I don’t often see “existential” in a political column, so the paragraph below caught my eye.

The precariousness of the Democrats’ position in the coming decade hit home for me after reading “The 2026 Midterms Are Critical. But 2032 Could Be Existential,” a March 24 essay that Steve Schale, a Democratic strategist based in Florida, posted on The Bulwark.

The provision of a link made going to the article a simple matter, so I did.  Schale’s article was in the Bulwark, a site I had heard referred to several times before but I had never paid much attention to it.

This article made me wonder what kind of a site it was, so I googled it.  This is what came up immediately.

This is the answer to my Google question: What is the Bulwark?  The page they directed me to contained 352 words.  Here are some of them.  Their words are italicized.

The Bulwark is an American news and opinion website dedicated to defending liberal democracy and providing center-right political analysis.

I don’t often see “liberal democracy” and “center-right” analysis paired, so I was interested.  I suspect that they will have a carefully guarded, but defensible, definition of “liberal.”  I am sure I will find out; on the basis of this first page, I signed up.

The next paragraph says that the site—here called a “platform”—was founded in 2018 “to provide a home for rational, principled, fact-based center-right voices who [I would have said “which” on the grounds that “voices” are not “persons”] oppose tribalism and polarization in politics.

I, myself, am a little wary of the claim of “fact-based” because it is the collection of relevant facts, organized according to some relevant value, that are important.  On the other hand, there are people now in office who deny or ignore “facts” so just believing in them in general isa good thing.

I have never thought of myself as “center-right” but I reacted very well to it this time.  I will be getting a lot of opinion pieces from The Bulwark, so I am sure I will have a chance to make up my mind.  “Rational” and “principled” can be put to various uses, but I am willing to accept them at first pass.

That brings us to opposing “tribalism” and “polarization.”  I don’t oppose either of those absolutely, but I know that they are negative words connoting tight social bonds, on the one hand, and the alienation of those outside those bonds on the other.  Sometimes it might turn out to be worth it, but I like the idea of opposing them in general.

In the next section, they say that the publication “emphasizes honesty, good faith, and putting country over party, aiming to create a community for the politically ‘homeless” who reject extreme partisanship.

I confess that I begin to get wary here.  Who is against “honesty” as a principle?  Even people who confuse emotional authenticity with “honesty” would say they are in favor of honesty.  The same for good faith; there is no way to be against it, so it is not of much value as a distinctive value.

“Country over party” is harder.  If you step back just a little, you come to an understanding of democratic governance in which the free contest of parties, each of which has committed adherents, is thought to be the best way to determine and to enact the public interest.  It is the lingering attractiveness of that model that makes me wary of “country over party.”  Party, in the model I described, is a way of determining what supporting the country would involve.  In the absence of some way—not necessarily that way—of determining what supporting the country means, it doesn’t mean very much.

This way of putting it is aimed at people who will look at the disastrous effects of a policy on the country and the very good effects of that same policy on their party, and approve of it on that basis.  I am happy to censure such people, but it is hard to describe in general terms.

On the other hand, the last description—a place for the politically homeless— hits me right where I live.  When they talk about the politically homeless, they are talking about me.  I will vote for Democrats every time I get a chance, but I have not had strong feelings for the Democratic party since early Obama.  The logic of partisanship pushes my party in directions I am not comfortable with.  It isn’t the logic of partisanship that is pushing me, so I move more easily in other directions.  So the party, for its reasons, and I for my reasons, have chosen diverging paths.

Maybe I have become “center right.”  Maybe they have moved the center.  Maybe I’m just getting old.  In any case, I will be reading the people who write for the Bulwark for a while and maybe I will find out.