The United States has lost its center through destructive centrifugal politics. America seems spinning out of control. It has become a non-populist, dollar-driven, elitist democracy. Centrism can be a powerful metaphor and tool for national renewal, if it is also populist.
In the world of politics, language is used to deceive, distract and divide. Some words become so abused that they lose meaning. In recent years, enormous numbers of liberals and Democrats decided to hide under the label of "progressive." Many politicians want to be seen as "moderates." A newer subterfuge is "centrist."
Manipulative Centrism
Someone wrote this on a blog discussion: "Centrism is an empty, contentless label that by its very nature is without substance or ideology. What is the centrist position on heathcare reform, half way between the left and right? What is its position on defense spending, ditto? Someone, please, tell me what centrism is?" It was a good point and question.
Centrism sounds reasonable. But it has been abused. Many people see centrism as some middle ground between the liberal-Democratic and conservative-Republican ends of the political spectrum, some way to achieve balance and avoid extremes. By shunning these polarizing positions it is hoped that a moderate, middle of the road or "third way" stance is created. But centrism may be nothing more than empty compromises of positions from each of the two major parties. It too easily becomes a diffuse, ambiguous mishmash of positions that say little about where someone stands in terms of absolute principles. Indeed, many find centrism attractive because it is malleable and flexible, allowing whatever seems pragmatic at the time. This makes centrism vulnerable to abuse by those seeking a popular political brand that is not burdened by adherence to clear principles. For the most part, centrism has been empty political rhetoric, but it can be re-powered.
After the 2004 election Kevin Cassell made noted: "Centrism is not a clear-cut ideology (or belief system); many encyclopedias don't even include it as a category unto itself." And David Sirota wrote the hard-hitting article "Debunking Centrism." He said the Democratic Leadership Council "is funded by huge contributions from multinationals like Philip Morris, Texaco, Enron and Merck, which have all, at one point or another, slathered the DLC with cash. Those resources have been used to push a nakedly corporate agenda under the guise of 'centrism' while allowing the DLC to parrot GOP criticism of populist Democrats as far-left extremists. ...centrist groups argue that the party must court moderates and find a way to compete in the Midwest and South.'" Later, in Hostile Takeover he pointed out how ultra-conservative right-wingers hijacked the terms "centrist" and "mainstream," misleading the public.
Like other terms, centrist has become another linguistic weapon of mass deception when used by mainstream politicians. Is Joe Lieberman a genuine centrist or just a conservative Democrat? Is Arnold Schwarzenegger a centrist, or just clever enough to abandon some of his principles? Does calling Hillary Clinton a centrist make her more appealing?
Commenting on what appeared to be the winning Democratic strategy before this year's midterm elections, Sally Kohn said: "Centrism not only alienates the Democratic base but also plays into the Right wing's ultimate agenda. ... Centrism is not a 'third way', it's their way -- taking Right wing ideas and trying to pass them off as enlightened Democratic compromise."
There is a lot of expedient and faux centrism. Vermont's Senator-elect Bernie Sanders, officially an Independent, said: "There is one point I want to make clear because all too often I see this discussion of progressivism vs centrism as merely one of gaining tactical advantage in an election. I am a progressive because that is what I believe at my core. It is not some position of convenience to be shed the next time some Washington wonk decides it's more advantageous to be a centrist."
Unlike Sanders, Bill Clinton used centrism as a campaign tactic. In Dead Center James MacGregor Burns and Georgia Sorenson made the point: "Clinton's major failure was his inability... to frame a coordinated policy program that would make of his centrism not just an electoral strategy but a vital center of change..." Other authors embrace centrism, mostly on the basis that it is an alternative to divisive and extreme political positions. Yet the nagging question remains: What exactly and uniquely defines real, trustworthy centrism?
In sum, "partisan centrism," viewed as the center region along an axis of left-right, blue-red partisan issues, supports the two-party status quo. It is defeatist. It protects the elitist political, economic and bipartisan ruling class. The center should not be a statistical mean, but an ideological imperative. Phony partisan centrism does not merit public support.
