The biggest battle in today’s political climate and debate over the issues is overcoming the Washington version of “center”. I have been waiting for someone to aptly explain the problem better than I possibly could. This morning I found the great explanation on the The Huffington Post.
Sit! Stay! A New York Times Chew Toy for Blue Dogs Richard (RJ) Eskow]
Voters don’t think the way journalists and politicians do. They don’t share Washington’s obsession with labels, groups, and personalities. Instead they’re drawn to those parties, ideologies, and people who get things done the way they want them done. One poll after another has shown that voters are furious at big banks, would like to see the wealthy carry more of the tax burden, and want to protect Social Security. If Democrats had acted more decisively to reflect those positions, they would have done far better last week. It wouldn’t have mattered which personalities in Congress had prevailed, or what label they had given to their policies. The voters couldn’t care less.
But no poll can ever convince people of that which they don’t wish to understand. What Bai and others call “centrism” consists of a set of policy positions that voters across the political spectrum find odious, combined with a cynical, voter-driven style of governance voters find repugnant.How can it be “centrist” to defeat the public option, which was supported by 51% of Republicans and a decisive majority of all voters? How can it be “centrist” to oppose tighter bank regulations when a poll taken earlier this year showed that 69% of voters (and 56% of Republicans) support them? How can it be “centrist” to support cutting Social Security when that position is not only opposed by most Americans, but by 76% percent of Tea Party supporters???? Yet Matt Bai ghettoizes those who hold these popular positions by calling them “liberals,” and elevates those who oppose them with the “centrist” misnomer.
What I am finding, with great fear, is that even our liberal Democrats are picking up the Washington version of center, validating it, and supporting it’s vision. It seems Democrats now believe that governing from the Washington DC center is the best thing to do. They are accepting it as the genuine center of the debate. Perhaps it’s because the media is driving this version of the center. Our leaders should not be listening to the media, they should be listening to the voters.
I wish, I truly wish, that elected officials of both parties would get out of the Washington elite bubble and spend just one month working in the private sector living off of a modest middle class paycheck while answering to an ever tightening household budget. If they did that, we would have people fighting for policies that work. If the Democrats fought for policies that work, they would win every single election. They aren’t going to win by supporting the Washington DC version of “center”.
The weekly news roundup podcast routinely punctures this notion of the “center” as it is propagated in the mainstream media. Recommend it highly.
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p>http://www.fair.org/index.php?…
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p>How to get that hook picked up by more than lefties… not sure.
too many Democrats talk as if this lean right leadership is the proper place to be. It isn’t. Now they are going to cave on letting the Bush tax cuts expire on the highest earners. They play it off and pat themselves on the back about it like they are being mature and reasonable and “centrist”. Bull, that’s not the real center. That’s the elite’s center. The real center wants those tax cuts to expire on the highest earners.
They aren’t going to gain any extra votes by caving on this issue. They are going to lose them. Not just registered dems, but the independents too.
is how people on “the left” who point this out are called “the professional left” and “left wing nut jobs” by Democrats.
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p>I see this in our own town committee, where “left” democrats are not particularly driving the agenda.
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p>We are our own worst enemies.
Democrats of the same thought, we would be our own worst enemy. I prefer to think that they are our worst enemy and are going to destroy themselves and take us with them. I am planning on fighting this new Democratic rational for leaning right. It’s not the Democratic party I signed up to support. If that’s the direction the party is taking, I want no part of it. It is downright offensive to me. Even if I were to try to tow the line, it would be so insincere and half-hearted it wouldn’t do a bit of good. I have a hard time pretending to like something that I don’t.
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p>The fact that they are calling those of us who resist nut jobs or extremists doesn’t even bother me. It just makes it more clear to me that they are the ones who are clueless.
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p>A possible reason for this sort of thing happening within the party is the social issues that the Democrats support. I think that I see Republican leaners joining the Democratic ranks strickly on social issues. They are either GLBT or woman who want pro-choice abortion rights, but in their hearts they are Republicans. So they sort of join our club to secure the rights most important to them, but push our government to lead in all other areas in a conservative and corporatist way.
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p>This really irritates me. I am about ready to walk up to a few of these people face to face and tell that I know what’s going on and I don’t appreciate it. If they had any will or strength, they would try to secure those rights through the Republican party and change the Republican party instead of infiltrating ours and turning into an unrecognizable entity.
In MA, for example, platforms and resolutions have generally been progressive even if vaguer than some would like. My town committee is very Republican-lite and many think we need to follow the town population (Merrimack Valley conservative) to attract people. I’d rather lead.
To them, the Democrats stand for strictly social issues. It’s not that they activley promote Republican policies (although some do and call it fiscal responsibility /not), it’s that they don’t actively promote Democratic ones. If you take a look at the Massachusetts Democratic Platform, we have a lot of work to do. There is just no-one fighting for it.
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p>http://www.massdems.org/about/…
the only person fighting for this line in our platform:
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p>Massachusetts Democrats continue to advocate for a single payer health system for all citizens.
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p>was Jill Stein.
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p>Is there a citation for this ANYWHERE? Or does HuffPo just make stuff up?
However, we also know that when the public option is explained to people, there is a high degree of approval/support (just like “obamacare” in general). Maybe that is what the stat is referring to.
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p>Are there other pieces of “just making shit up” that you object to? Or maybe it’s convenient to dismiss it all?
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p>We know that most Americans–centrist, I guess–support raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans. That polling is floating around a lot the last 2 weeks. If you can’t find it/don’t believe it, I could find a link for you.
I stopped reading HuffPo a couple of years ago because their practice of writing hyperbolic headlines not supported by the articles was so annoying*. To that extent, HuffPo really is a mirror-image of the Right’s distortion machine. If they would stop pasting that kind of headline on their articles, I would probably start reading them again.
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p>* Well, that and the stupid celebrity-gossip crap.
in March had 52% of respondents supporting the public option
A Research 2000 poll shows even greater support among independents.
Republicans don’t usually vote in their best interest, so, you’re right, the 51% is probably high.
I would dispute each of the stats he quoted in the story.
but found a 56% republican support poll
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p>link
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used to be the actual political center between both extremes, now we are more center/right.
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p>People label me as liberal, and I proudly wear that on my chest because I believe in liberal ideals. Being a liberal is viewed as cowardice,soft spoken and pretty much without a backbone.
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p>We need more liberals like Ted Kennedy and Bernie Sanders. People who will go toe to toe with a conservative and fight for middle class working families.
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p>My political career may have come up short this time around, but I will continue to be liberal and express my views during the off-season.
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p>A true liberal with a backbone can always beat the corporatist and that is what I plan to do going forward
And no, it’s not meant as sabotage. You’re a friend of Brock, after all.
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p>Many of these comments have been about hyperbole, and how it damages an argument. A conservative isn’t necessarily a ‘corporatist’, any more than a liberal is necessarily a ‘socialist’. Rhetoric has killed more political careers – on both sides – than any issue, as voters are turned off by what they see as exaggeration.
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p>Carry on.
rhetoric is not good for public discourse. It never solves anything. I also agree with you that most republicans are not corporatists, as with most Democrats aren’t socialists. The labels of conservative and liberal are fine. It draws a distiction between the path a candidate will take when he or she is running.
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