting itself in the foot by not engaging more directly with political diversity. As we know, race and gender are no longer aligned cleanly with progressive viewpoints. As women and racial minorities moved toward Trump in the last election, the Progressive insistence that marginalized people will always champion progressive views was deeply undermined.

Instead of looking for all the ways that people agree with progressive priorities, progressives rallied around the people they believed were most vulnerable to expansive notions of harm. That was a morally kind thing to do, but it was political suicide when it came to appealing to complex people whose identities work in all four dimensions, not one.

In a number of important ways, the left’s failure to grapple with the permanency of political diversity undermines a lot of what they claim diversity can and should do in a flourishing liberal democracy.

After all, racial, ethnic and gender diversity can’t only matter when or because those people agree with you politically. If that’s the case, you don’t really care about diversity at all.

Why Political Pluralism Matters

The problem with the Political Difference As Harm approach is that when we lose the ability to talk across political differences we lose real opportunities to improve our shared world.

And this is where the misunderstanding of political pluralism gets serious.

In academia liberal academics seem to view political pluralism in two ways:

First, as a backdoor way of sneaking extreme views into mainstream discourse or as part of a vast conspiracy to undermine higher education. On this view, teaching conservative or libertarian thought on campus is just a way for the Koch brothers to sell academic institutions to oil companies.

Second, as a kind of hand-waving to other people’s (bad) opinions. “There’s cranky libertarian Frank over there”, the thinking goes. “We have to let him talk, but we don’t actually have to listen.”

At it’s most neutral, some view political pluralism as just moving backwards. “We know what the future holds,” they think, “so why bother with outmoded political beliefs at all?” Except that we’re finding lots of political beliefs we thought were dead are in fact very much alive.

But this view of political pluralism as at best a necessary evil and at worst something to get rid of once we’re on the “right” side of history is deeply myopic.

Political pluralism is an essential component of a healthy and robust political community. History has shown us time and again that when one political voice dominates, it becomes very difficult to maintain a functioning democracy.

Healthy Dialogue

First, political pluralism is necessary for a healthy discourse that avoids animating extremes. When alternative views are shouted down or pushed aside, those with legitimate concerns about policies and initiatives feel they have no outlet. And when people believe they have no outlet, they may resort to extreme measures to be heard.

I’m not even talking about political violence, but rather the prioritization of extreme rhetoric—trolling, provocation, or doing whatever it takes to gain attention. We saw this clearly in the way MAGA messaging provided an outlet for people who felt shut down by “mainstream” liberal discourse. People who feel shutdown don’t magically convert to the other side. They often double down on their beliefs and dig themselves further in. And when there are a lot of people who feel that way, you end up with a movement of disaffected people with extreme views who want to tear things down.

Better Policies

But beyond the need for healthy dialogue, policies that emerge from truly pluralistic conversations are better, straight up.

They’re likely to be more robust, to more accurately map the political and social landscape, to have more buy-in from people of all political stripes, and they’re probably more innovative too.

Different political views provide different lenses for seeing problems. It’s like the ability to see in different colored wavelengths.

Progressives will see problems that conservatives miss and libertarians will see problems that progressives can’t. By engaging with multiple political perspectives, we can get a better handle on what are the most pressing problems we face.

And not only do we get a better sense of the problems we’re facing, but we’re also much better at solving them in a robust and meaningful way. Approaching solutions in political 4D helps us identify tradeoffs and grapple better with complexity.

Whether we admit it or not, each of our political perspectives brings strengths:

Progressives encourages us to critically examine and reform power structures.

Conservatives remind us to consider the value of traditions and institutions and to ask what might be lost in the process of change.

Libertarians raise important questions about individual freedom, unintended consequences, and the limits of political power.

But each also has blindspots:

Progressives tend to ignore tradeoffs and unintended consequences and are sometimes too willing to sacrifice individual protections for the sake of the community.

Conservatives tend to ignore the reality of cultural, religious, racial, and other kinds of diversity and can get stuck in nostalgia for the past without reckoning with the negative aspects of that past.

Libertarians tend to ignore the strengths of community and natural limits on human autonomy and individualism, like family life.

But when we combine these perspectives and aim them solidly and in a principled way at a particular human problem, we have the potential for great things.

More Accurate Maps

Each perspective also bring different levels of analysis that flesh out the map of our 4D landscape, helping us navigate it better.

Libertarians tend to focus on individual freedom, conservatives on the health of communities, and progressives on broader, more cosmopolitan concerns including global equity and environmental health.

