Media critic Eric Alterman recently wrote that "one the country's most significant problems is the stupidity of our political discourse." He says, "It's not just inconvenient and annoying; it interferes without our ability to address our problems and allows thugs to get away with metaphorical murder." He's absolutely right - and one of the things that really bothers me are the definitions used to describe political positions - definitions that progressives themselves repeat, even though they imply dishonest storylines about the progressive movement.
Take, for instance, the term "moderate." This is a word the American Heritage Dictionary defines as "Being within reasonable limits; not excessive or extreme." Yet, it is applied specifically to politicians pundits who, measured against public opinion, are the opposite, like Joe Lieberman (De Facto GOP Nominee-CT), John McCain (R-AZ) and New York Times columnist David Brooks. Think about their major positions: Lieberman likens his opponents terrorist sympathizers, calls them "extremists" on national television, and shills for a war that polls show 60 percent of Americans oppose. McCain actually wants to send more troops to Iraq - again a position only a small minority of Americans supports. Brooks calls for an end to American democracy, saying "voters shouldn't be allowed to define the choices in American politics." Yet, these folks are routinely referred to by the media and political Establishment as leading "moderates," that is, leading voices for positions that are supposedly "within reasonable limits" and are "not excessive or extreme" in relation to the rest of the country's positions.
Same thing with what the media/political Establishment refers to as the "center." The dictionary, again, defines this word as "the middle" - but politicians and political ideology that is portrayed as "the center" in America is nowhere near the actual middle of American public opinion. I've written a book, a Washington Post op-ed, a Nation article, and various blog posts showing in detail and with facts how the politicians and corporate-funded institutions that are billed as "centrist" are anything but.
Yet, despite all of this, many progressive writers continue to cede these terms to their opponents. My friend Ezra Klein, for instance, laments that he "started out a moderate" but implies he no longer is one. The Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum laments that the media should be asking "why so many mild-mannered moderate liberals have become so radicalized" - that is why so many "moderates" are supposedly "not moderate" anymore. And various progressive columnists and writers still refer to people like Lieberman, McCain, and the Democratic Leadership Council as "moderate" or "centrist" irrespective of their major economic and national security positions that are exactly the opposite.
The problem with progressives accepting these terms in this way goes beyond inaccuracy. Progressives who say they aren't "moderate" or "centrist" or who claim their opponents are more "moderate" or "centrist" are by definition saying they believe they themselves to be "extreme" or "more extreme." Just look at the anytonyms of the word "moderate": they are "extreme," "outrageous," and "unreasonable." Similarly, the antonym of the word "center" is "extreme" or "periphery." Thus, when we define our political opponents as more "moderate" or more "centrist" - we are being complicit in inaccurately defining ourselves and the vast majority of Americans as "extreme."
Here's are some examples of what I mean, using the actual public opinion data and the actual dictionary definition of various terms:
- "Centrists" are not U.S. Senators like Joe Lieberman who pigheadedly push a war that polls have shown for years that the majority of Americans oppose. Those are "radicals" well outside the actual "center." I don't care how many times Lieberman or former GOP operative and Christian Coalition official Marshall Wittman uses the DLC's corporate-sponsored resources to claim that "stay-the-course" policies in Iraq represent the "vital center" - the actual public opinion facts and dictionary definition shows that such a characterization is a deliberate, calculated and disgusting lie, and that the only "vital center" such a position represents is the "vital center" of the rectal passage Wittman pulls his dishonest rhetoric from. The "centrists" are people like Connecticut's Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Ned Lamont, whose position on the Iraq War indisputably puts him right at the center of American public opinion. And those dictionary-defined extremists who call him a terrorist sympathizer are calling the majority of Americans terrorist sympathizers.
- "Moderates" are not those lawmakers who consistently oppose the concept of a government-sponsored, single-payer health care system, and instead push for "incremental" changes that appease the HMO industry. Those are called "extremists" when you look at the polling that consistently shows that most Americans want a government-sponsored universal health care even if it means tax increases (and that includes half of the Republican base).
- You are not a "center-left" pundit if, like billionaire Tom Friedman, you aggressively shill for corporate-written trade deals that include no workplace, wage, environmental or human rights standards. According to the actual public opinion data, you are, in fact, outside the "mainstream" of all public opinion, and totally marginalized from progressives. That is, you are, by dictionary definition, well outside "the prevalent attitudes and values of society."
Linguist George Lakoff often reminds people that the terms we use ourselves are often just as self-defining as the terms used against us. Reporters who label positions well outside the mainstream as "centrist" are marginalizing the majority of the public who actually are in the real center. Progressive writers who call others "moderate" or more "moderate" are destructively defining themselves and the broader progressive movement as "extreme" or "more extreme" than their opponents. Worse, they are doing this even as the concrete, verifiable facts show that it is us who are the moderates and our opponents who are truly extreme.
It's time to stop reading the right-wingers' script for them. We, the real moderate centrists who live in the reality-based world, have a compelling, factual story to tell about the real extremists in both parties who fraudulently cloak themselves in Washington's Orwellian doublespeak. But this story will only be told if we have the guts and discipline to change our language and make it reflect reality, rather than a fiction that misleads the country and marginalizes the silent majority.
In the years before becoming a full-time writer, Sirota worked as the press secretary for Vermont Independent Congressman Bernard Sanders, the chief spokesman for Democrats on the U.S. House Appropriations Committee, the Director of Strategic Communications for the Center for American Progress, a campaign consultant for Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer and a media strategist for Connecticut Senate candidate Ned Lamont. He also previously contributed writing to the website of the California Democratic Party. For more on Sirota, see these profiles of him in Newsweek or the Rocky Mountain News. Feel free to email him at lists [at] davidsirota.com Note: this online publication represents Sirota's personal views, and not the official views of the organizations he works with.
David Sirota is a full-time political journalist, best-selling author and 
