It Depends on What the Meaning of “Is” Is

Is the Republican Party an extremist party whereas the Democratic Party that of commonsense and moderation? Not so much says Peter Wehner in an NYT op-ed:

The Democratic Party, then, has moved steadily to the left since the Clinton presidency. In fact, since his re-election, Mr. Obama’s inner progressive has been liberated. (An exception is the administration’s conditional approval of oil drilling off the Alaskan coast, starting this summer.) Other examples are his executive action granting temporary legal status to millions of illegal immigrants, his claim that gay marriage is a constitutional right, and his veto of legislation authorizing construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.

The Democratic Party is now a pre-Bill Clinton party, the result of Mr. Obama’s own ideological predilections and the coalition he has built. Liberals will argue that the Democratic Party has benefited from this movement to the left and cite the election victories of Mr. Obama as evidence of it. The nation has become more liberal, they say, and the Democratic Party has wisely moved with it.

In some respects, like gay rights, the nation is more liberal than it was two decades ago. On the other hand, it is more conservative today than it was in the mid-1990s. A recent Pew Research Center poll found that Republicans have opened substantial leads over Democrats on dealing with terrorism, foreign policy and taxes. They’re competitive on the economy, and a good deal more competitive than in the past on traditional liberal issues like immigration and health care. Self-identified conservatives significantly outnumber self-identified liberals.

This discussion might benefit from considering how Americans more broadly rather than just Americans who identify as Republicans and Americans who identify as Democrats or Americans who identify as conservatives and Americans who identify as liberals think and Gallup has been tracking that for some time. Both political parties are jettisoning their moderates in favor of their more radical members leaving moderates who number nearly the same number as Americans who consider themselves conservatives and considerably more than Americans who consider themselves liberals.

Today we have Left Bolsheviks and Right Bolsheviks in control of the major political parties, leaving moderates able to bridge their differences out in the cold.

6 comments… add one
  • ... Link

    I don’t find moderates all that superior to the extremists. For one thing, there’s a broad consensus between the parties on many issues, from monetary policy to trade to immigration, to the need for a large interventionist government both at home and abroad. Most of the disputes in those areas, when they exist, are more about how the spoils get divided rather than issues of philosophical dispute. So the moderates have won and achieved their consensus for fucking over the bulk of the country’s populace in favor of the rich & powerful. Yay moderate consensus builders! (Is the “NOT!” really necessary?)

    And where the parties differ are frequently on matters that are largely settled (abortion) by the courts, will be settled by the courts (the right of transgendered poodles to marry mix-raced illegal immigrant aardvark-capybarass), or are utterly pointless (who’s the bigger perv, that oldest Duggar boy or Lena Dunham?) or irrelevant (should famous children’s book authors be legally entitled to get bombed on dope, ambien, & scotch every night, and should Obama are be legally mandated to pay for their inevitable stint in rehab?).

    So the moderates have either succeeded, are unneeded, or are utterly irrelevant, in other words pointless. So why care about them at all?

  • there’s a broad consensus between the parties on many issues, from monetary policy to trade to immigration, to the need for a large interventionist government both at home and abroad

    You’re right. There is such a consensus, almost entirely mistaken.

  • PD Shaw Link

    I don’t find there to be any worthwhile measure of a party’s drift from the center other than electoral success, and we have one party that appears destined to control Congress for years in the future and another that has a better than 50% chance of keeping the WH.

  • steve Link

    On the domestic front, you get to choose between the party that believes in tax and spend or the party that believes in cut taxes and spend. Not much choice. But on foreign policy the neocon influence is much stronger in the GOP. You get to choose between interventionist ( a few ideas in Libya) or INTERVENTIONIST (thousands dead in Iraq). When they win in 2016 expect a full scale invasion in Iraq.

    Steve

  • When they win in 2016 expect a full scale invasion in Iraq.

    That’s what a military advisor to the White House was proposing, too. It’s not limited to neo-cons.

  • steve Link

    The neocons are also in with the Dems, they just don’t have as much influence. IIRC, that was a former advisor.

    Steve

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