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Sun. Apr 25, 2004

Make That Ugly Middle Disappear!

The appropriated nicknamed “Combustible Boy” asks me in a comment, “Say, Reid, I found myself wondering what you’d think of this Kevin Drum post and ensuing discussion on whether centrism has been, er, marginalized.”

Troublemaker.

Before we get to the combustible content that Combustible Boy surely knew would make me spontaneously combust, let’s look at the article that was the catalyst, as it’s quite interesting.

From Congress to the airwaves to the bestseller lists, American politics appears to be hardening into uncompromising camps, increasingly identified with the two parties. According to a growing consensus of political scientists, demographers and strategists, the near-stalemate of 2000—which produced a virtual tie for the White House, a 50-50 Senate and a narrow Republican edge in the House of Representatives—was no accident.

This split is nurtured by the marketing efforts of the major parties, which increasingly aim pinpoint messages to certain demographic groups, rather than seeking broadly appealing new themes. It is reinforced by technology, geography and strategy. And now it is driving the presidential campaign, and explains why many experts anticipate a particularly bitter and divisive election.

Kerry supporters routinely attack Bush with the familiar Red stereotypes—he is, according to the charges, ignorant, belligerent, a cowboy, a religious zealot. Likewise, Bush supporters brand Kerry as elitist, a snob, lacking conviction and unpatriotic.

As it becomes more difficult to reach across the party line, campaigns are devoting more energy to firing up their hard-core supporters. For voters in the middle, this election may aggravate their feeling that politics no longer speaks to them, that it has become a dialogue of the deaf, a rant of uncompromising extremes.

Finally, because the Red-Blue divide so often follows very personal values—matters of philosophy, spirituality, morals and taste—the coming election appears primed to leave the losing faction not just disappointed, but angry.

Washington Post: “Political Split Is Pervasive”

And leave the “winner” with what, class? Bueller? (I’ll sing that tune again at the end if you don’t know the answer by now)

All this leads Kevin Drum to ask the question, “Are moderates an endangered species? [...] I have long believed that there’s a fair-sized majority of people in the center who are not represented by the increasingly strident leadership of either party, but after reading this article it’s a little bit harder to maintain that faith. If the analysts are right it’s depressing news for moderates. I keep thinking there’s an answer to this, but I can’t quite verbalize what I think it is. And hell, it’s probably wrong anyway. After all, how many moderate blogs are there?” [This is likely where Combustible Boy knew my brain would begin to sizzle]

Come now, didn’t you read the article? “People naturally reduce cognitive dissonance by seeking out information that reinforces their existing views.” In other words, how would you know there aren’t “many moderate blogs out there?” The Blog Echo Chamber merely reinforces it. You read those who are “like minded,” and the main reading you do of “The Other Side” is the extremist views your compatriots point at in shock or laughter.

The two sides bounce right off each other so hard (and gleefully, it seems), they never even see The Middle they pass over. They certainly rarely link to it. The left links the left, the right links the right, that’s where all the traffic is, and therefore, there are no moderate blogs. No Centrists. Nobody On The Fence. Sorry ... I ... simply ... don’t ... see ... it.

Elsewhere, Kevin says, “It may be fun to be snotty, but fun is for children. If your goal is to win, then you build coalitions wherever you can find people who mostly agree with you, and you do your best to keep from driving them away.”

An excellent piece of advice … since it is basically what I’ve been saying for some time now myself. It’s too bad that many of Kevin’s readers who left comments on the original article don’t agree. A few samples of the inclusive mindset:

“I don’t think that too much time should be spent in hand-wringing about the moderates. Much of the history of politics in the US, from the pre-Constitutional period forward, has been shaped by people, parties and media with very strong (sometimes extreme) views [...] ‘Moderates’ don’t have active blogs for several reasons: – not all moderates believe a consistent set of things – by their nature, they don’t have STRONG ideas – moderate positions can always be attacked as ineffective by strong partisans”

“My impression is that many ‘moderates’ are just people who don’t want to make a commitment. That is, they are freeloaders in a democratic society. They like being able to criticise both sides, don’t want to bother thinking or learning new concepts, don’t want to form principled opinions. These are the people whose attention we keep trying to catch: ‘if you are not outraged, you are not paying attention.’”

