Moderates seem missing from politics lately—including in this blog.
In my writings and philosophy over the past year, I’ve been guilty of leaving moderates out of the conversation. I often talk about wanting a better conversation between the left and the right, and I’ve tried to reach out to conservatives and add nuance to my own liberal perspective. But I’ve largely ignored the reality that many Americans fall somewhere in between “liberal” and “conservative”—that for many of us, these labels just aren’t accurate.
They say you teach what you need to learn! Just as I’ve been hoping to teach nuanced thinking, I’ve been struggling to reform the black-and-white aspects of my own thought. Even after a year of tackling the issue of dialogue, I’m impressed with how challenging it is to shift away from a black-and-white, liberal-vs.-conservative worldview.
A friend recently sent me Eric Frydenlund’s excellent piece in the Wisconsin State Journal called “Take a stand, maybe together.” In his article, Frydenlund laments:
With so much shouting from opposing ends of our broken political system, it’s impossible for moderates to be heard… Politics has no interest in finding balance. Politics is a religion sweeping the country for converts, with its right hand offering redemption and its left hand extending the collection plate… Choose a party and declare your faith.
I hope that, as I think and write more on this topic, I can correct my simplistic worldview and come closer to the truth.
Polarization is drowning moderates out.
Where did my black-and-white worldview come from? It’s hard to pinpoint exactly why America feels more divided now than it did a decade ago, but it does. A Gallup poll from last month shows that America has become increasingly polarized since the presidency of George W. Bush.
The BBC’s Mark Mardell recently wrote about America’s polarization, citing MSNBC’s firing of Pat Buchanan as an example. The article is called “Narrowing of the American Mind?” Here’s my favorite quote:
There is a grave danger for American democracy that the two parties not only can’t agree, they can’t even discuss.
One possible culprit is the rise of social media like Facebook. In a TED Talk called “Beware online ‘filter bubbles,’” activist and author Eli Pariser describes the way online “gatekeepers” such as Google and Facebook use algorithms to tailor our search results to fit us personally. Based on our browsing history and/or location, identical searches made by different people can yield dramatically different results.
Since so many of us get our information from the internet nowadays, Pariser implies that this tailoring can increase the divisions between us because we’re actually seeing different information from each other online. I find this worrisome. Here’s his talk, or click this link if you can’t see the video below:
The group No Labels encourages compromise.
But despite all the polarized thinking and rhetoric, the moderates are still there!
I’m intrigued by a national political group called No Labels. Perhaps you’ve heard of them; they’ve popped up in conversation periodically for me, and I finally took the time to look them up this week.
It turns out No Labels was conceived in December 2010, the same time that Ron and I started to meet with Scott and Carol, our conservative friends. That may not be coincidence—the previous month, a wave of Republicans had swept into Congress, led especially by Tea Partiers who’d become prominent in the national conversation. Just as that election prompted me to reach out to the Republican Party, maybe it also inspired No Labels to form.
No Labels’ symbol is a red, white and blue bison. I’m impressed with the rhetoric on their website. Some of it closely echoes that of Reach Out Wisconsin, but while our group aims to bring the two sides together for better dialogue, No Labels works to get away from parties and sides altogether:
The parties have organized themselves into warring clans that value defeating the other side over even the most basic acts of governing, like passing a budget on time or confirming competent people to staff our courts and the president’s Cabinet… Increasingly it’s not the quality of a leader’s ideas that matter, but the label – Democrat, Republican, liberal, conservative – that he or she wears. How else to explain the fact that our political parties now routinely denounce ideas they supported just a few years ago; not because the ideas suddenly became bad, but because the other party embraced them too?
No Labels steers clear of social “wedge” issues such as abortion, which they see as worsening the culture war. Instead, they focus on “diminishing the influence of the extremes” and pressuring politicians to find solutions and common ground on major issues.
No Labels is much bigger than our little Reach Out Wisconsin—it’s a nationwide group with a big budget and the ear of at least a few legislators. Its main goal at the moment is to pass a series of reforms called “Make Congress Work,” intended to create a more functional, effective environment in Congress.
These twelve reforms include things like “No budget, no pay;” reduction of negative campaigning; and bipartisan seating arrangements. Some strike me as drastic or unrealistic, but I like the general idea. My favorite reform is monthly bipartisan social gatherings, in which both parties of Congress spend time together and get to know each other better as people. “Like any workplace, Congress depends on good human relationships to function.”
Moderate politicians are trying to work together, too.
And although it may be rare, there are also moderate politicians working to reach out—a great example happened last October here in Wisconsin.
During a time when this state was incredibly divided, with recall elections looming and toxic rhetoric from all sides, two senators attempted to bridge the divide. Dale Schultz is a moderate Republican, the only Wisconsin Republican to vote against the notorious Budget Repair Bill. Tim Cullen is a moderate Democrat. Together they toured their districts in southeastern Wisconsin to promote bipartisanship.
There are numerous articles and clips about this effort, which they called their Common Ground Tour. Here’s one: “Political odd couple finds common ground on Wisconsin road trip.”
