Tiptoeing Into The Middle

I am a lifelong liberal democrat.  I have been married to a conservative republican since 1991: twenty years at time of writing.  This has made me hyper-aware of, and hypersensitive to, the political polarization of the U.S. The polarization, the paralysis it causes in our political institutions, the energy that is wasted on repeating the same old arguments year after year. I don’t want to hear people arguing—interrupting each other, speaking in angry voices, and not listening to each other. I don’t want to live in a country where legislative bodies can’t get anything done because they are dominated by partisans of the left and the right who can’t agree on anything.

In the 60's, that seminal decade of American politics, liberalism was very fashionable. I remember descriptions in Time and Newsweek about the upcoming Liberal Republicans (Nelson Rockefeller is one name that sticks in my mind). Barry Goldwater, a professed Conservative, lost a landslide election to Lyndon Johnson and Conservatism was marginalized and ridiculed openly by many—causing severe trauma to many people who became the Conservatives of today, and who love to return the favor by ridiculing and attempting to marginalize Liberals—which effort has had some success, as measured by the small minority of Democratic politicians who are willing to wear the Liberal name in public nowadays, and by the embracing of the term Progressive by many former Liberals.

Nowadays, very few people will admit to having been communist sympathizers, or even to having admired socialist ideals—but in fact this was common in the left wing of the democratic party. I had friends to whom Liberal was a dirty word, because Liberals pandered to the capitalist bosses.

On the other side, not many people will admit to having supported segregation, or having opposed women's rights, but a lot of people—otherwise respectable and reasonable people—did.

So here's the deal: I believe we have in fact already reached a centrist consensus in this country. There is a huge majority who can agree on great swathes of public policy and public morality. Such as:

• Capitalism is not going anywhere—it is here to stay. Other economic systems have failed spectacularly, and capitalism has succeeded spectacularly, although not without cost. We need to smooth out the sharp edges of capitalism, which is not the same as marching toward socialism.
• Social security and medicare are not going anywhere either: they are extremely popular programs that are entrenched in our way of life. We do not, as a society, think it is right to let vulnerable people (the elderly and children especially) freeze or starve.

The reason that the liberal/conservative labels, suspicions, fears, and hostilities persist is to large extent because it is to the benefit of politicians, during election campaigns, to whip up those old sentiments, those old “us vs. them” group identifications. (Also because of  certain negative trends in our media.)

This system is not working for us. It has given us gridlock in Washington and in many state capitals. It is time to step boldly into the the middle...or to tiptoe there.