Nothing makes me angrier than appeals to centrism and civility. We have a two-party political system and those parties have conveniently occupied the left and the right of America’s political spectrum. Though we can debate the where the Democratic and Republican Parties actually fit on the grand scheme of political ideology, there is not doubt that their ideologies leave little space between each other. The problem with a visual metaphor for political ideology on a Left-Right spectrum is that it necessarily implies a Center. But centrism’s only claim to existence, as far as I can see, is based on the fallout of this metaphor.

Centrism in the US has manifested itself solely as the ability or propensity to reach compromise between positions held by the parties of the Left and the Right. Asking for political resolution to come out of an ill-defined and evidently non-existent centrist ideology is a recipe for ineffectiveness. American centrism exists solely on the backs of Democratic and Republican ideologies.

Unity08.com

Not surprisingly, I almost blew a gasket perusing Unity08.com today. Unity Aught Eight is the movement based around the false premises that what’s wrong in America can be solved if everyone in politics got along better and used nice words when talking to each other. Civility and compromise are core principles to this crowd. The only thing surpassing their faith in civility and compromise is their self-delusional belief that they are America’s Silent Majority.

Triforce

Leaving aside some of the more comic elements of the Unity Aught Eight website (for example, they are polling visitors on what their party’s force’s tagline should be; one option is “A Third Force in the Middle,” which just makes me think their supporters are likely bear the middle name “Triforce“), the Unity Aught Eight site is replete with sadly infuriating misdirection of political activism. They are organizing a party force about nothing, in a Seinfeldian attempt at a political coup. We learn from their “Goverance” FAQs that they have no platform:

No. It will have an agenda of crucial issues, as determined by professional surveys of the delegates and public at large, and it will expect those seeking its nomination to provide their platform addressing the Unity08 agenda of crucial issues. Unity08 will not play the charade game of today’s two parties of adopting a platform the candidates feel free to ignore.

This is remarkable. Some candidates don’t follow their party’s platform, therefore the Unity Aught Eight Party Force refuses to craft one. This is a childish justification for avoiding standing for anything.

The fetishization of compromise and civility reaches new heights in the blog post “Top 10 Reasons Why the Moderate Middle Matters.” The Unity Aught Eight Party Force is so intent on remaining civil and finding compromise that they only list one reason on their top ten list.

1. Moderates are the only ones with the desire to find common ground.

Well, leaving asides the fact that this statement is falsifiable, who cares? Common ground is not an answer. Common ground is an undefinable place that changes on every single issue. How is changing one’s beliefs on every single issue an admirable quality?

Common ground and compromise are awful metrics for political merit because policy problems often have correct answers. Those answers are arrived at largely through political ideologies. I could not articulate for you what a centrist or moderate position was on workers’ rights, health care, education, foreign policy, or Social Security. Or to get into more specifics, I don’t know what a centrist thinks about Sarbanes-Oxley, the Military Commissions Act of 2006, or Sino-American relations.

I think trying to connect to people’s base notions that getting along is better than not getting along is an extremely cynical brand of politics - more so than honest partisanship. Standing for not standing against each other doesn’t take much. It is no call to greatness, it is mediocrity through the vapid. Ask people to stand for something concrete and they will be inspired. “Hey you kids stop fighting back there” is not leadership. Only someone who has no faith in the power of big ideas could think that this bland centrism is the most Americans can stomach.

Americans are capable of more than having a referendum on whether or not we want Crossfire put back on the air. Because that’s what these repeated pleas for bipartisanship and civility are - an expression of tiredness over how politics is portrayed on TV. There is no platform behind bipartisanship, no aspirational texts. No, it’s just “Would you guys like us to stop shouting all of the time?” Well, of course we would. But tone doesn’t run a government.

A person can have no claim on the mantle of leader when all they ask of the people is ideological quietude. Yet the Unity Aught Eight Party Force wants Americans to think that our only problem is that we care too much about making this country a better place. Were we only to care less, to invest ourselves less, we would all just get along. This is not an ideal, it is a call for passivism. It must be resisted with all of the passion we can muster.


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