France, Germany, Italy, Bulgaria – all these countries in the past few years show the danger of the ‘consensus trap’. That is, a pattern whenever mainstream parties converge into a broad governing centre, democratic competition reappears outside the system rather than within.
Conflict is actually not democracy’s weakness, but its stabiliser. Trouble starts when the centrist parties begin to sound alike.
When moderate left and moderate right converge into a governing centre, voters lose real choice within the system. When democracy loses its internal opposition, it begins producing external opposition. This is the consensus trap.
The trap has a second jaw. A coalition of everyone cannot take a strong stance on contested issues.
Migration, energy, climate: each demands real choices and tradeoffs. A centrist consensus responds with delay and half-measures calibrated to appease internal factions, which inevitably fail in the face of reality.
