Holding the Center: In Defense of Political Trimming

The twelve chapters in this book are brought together by Eugene Goodheart’s argument that the Whig trimming tradition is the heart and soul of politics in the West, and that both democracy and democratic culture depend upon the trimming tradition’s advocacy of toleration. What is needed now, he notes, is a transformation in our political culture in which humility and the admission of error enter the list of political virtues. Parliamentary democracy with its separation of powers depends for its proper functioning on compromise, especially in a time like ours of crisis and divided government.