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The brief history of American conservatism might be instructive here. In the late 1950s and early 1960s a small cadre of intellectuals (centered at the National Review) began articulating a bundle of political ideas that would become Reaganism in the 1980s.
In 1964, most centrists looked at Goldwater (the standard bearer for this emergent, fringey conservative ideology) and thought "this is bonkers, the American people will never go for this." In 1964 Goldwater did indeed get trounced, but his candidacy signalled a coming shift.
It's pretty much a truism that the political ideas that will come to dominate American politics in the future will look outlandish to centrists. That's what centrism means. The hubris of the centrist is to think that what is, is right and permanent.
Anyone with a historical sensibility will recognize that what "the American public" considers "common sense" shifts dramatically over time. Just look at opinions on same sex marriage, for example, in the 1990s vs. today.
Rather than thinking of this as a fight between "Twitter progressives w/ a distorted view" vs. "centrists who see the world as it really is," what if we reframe this as political observers who understand how change happens vs. centrists who insultingly think change never happens?
For crying out loud, in 2008 the Democrats nominated an African-American man with the middle name of Hussein. "The American people will never go for that," said many a centrist.
In 2016 the Republicans nominated a racist and misogynist reality TV show host who was widely known in his hometown as a fraud and a serial sexual assaulter. "The American people will never elect such a person," said the centrists.
The world of American politics is far more wild and unpredictable and malleable than a lot of centrists, deeply invested in the status quo, would care to admit. Our fellow citizens are free agents who are open to changing their minds...but you've got to make the argument.
What most prevents people from changing their minds is the way centrists frame all politics around ideology. Are the Democrats moving "too far left?," as if there is some law of gravity that draws the US citizenry inevitably toward some center. Why not, "will this policy work?"
Universal healthcare works in dozens of countries like ours. As a citizen, I (and I suspect most others) give zero f*cks if it's "too left." If it works, great...if it doesn't, don't do it. But all the centrists want to talk about is "is this too left for the American people."
Or when it comes to immigration, the centrist framing is "have the dems moved too far left?" rather than "what immigration policies will work?"
It's also worth noting that centrists almost never wring their hands & wonder "have the Republicans moved too far right?" The unspoken assumption here being that America is a fundamentally rightist nation, by which they mean "white America." Centrism is often implicit whiteness.
I also think we see the hangover of the Cold War in this centrist framing as well. Going "too far left" supposedly puts us on the slippery slope to Communism or Venezuela or whatever. When centrists look to their right, they don't see danger, just overzealous super-patriots.
These centrists look at Warren & see a Stalin in embryo, but they look at Donald Trump (and the white nationalists he's emboldened) and just see a standard Republican who maybe uses intemperate language. The centrists' dangerous slippery slope only ever leans left.
But what if there are no slippery slopes, only policy ideas that will be more or less effective, more or less compelling to voters? What if we stopped scaring voters about some future apocalypse, and instead just asked them to consider what will work?
Ultimately, centrists are often condescending conservatives who think their fellow citizens are frightened, cud-chewing dolts who will instinctively reject any new political idea. This is not "realism," it's self-serving elitism.
And when such people dominate our national conversation through their positions in the media, their constricted view of the world (which they take to be "objective") operates as a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Thought experiment. Take an issue (same sex marriage let's say). Go back 25 years and assess who more accurately perceived the future: progressives, conservatives, or centrists? My guess is, the centrists of 25 years ago would not fare well in this competition.
Conservatives probably more accurately perceived what the future would be in terms of same sex marriage, but they were wrong about the supposed apocalypse that would result from it.
Returning to this thread to re-up an older thread on the centrality that "slippery slope" rhetoric has played in American Conservatism. It's long past time for self-described centrists to stop fueling this narrative, which is a dumpster full of flaming BS.
And here's a thread on another powerful but misleading, right wing term (SJW) that centrists have too readily validated. I propose progressives come up with a counter-term for folks like B Shapiro or J Peterson. HIL: Historical Inequality Lovers.