Of course, there’s overlap—many libertarians care deeply about foreign policy, and many progressives are deeply committed to local communities.

The point is not to rigidly categorize these perspectives but to recognize the unique contributions each makes to a healthy civic dialogue and to real solutions to the pits people find themselves in.

Policy in 4D

Imagine a world where immigration reform was approached from a range of perspectives:

A progressive look at the injustices our existing policies breed and the terrible foreign policy decisions of the past that got us here.

A conservative recognition of the effects of undocumented and large scale immigration on already economically vulnerable communities.

A libertarian focus on unintended consequences and a reminder that the crisis at the border is the result of previous government failures over many decades.

How much better would our immigration policy look in 4D?

That’s a rhetorical question, but it’s also a vision for better political discourse.

The Dangers of Zero Sum Politics

Unfortunately for radical moderates, pluralistic approaches to human problems only work if everyone involved is genuinely interested in solving problems rather than scoring political points or engaging in ideological purity tests. If your goal in politics is to “win” or be the most ideologically pure, you’re not interested in governance at all.

Whether you’re progressive, libertarian, conservative, or something else entirely, politics should be about addressing human problems, not personal or ideological victories.

Unfortunately, our current political environment treats politics as a zero-sum game. If libertarians win, conservatives lose; if conservatives win, progressives lose. This mindset is evident in the Trump administration, which is more focused on scoring political points than on governing effectively.

This is not how politics should work.

Governing should be about solving problems, not serving a particular tribe.

Everyone Behaving Badly

It’s important to emphasize that political pluralism doesn’t mean justifying extremism or unprincipled behavior—there are crappy progressives, conservatives, and libertarians (I’ve met many from each camp). We don’t have to invite truly dangerous positions into our policy sandbox and we should call out bad actors regardless of their ideology.

But we can’t expect that shutting people down will make them go away or make their beliefs less powerful.

And we also need to acknowledge that everyone has contributed to our current political dysfunction.

Modern conservatism contains obviously damaging movements that prioritize power over principle. We’re seeing a preview of that with the MAGA/DOGE chaos, but there are other forms of authoritarianism lurking in the conservative movement. These movements represent genuine threats to liberal democratic republican principles.

The progressive tendency to assume that progressives are on the right side of history creates dangerous blindspots and prevents them from engaging with the people they need to make real change. Not only does this view alienate centrists who might otherwise work with the left on certain issues, it also lends itself to intellectual purity tests that push policy positions toward extremes.

Libertarians, perhaps because of their minority status, have not shown themselves to be serious about governing, at least on the national level. By aligning with questionable figures or movements, they’ve often undermined their own credibility. They’ve also failed to build a serious bench of thoughtful libertarian policymakers with experience in state legislatures. While there are some structural reasons for that, there’s been a serious lack of attention to creating alliances in local and state politics in a way that could create a meaningful pipeline of libertarians who understand the policy process and who aren’t just trolling people on social media.

Everyone—progressives, conservatives, and libertarians—needs to do better.

No one has a monopoly on good ideas or moral superiority.

And no political movement has a monopoly on coercion, abuse of power, or corruption.

Humans are at the bottom of all of our political values and positions. As we know, human nature is a mixed bag.

Demanding Pluralism, First and Foremost

So, what can we do as citizens?

We need to demand more from our leaders. We need to hold them accountable for fostering healthy political rhetoric and dialogue.

But we also need to demand more of ourselves. We need to reject toxic messaging and divisive tactics, even when they come from our own side. We need to focus on solving human problems rather than winning political battles. And we need to have the same standards for all kinds of diversity, not just the diversity that doesn’t challenge our existing worldviews.

Ultimately, politics should not be about scoring points or dominating opponents.

Politics should be about building healthier communities and addressing the challenges we face, together.

That requires embracing political pluralism, engaging in good-faith dialogue, and working together to find solutions.

Wondering where to start? There are lots of great people working on political diversity and good faith efforts at bipartisan reforms.

Resources for Building Political Pluralism:

1. Check out the Problem Solvers Caucus and reach out to your own Congresspeople to ask them why they’re not joining in. After all, don’t they want to solve problems too?

2. The National Governor’s Association is working to help us disagree better. They have a great list of readings and resources to get you started.

3. Heterdox Academy is aimed at reducing echo chambers in academia. If you’re an academic, you can search to see if there’s a group on your campus or reach out to start your own.

4. I have a big list of other resources on my website, so check those out and let me know what I’m missing too.

As always, let me know what you think!

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