No Labels is officially launching its effort to throw the election to Donald Trump. On Sunday, the centrist group released its policy agenda, which was credulously covered by the New York Times and others. Yesterday,  Democratic Senator Joe Manchin and Jon Huntsman Jr., the former Republican Governor of Utah, headlined a high profile town hall in the battleground state of New Hampshire.

No Labels raised tens of millions of dollars from billionaires who support Donald Trump on the ballot all across the country. I have written before about how a No Labels candidacy could easily tip the election to Trump, but their policy agenda and this upcoming event highlight the absolute disingenuous grift at the center of No Labels as an organization and centrism as a political strategy.

Centrism’s Core “Values”

The agenda released by Third Way makes clear that liberal, conservative, and even moderate are ideologies, but “centrist” is an identity. No Labels and other centrist organizations are not working towards a set of ideological principles or policy preferences. They simply pick the midpoint between the two parties to indicate to voters — and donors — that they are somehow better than both parties. The goal is to avoid taking a stand and to be as bland and inoffensive to the most people possible. No Labels is peddling political applesauce...