What appeals to the middle about the right is primarily that it's not the extreme left.

This ranges from things like "things are pretty okay now--let's not rock the boat too much" and "whoa that's not what I'm used to...are you sure? can we talk about this? what about that? and that?" to things like "personal responsibility is of central importance" and "human experience is fundamentally alike".

The extreme left tends to be extremely unfavorably disposed towards that kind of view. And of course, the right is happy to play up the distinction and the extremism.

Biden won, right? He was popular enough at the time to get elected. He's not very exciting right now, though, and things are...iffy, because recovery + inflation actually means that a lot of people are worse off, not better.

You can't infer much nationally from the existence of people like MTG (or AoC for that matter) because in some places one side or the other has such an advantage that the ideological middle is not the electoral middle.

But overall, yes, I think my thesis is that we need something closer to Daryl Davis than punch-a-Nazi. But I don't think it's just about Davis-style understanding, though building emotional bridges to the point where you can at least hear what the other is saying is important. I think the arguments need to be there too.