May
12
2012
Polarization?: What’s Going On Here?
Author: Gary HartSince I took an informal oath a while back not to write about politics, let’s treat this rumination as an exercise in sociology. The question, raised in another recent blog, is why political media analysts insist on the “equivalence” theory of political confrontation? According to that theory both parties are represented by the extremes in their respective coalitions, Republicans by the far right and Democrats by the far left. These extremes have led to “polarization”.
The primary defeat of Senator Richard Lugar, a man considered reasonably conservative when he entered the U.S. Senate in the 1970s, reveals a great deal about the center of ideological gravity in the Republican party. When Senator Lugar, and even more spectacularly Senator Orrin Hatch and his former colleague Robert Bennett, are considered too “liberal” by Republicans in Indiana and Utah, respectively, you have to know we are not dealing with any traditional definition of liberal and conservative. Instead, they were attacked by ultra-conservative forces for one simple reason: they believed in seeking honorable compromise with Democrats.
The man who defeated Senator Lugar stated the de facto official Republican party position: there will be no compromise on anything with Democrats. This leaves aside the significant fact that every Democrat in Congress was elected by a majority of citizens, as was the incumbent President, in their respective States and districts and that registered Democrats represent roughly half of Americans. I’ve studied American history pretty carefully and I can’t find another period where an entire major political party took a rule-or-ruin approach to government.
Democrats are accused of “polarization” simply because they refuse to vote for extreme right positions on reduced taxes for the wealthy, cuts in humanitarian programs, and military spending the Pentagon doesn’t want.
The extreme position essentially says that half the country does not deserve representation. My friend and former colleague, Senator Jack Danforth, echoed by former Senator Chuck Hagel, recently said this was not the philosophy of the Republican party to which he belonged.
Largely by internal assault the Republican party purged (including by retirement) moderate Senators of a previous era, such as Percy, Mathias, Case, Javits, and Specter more recently, and are now purging traditional conservatives. (There is a long history of ideological purges, but only in totalitarian states.) Efforts to identify Democrats defeated by more liberal primary opponents yield only Senator Lieberman.
Name-calling is cheap. Calling President Obama a “socialist” may make radio talkers feel clever and powerful, but that does not make it so. No question, advocacy of same gender marriage is “liberal” in the traditional sense of tolerant and inclusive. But Norman Thomas never made it close to the White House and never will.
Who are the far left liberals running the Democratic party? Labor and public employee unions are trying to hold on to pensions and benefits won years ago. Economic conditions may make this effort impossible. But they are hardly in any traditional liberal mode of seeking more. Advocates for the elderly, children, and the poor are not seeking to expand modest (by European standards) human assistance programs. They too are simply trying to preserve these humane programs. Environmentalists are likewise in a reactive mode, trying to prevent further destruction of nature’s infrastructure on which all life depends.
So where is the evidence for the presence of extreme left ideology, the counterpart of the rightward lurch of the current Republican party? A Ph.D. in political science is not required to know that the center of political gravity has shifted substantially to the right in recent years and therefore that the stalemate and gridlock in government is not the result of diametrically opposed political extremes. Yet that is the way it is still portrayed in the political media. If anything, liberal and progressive forces outside of government are dismayed at the perceived willingness of the President and Congressional Democrats to compromise away hard-one social victories during the New Deal and Great Society eras.
Eventually, on their own and with little help from the political media, America’s citizens will realize political gridlock is the product of ultra-right, anti-compromise forces now dominating the Republican party. And when they do, we might have a chance to restore reasonable government to our nation.
May 12th, 2012 at 5:27 pm
[...] Link. one side is polar This entry was posted in share and tagged s by jgordon. Bookmark the permalink. [...]
May 13th, 2012 at 9:25 am
Your use of the word “totalitarian” in reference to the viewpoint and activities of Republican Party is indeed disheartening, but oh so true. I would go even further, as I have done in prior comments to this blog, and use the word “fascist” as being more apropos. This country is being led by today’s American fascist in much the same manner as 1930’s Germany was into an ever downward spiraling destruction of the American Constitution and democratic system of governance. A major difference this time is that it is the wealthy, the banking and financial structures, and the corporate entities that are leading the way to blame the poor, the minorities, the labor unions, and, as you point out, the programs of the New Deal and Great Society eras as being to blame for the current social and economic crisis that America currently faces. These modern fascists are barricading themselves against the onslaught to come using the tax dollars of the rest of America’s working people for their own gain.
Although Jeffrey H. Reiman was addressing the criminal justice system in his work “The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison” (John Wiley & Sons, 1979), some of what he had to say is also applicable to the economic situation in America today. His thesis was that those in power were utilizing a process that “conveys the image that the real danger to decent, law-abiding Americans comes from below them, rather than from above them, on the economic ladder. This image sanctifies the status quo with its disparities of wealth, privilege, and opportunity and thus serves the interests of the rich and powerful in America – the very ones who could change criminal justice policy if they were really unhappy with it.” The difference today is that these same “rich and powerful” are not interested in changing the economic policy at work in America, because they are the ones that have worked so hard to get this policy into play, are the ones in control of it, and are the “1%” that benefit most from it.
It has always amazed me that “liberals” are willing to let wrongdoers transgress egregiously against them and society by breaking any and all of the ethical and moral principles of a society and still hold the transgressors to the liberal’s own moral and ethical code using this same code in any attempt to bring them to justice. However, there are times when the liberal, much to their own distaste, must resort to the use of such despicable acts as war and/or rebellion to bring the transgressors to bay. I fear that such a day is coming all too soon to America. The sad result of this situation was best summed up by J. R. R. Tolkien. “…when things are in danger, some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them.”
May 16th, 2012 at 12:36 pm
That might well be the most shrewd observation you’ve made. We keep hearing “righter-right and lefter-left” when in fact there’s very little ‘left,’ with the exception of some issues which have meandered more toward the mainstream of America.
What must our professors of political science be teaching these days? To use fact-less rhetoric because it seems to be working, or to use fact because it’s the right thing to do? Or is it enough to simply teach what is occurring rather than the possibilities of combating it? (Feel free to chime in, any professorial readers.)
Sen. Hart–when “this” (and I don’t even know what the hell “this” is quite yet, but it stems from this no compromise attitude) began a few years ago, I didn’t really give it much thought. Politicians stake out positions and defend them. But during the cycle of the 2010 election, the rhetoric was such that it invoked in me the state of the U.S. Congress right before the Civil War. It was anything but civil. My question is–and I’m asking sincerely–did that congress meet your rule-or-ruin criteria?
June 25th, 2012 at 11:29 am
[...] pointing out the failures of Democrats, however, Hart hasn’t ignored the rise of the radical right: The extreme position essentially says that half the country does not deserve representation. My [...]