Listen to Sirota: "Centrism" as defined in the political dialogue today means "being in the middle of elite opinion in Washington, D.C." But if you plot this "center" on the continuum that is American public opinion, you will find that it is nowhere near the actual center of the country at large. The center of elite Washington opinion is ardently free trade, against national health care, opposed to market regulation, for continuing the Iraq War, and supportive of the flattest tax structure we've had in contemporary American history. That center is on the extreme fringe of the center of American public opinion, which is ardently skeptical of free trade, for universal health care, supportive of strong market regulations, insistent that the war end soon, and in favor of making the tax system more progressive.
Centrism At Its Best
Unity through centripetal politics is a necessary alternative to destructive and divisive centrifugal politics. Centrism can pull Americans together to fill the currently empty national spiritual and political center.
In searching for real centrism worthy of broad public support it helps to distinguish between divisive political "issues" versus structural or systemic problems and their solutions.
From a marketing perspective, to differentiate themselves, at least during campaigns, Democrats and Republicans use social, economic and government issues for which they can stake out seemingly different positions. Abortion, illegal immigration, the Iraq war, globalization, taxes, health care costs, and same sex marriage are divisive issues. Issues are usually framed so that people can say they are for or against something. Issues are meant to elicit quick, emotional responses that get people lined up with one party or candidate and antagonistic toward the other. Issues produce polarizing partisan politics. They divide by design.
Joel S. Hirschhorn is the author of Delusional Democracy - Fixing the Republic Without Overthrowing the Government (www.delusionaldemocracy.com). His current political writings have been greatly influenced by working as a senior staffer for the U.S. Congress and for the National Governors Association. He advocates a Second American Revolution, beginning with an Article V Convention to propose constitutional amendments. He is Chair of the Independent Party of Maryland.
This Populist Centrist all the People for the people party already exists, but has not been named until now. By me. The Apathy party. Fact is most people don't care about politics, don't like taxes at all, look at goverment fixes and projects and despair. For example, The Interstate system, obselete practically before it was built. Space Shuttle, be honest, would you fly on that thing? Here's one topical, The Levee system in New Orleans(no comment needed), Fact is the road to hell is filled with good intentions applies expecially to government initiatives. Where's the competence? Our best and brightest do not serve in government. Do not want to serve in government. How do you fix that?
Besides that, how on earth will you ever get a populist party by the Main Stream ELITIST CONTROLLED media. When you type MSM for media you need to change that to MSECM. Truth. Look what the MSECM did to Howard Dean with that scream. Why I ask You? Go back and read Dean's early campaing rhetoric and see all the taboos he broke. Plus he tried to do an end run on the MSECM with the Internet(grass roots?) (Populist?). But you can't run for office totally on the Internet and when he surfaced on TV well, we all saw, but how many realized what was really going on.
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"Hoss" David P. (51 articles, 5 quicklinks, 14 diaries, 339 comments)
on Monday, December 4, 2006 at 2:51:03 PM
With no politician uttering a statement, even about the weather, without checking the poll numbers one would expect our political systems to seemingly see all playing towards the middle. In reality the behind the scenes machinations make the voter almost an irrelevent pawn in a game he is not invited into.
Look, in 1968 the highest paid CEO in the land made roughly 239 times that of a minimum wage worker. In 2005 that CEO made over 20,000 times the minimum wage, one CEO in the health care industry actually reaped, in salary, stock options and bonus over one billion dollars...yup no misprint that.
The game is played with money, and as the gulf between the worker and CEO widens to astronomical proportion, as the middle class shrinks to miniscule proportion, the politico can make those meaningless middle of the road platitudes that really deliniate no position because he or she is really playing to the boardroom and not the electorate. With enough cash to pay for unending commercial time on the
media a candidate can simply brainwash a voter into selecting that all too familiar name.
The middle signifies a point half way between the opinions of everyone, noone really lives there, and it is as much a copout as a lie. People who claim the mantle of centrism really claim not very much in the way of a real position, in my opinion, and contribute the same nothing to any political dialogue. It seems more a lack of character than a real political stance.
