Center-Right is Center-Wrong

Who knew?! According to razzle-dazzle conservative pundits, it turns out that the lesson of the 2008 election is that we are supposedly a "center-right" nation.

Yes, yes, I know, but stop laughing so that I can continue.

This reminds me of the joke about the definition of an economist. "An economist is a person who sees something occur in reality and doubts that it can happen in theory."

If Republicans want to doubt what theoretically happened on November 4, that's their right. But it doesn't change the reality.

In their theoretical world, John McCain likely won a sweeping landslide. Congratulations! Theoretically. But in the reality-based world, Barack Obama will be sworn into office on January 20, and Democrats had sweeping victories in the House and Senate in each of the last two elections.

That's how reality works.

Honestly, I don't doubt that a majority of people questioned could possibly have told some exit pollsters that their political leanings might have been center-right. It's absolutely possible. Of course, Ohio Democrats who voted in 2004 might remind you that exit polls aren't really all that reliable.

And pollsters will tell you that what question is asked can change what answer you get.

But far more importantly, what a person says they are can be worlds different from what they actually are. Y'know, that whole "actions speak louder than words," thingee? If a person says they don't like Italian food, but has a mouthful of pizza, you can make a pretty good case that they actually like Italian food. Kids probably would have told you they hate reading. And then "Harry Potter" got published.

And who knows, maybe some people said they considered themselves conservative and even believed that, just not knowing precisely what the dividing line between conservative and the next choice was. But when they vote for Barack Obama ("The Most Liberal Member of the Senate!"); and when they vote for 255 Democrats in the House, compared to 174 Republicans; and when they vote for likely 59 Democratic senators out of 100; and when they vote to have 28 Democratic governors but 22 Republicans -

- thinking that you're living in a "center-right" nation means that where you're actually living is in a Fools Paradise.

The Washington Post just reported that when Barack Obama takes office, he is looking at reversing many of the 200 executive orders that George Bush had signed, including policies on stem cell research, climate change, EPA standards, reproductive rights and more. This was the Democratic platform - the campaign went on for two years - the presidential debates and convention acceptance speeches were seen by largest audiences in history: people have a pretty fair idea what they were voting for. Anyone who thought they were voting for center-right Democrats is likely in for a massive shock. Happily, that's not a big problem, since the number of those people are mostly limited to Republican pundits trying to stay afloat.

Admittedly, though, it's somewhat amusing to watch, because Republicans calling something one thing and meaning the exact opposite has become standard operating procedure. "Compassionate conservative" and "Mission Accomplished" come to mind. Not to mention, the "Clear Skies Initiative" that increased allowable pollutants, the "Healthy Forest Initiative" that expanded logging, and the law that reduced personal freedoms, whimsically named "The Patriot Act."

Indeed this quaint habit reached "Alice in Wonderland" heights after the election, as we saw Republicans falling over themselves to say the very opposite of what they were insisting during the campaign -

We have Sarah Palin raising the alarm that Barack Obama was dangerously "palling around with terrorists" - and now after his election, asking us to "savor this moment," adding "God bless Barack Obama and his beautiful family."

We have Michele Bachman doing her Joseph McCarthy best to charge that Barack Obama "may have Anti-American views" - and now after his election lauding what "a tremendous signal we sent."

And so, amid all this, it is hardly surprising to find some conservatives desperately trying to convince anyone who'll listen that "we live in a center-right nation." The official name for this is "grasping at straws." (And it's "straws" only because the life preservers are all gone.) But honestly, people really aren't that stupid, no matter how much the Bush Administration played them. People understand they actually voted for the candidates and party who support ending the war in Iraq, bringing universal health care, reversing global warming, getting rid of tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans and on and on.

Then again, if some conservatives want to keep believing that America is "center right," that's fine - because they will continue to lose elections by not seeing the world as it actually is. They'll continue aiming their efforts at an ever-dwindling electorate. And the rest of the nation that has long-since shifted the other direction will leave them behind in the dust.

Calling this nation today "center-right" is the last-ditch effort of the lost. You only find your way out of the forest when you view the world clearly and understand where you are and how you got there. Fool yourself by pointing to all the polls you want, the rest of us will look at who sits in the White House, Senate, House and state governments.

Fool yourself more, and you get stuck with your Brent Bozell's telling Fox audiences in false comfort that "Barack Obama won as a conservative."

In the end, the only reasons some try to usurp other's values is because they have none of their own.

Comments

[James Brown]

Could someone explain to me how a country could be 'Center-Right' of itself?
After all if the average of all citizens in the country hold a set of views then that is the definition of the center.
Or is this simply the next made up statement by Fox and Friends?

[JimR]

I think that Democrats are in for a rude awakening if they think that Obama's victory means America is ready to embrace liberalism. If the economy does not improve in 2 years, and if we are still fighting in Iraq, Republicans will regain control of Congress.

[TheFez]

There's no need to tell the Right that they're wrong about this country. Let them have their civil war. Let them flail about for the 30 years it will take for them to regain some semblance of ideological credibility.

In the meantime, the center-left will be rebuilding our nation to weather the challenges of the 21st century. Don't keep telling them where they went wrong - they may get their act together sooner and get back to handing this country over to the wealthy that much sooner.

[HeevenSteven]

The media, serves its masters--those who finance and own it. That's why we have columnists, and editors of news magazines like Jon Meacham repeatedly saying it's a conservative country.