“Ah, imagine a moderate blog… ‘We’ve got to keep doing what we’re doing, with a small nudge in the liberal direction if the nudge was conservative last time, and vice versa! I wish all those liberals and conservative with their think tanks and economists would just calm down! Don’t they know the answer is always duller than they think? USA Today Rocks! Sure, utilitarianism, libertarianism, socialism or theocracy are consistent, powerful world views, but can’t they all see the beauty in a hodgepodge of theories and ad hoc rationalizations?!’ Isn’t it great that the people that have the least interest in politics are the ones that all the politicians have pitch their campaigns to? Feel the power…ah….”

“This ‘even handed’ treatment of both the Repubs and the Dems is what you find in the NY Times, but it certainly doesn’t belong in a respectable blog.”

“By the way, a complaint about moderate blogging. No offense to anyone here, but I find it, generally, speaking, to be ‘here’s an article’ followed by ‘I don’t know how to react to this.’ Which may help explain why there aren’t too many such blogs.”

“Centrism is a myth. Split the difference between two ideologies and you have no content, just a tendency to think either that politics is hopeless or that everyone else is wrong. Either way, those claiming to be moderates do it because they wish to project level-headed superiority over partisans. Or they simply don’t pay much attention to politics.”

“Whether unwittingly or not, anyone who doesn’t appreciate the fact that the Republican party is far more evil than the Democratic party and anyone who is so blind that they are torn equally and unable to decide between the two parties, is NOT a moderate [...] You’re either with us or with them, my ‘moderate’ friends.”

And that’s where I had to stop. Why do you need candidates to piss you off, when their supporters are doing such a superb job of it? Yes, I cherry-picked those from a long page of comments, but frankly, I couldn’t have paid a copywriter to come up with better exemplifications of the divide: “If you’re not One Of The Righteous, you’re The Enemy. There can be no Moderates/Centrists, because their blogs never appear in my browser.”

I hasten to point out, this is not merely a symptom of the Democratic side of the aisle. It’s pretty clear Karl Rove’s strategy has little to do with winning over “The Middle.” Both sides are counting on firing up their base support, by raking the partisan coals frequently. In the past, once the two parties have settled on their nominee, you used to see the candidates try to shift to the center, since they’d clearly won the “base support” of their respective political wings.

Not this year. It’s Good or Evil. Us or Them. And I can find no “Me” within the current partisan ugliness.

Nor do I really want to; it’s becoming a choice between two brands of the same destructive ad hominem. But from comments like the above, I’m sure that’s just fine with many folks. They plan on winning all by themselves. Paint yourself the brightest Red or Blue, and beat all others into black and purple. Inclusion is for the weak and wishy-washy, while Exclusion will bring us victory!

Despite my personal bile on this topic (or is it just projection of supposed level headed superiority by a freeloader who can’t make a commitment or form the principled opinions one finds in respectable blogs?), the Washington Post is right in saying the “Split Is Pervasive.” It starts at the very top of both campaigns with their obvious strategies of painting their opponent as some thinly veiled form of “Evil,” and goes all the way down to the partisan tone of the lowliest first time commenter at some out of the way blog (and thus, probably a moderate blog). It’s pervasive.

I know I keep coming back to the same point, but it just gets starker every day: this “election” is like a Chinese train headed into a North Korean town, with no intent of slowing down. I become more and more convinced, one of these two men will “win” and get the reward of a fractured country so divided that it cannot be effectively led, because it was so scorched by the ugliness of this election year. A year that has barely begun.

And I also have to repeat: some folks seem to be enjoying it. But if this keeps up, it’s going to be a short party with a very ugly ending. No matter who wins, there’s going to be a huge mess left afterwards, and very close to half the people who came to the party will be hungover and surly.