Today , Thom Hartman spoke to this on his radio show. He noted that what really deliniates a progressive is not his support for a laundry list of changes, but a real world view and an understanding that everything on this planet is interconnected and interdependent. Not exactly a position found in the center, now is it?
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ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2388 comments)
on Monday, December 4, 2006 at 6:58:29 PM
Until we get campaign finance reform. How are you going to ever compete with the Republicans or Democrats when they are sucking up all the Corporate and special interest money? It's an old saying, follow the money. Get the playing field leveled and maybe a third party would have a chance. Still as you said, a center of what? Right now we have an empty headed population that act like lemmings walking toward the cliffs of disaster. I tried to start a third party. I've been all through this and it always came back to the money. Control the money or just bar it from entering into play by taking the rights of corporations to be considered "a person" under the law, and we can start from there. The hard part is getting Americans to care about where our political direction is headed.
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Timothy V. Gatto (348 articles, 177 quicklinks, 38 diaries, 575 comments)
on Tuesday, December 5, 2006 at 5:19:00 AM
I appreciate the thoughtful comments given. One reason I wrote the article was the bad image centrism has received. That is the result of how the two major parties and their politicians have abused the notion of centrism. Centrism must have some singular and important meaning. Perhaps my science metaphor of centrifugal politics that has spun our country apart did not work. I see honest centrism having the potential to bring the nation back together, especially if it is populist. I see virtually no hope for the nation as long as the two-party mafia maintains its stranglehold over OUR political system. Apathy is justified with this condition. Making third parties competitive requires the campaign finance issue to be addressed; I think the solution is the Clean Money/Clean Elections approach where candidates voluntarily agree to take only government financing that puts them on an equal footing with the major party candidates. Of course, the odds are against third parties under present conditions; but as the data I gave in the article show, the vast majority of Americans are smart enough to know that we need more political competition. The centrist and populist concepts have merit. I think progressives have been harmed by so many Democrats calling themselves progressives. The same arguments against a meaningless centrism can also be made against progressivism. In my mind, real progressives are not enthusiastic supporters of Democrats; they should be fighting for third party competition and removing the barriers to them set up by the two major parties.
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Joel S. Hirschhorn (118 articles, 22 quicklinks, 53 diaries, 470 comments)
on Tuesday, December 5, 2006 at 9:07:10 AM
Mr Joel:
It will be counter productive in the long run to try and exclude Corporate influence from the Political Process. After all in our capitalist society(love it or hate it) it is the Corporations that Make the cars, supply the fuel, build the houses etc. While this mass consumerism can seem out of control to the detriment of some people's financial lives, most of us I hope are simply grateful to be able to get what we need and sometimes what we want to be able to enjoy a modern life. The problem in Corporate culture is this Profits over People Agenda. How to get back to the simple respect of community and inclusive Corporate policy and yet remain competitive is the Answer. How to get back to a Profits with People Agenda would I think be worth discussing. I will start with Unions. While at the beginning they addressed obvious wrongs and they did improve lives without impacting Industry. But in the end Unions became an undesirable dead weight not only on Corporations but American competiveness in general. With Job guarantees and Low Quotas we created an entitlement program out of our workplace. I think we are seeing a reaction to the over reaching social engineering program that our Unions morphed into. There just has to be a middle ground in all this. Fair Profits for business who create the jobs with fair wages and benefits for workers who show pride and facility in their work. There are other areas beside Unions of course but I think my Idea of working together has been stated somewhat. At least enough for a comment.
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"Hoss" David P. (51 articles, 5 quicklinks, 14 diaries, 339 comments)
on Tuesday, December 5, 2006 at 1:14:26 PM
You actually believe that corporations have given so much to this nation that they shouldn't be excluded from the political process? where is your justification for that? They make things to make a profit, not to "help" people. They aren't even "American" corporations, they are Transnational. The people who want corporate money out of our campaign funding are not anti-corporatists or communists, we just don't want them buying thev government. Who do you work for?
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Timothy V. Gatto (348 articles, 177 quicklinks, 38 diaries, 575 comments)
on Wednesday, December 6, 2006 at 8:28:57 AM