What an inspiring idea! I hope it engenders more of the same across the state. Moderates have a lot to teach the rest of us.
Interesting approach. I think the problem with including moderates in the discussion of issues between liberals and conservatives is that moderates come in more “flavors”. It is my belief that moderates are the largest majority in politics, the ones the hard left and hard right long to get to vote for them, but the reasons for their moderation are vast. Many Americans vote, for various reasons, without being active in politics or even paying much attention to news and current events. I can’t figure those people out, though I sometimes envy their ability to “check out” and live their lives with little thought to bigger events and things happening around them. On the other hand, you have moderates like me. Now I realize that being a tea party person and occasional leader that many would say I am not moderate, but I would disagree. Most in the tea party, myself included, label themselves constitutional and/or fiscal conservatives. This is quite different from merely associating yourself with the GOP, because the tea party lacks all social issues as part of its platform. Religion, gay rights, environmentalism, abortion, drugs, etc. just are not part of the movement, and members have tremendously different views on these issues, and we seldom discuss them even amongst ourselves. Those are all things associated with the GOP, but not tea party. So I would say most tea party types are moderate, more so than the GOP, at least. I won’t claim to speak for everyone in the tea party of course, because in reality you will find all types of people on social issues, just as in society as a whole, but I am comfortable speaking about myself, and why by most measures I should be considered a moderate. I am a strong and outspoken supporter of constitutional, limited government, individual and states rights, and fiscal conservatism. I usually vote republican, but only usually. On social issues, most would say I am a liberal, and that would be fair. I am pro choice, pro gay marriage, and support legalization of marijuana. In other words, the GOP won’t nominate me for janitor, and I am OK with that. The nice thing about being a moderate, and a tea partier in particular, I have no sworn allegiance to any political party. It is hard to get me to vote for a democrat, but not impossible. I have done it many times in my life. It is very easy to get me to NOT vote for a republican, just screw up on a promise or violate the constitution once and you lost me. A new republican only gets my vote by default once, after that he/she must prove to me they share my values that I consider important at the time. Which brings me to my final point, what is important can change. Right now, the things I consider most critical are movement away from the constitution and fiscal mismanagement. There is too much at stake right now for me to vote on social issues, so until real change is made to restore this country from a post-constitutional nation to its core principles, and stop the spending that will lead to downfall, the ones that I feel will help achieve this goal will get my vote. If we ever get back to foundational values, I suspect most social issues will resolve themselves. And if not, and everything else is stable, my more moderate to liberal side will come out.
I applaud their effort, but this is not a couple of guys from opposing parties. Dale Schultz is a RINO and I know plenty of people that wish he’d quit pretending and just switch sides. Quite frankly, we are tired of him and a lot of us more than willing to trade him.
RINO, for those who do not know, means Republican In Name Only. It is meant as an insult from Republicans who do not want their party to be a wide tent that covers folks with diverse backgrounds and varying opinions. They even go so far as to purge the party of those who do not follow what they consider “the party line.” This all seems to be the antithesis of what this group (this blog) is attempting to do. What Todd Osborne is saying is that he wants a pure orthodoxy. There have been many calls for pure orthodoxy in history, including the Nazis in Germany, Italy, and Japan in the late 30’s and 40s. Their orthodoxy was enforced by the Gestapo. Communist Russia enforced its pure orthodoxy with the KGB. Is this the future Todd wants for our nation? I suspect he doesn’t see it in those terms, but this is always a good test of a hypothesis to stretch it to its farthest point and see if it still resonates. I don’t think Todd or any of the rest of us wants to “police” thoughts within our parties or our nation to that extent. It might shed more light and remove more heat if Todd would seek to understand why Dale Shultz thinks what he does and why he would act as he does in the face of a monolithic approach by his party in Wisconsin. Personally, I think it takes great courage for Mr. Schultz to say and do what he does. I also respect the Democrat who he works with.
I know Todd and consider him a friend, and know that he (like most people) would be disturbed to be compared with Nazis. I would never go that far, and would like to discourage such comparisons in the future. (I’m actually planning on writing about this in a future post.)
That said, I, too, would like to hear more from Todd or Republicans about this. I don’t know details about Dale Schultz’s beliefs; what makes him Republican In Name Only? What are the core beliefs that you feel all Republicans should embody, without which a “Republican” becomes a “RINO”? Is “moderate Republican” an oxymoron? Or is Dale Schultz just somehow failing at the role?
One last point: Similar to Todd’s complaint about Schultz, I have heard a great many liberals complain that President Obama doesn’t adequately represent liberal views—that he’s somehow sold out, for instance by failing to close Guantanamo, escalating the war in Afghanistan, failing to reform the public education system, or making too many compromises on health care. I, too, often wish that Obama would do more, but I must say that I like his style. I’d rather have a moderate President from either party, who is willing to compromise and take time with decisions, than an uncompromising leader like Wisconsin’s Governor Scott Walker who just pushes the party line.
One of the things I find very ironic is that the British have, by far, the best news reporting on American matters.
Their coverage of our news is vastly superior to, and more fair, than our own.