An American Christian Democratic Party?

In the Politics, Aristotle considered the merits of a variety of constitutional models. Though it was common to divide them into the positive and negative forms of rule by the one, the few, and the many, he declared that most constitutions boiled down to either oligarchy or democracy. It would be natural to construe these as the rule of the few or the rule of the many, but Aristotle took pains to make it clear that he saw something else at issue: either the rich would rule or the poor would. One of his prescriptions for avoiding the abuses inherent in either of those outcomes was to seek a “middle” constitution. All states have three sections: the very rich, the very poor, and the ones in-between. The best state is one in which more people occupy the middle.