What many people say they are or want when polled is spoon fed to them from broadcast media; So they'll say, yeah, I'm kinda center right, but when asked about specific policy items, like healthcare and taxes for the wealthy they're not.

[caterpol]

Like you say, I think politicians and political pundits very often confuse theory and reality. The fact that humans aren't always rational beings, much of the time, gets lost.

I bristle at the pundits who expound on "the reason" McCain lost, or "the reason" why Obama won. I'm drawn to reading them, but I'm no better off for it. My gut tells me that there are ALL KINDS of reasons Obama prevailed----and what makes me an Obama fan is that HE seems to recognize this as well. He seems to always embrace a multi-solution approach.

I don't believe in a center right America anymore than I believe in a center left America. Certainly, there are those so entrenched they'll die before they switch sides, and then there's the as-the-wind-blows middle.

For sure though, we're a lot more liberal as a nation than we were 70 years ago. The problem for theorists is that the "center" refuses to stand still.

[hoopesaz]

You haven't thought very deeply into this issue. I'm center-right in my political views. I voted for Obama. Many people I know who are center right (or even not so center, but right) also voted for Obama.

Obama didn't win a overwhelming majority of the popular vote. And, just in my singular and limited experience of the election, he won the votes of many who center right. Why? Because folks are tired of partisanship. Not all conservatives are simply about ideology, we're also concerned about making progress towards a better, more peacfull, more environmentally friendly world. And the party (not republicans, but the RNC) has decided that's not where they want to be.

Doesn't change my core beliefs, just means I'm willing to set aside party politics and vote for the best candidate. Simple as that.

[psipolitics]

The problem is with the terms liberal and conservative. People have been conditioned that liberal means tax and spend, while conservative means patriotic or some such. Pollsters should ask people are they 'prgressive' or 'regressive' and see what happens to the left - right split then. Its all about sematics.

[DrBuzz]

Two thoughts occur to me, oh wise Robert the Sage:

The first is one of a figure whistling past the graveyard. True, the death of one political party has been bandied about after elections before, but usually by the other side. The picture of NeoCons reading the gravestones -- hoping not to find their own names (yes, I mean you, Ms. Bachmann, and you Senator McConnell) --- while rushing to crucify the guilty (of their own party) brings a feeling of inner peace somehow, doesn't it? And perhaps can impart true hope for the death of inflamatory, defamatory campaign rhetoric.

The second is, what if we ***let*** them believe that what we have in place is center-right (as demented as that may be)? Where does that leave them to go -- extreme right? If it makes them feel better about where we ***are***, and it makes the populace feel good about where we ***are***, let them call us whatever they wish! Then, when the neoCons want to con the future voting populace, it is we who can claim ***them*** as the extremists, no? Yes, the demented doctrinaires can give themselves momentary solace, but if that means conversion of them to ***our*** reality, sounds like a win-win!

[MaryT63]

LeftRight, what baloney. You write People don't like the "welfare queens" meaning poor minority mothers getting assistance, but it's okay for "welfare kings" in corporate america to get assistance.
Yes, the repubs want to hold onto the lie about this county being center-right while in reality the country is center-left. They will repeat this lie over and over, as well as Obama won by comparing himself to Lincoln.

[LRM216]

And remind me please of how this is any different than after any other election in our history???

[DennyCrane]

Repeat a lie often enough and people start to believe it. That's why these pundits keep saying America is a center-right nation. They're not stupid and they're not in denial. They saw the election results and the message that the voters were sending. We are most definitely NOT a center-right nation, but these right-wing pundits think that if they keep saying it, people will start to think it's true. That's how the MSM convinced people that John McCain was a maverick. One reporter said it and the rest of the media repeated it and then it became accepted as fact.

[markess]

The declaration of Center Right is a last ditch effort at sounding self righteous or self something...

HOWEVER, there's a lot of work to do before knowing where we stand as a majority or, at least, as holding an ambidextrous or singularly directed title. The mandate was a result of a failing and fallen party combined with a deservedly popular candidate, who got out a LOT of new voters with populist ideals. Obama will guide the upcoming direction and whether he can steer the ship left of center remains to be seen, and only then depending on what you think center is. To at least give a majority the sense that someone is listening is a huge step in the right direction. Restoring some sense of civil rights and international respect is as well.

Simply put, we've "tolerated" 8 years of Bush and Co. - now the Rightists should kick back for 8 years of Obama and Co. My prediction is we'll have another Democrat in office at that point, and that is the difference in party "values".

[LawrenceOfAcademia]

Reversing 200 Executive orders was not a part of Obama's platform and had he expressed his desire to do so on the campaign trail he would have won how many more votes from the left? None.
How many would he have lost from the right, however? Many.
He won the election for one reason and one alone -- the dire condition of the economy.
Before the world went into a money funk he was losing to McCain.
The ones who will be disappointed in his tenure, I predict, will not be Republicans, who more or less know what we're getting.
I'ts left-wing-nut Democrats who are going to find that Obama is indeed more in the middle than they'd like him to be.
To govern from the left in this country is to become the second term of Jimmy Carter.

[AlaskanToo]

Oooh still with the big scary doomsday predictions. McCain had 3 major faults: economy, Palin, and pandering to the right-wing-nut Republicans. Okay poor debate performances. Okay poor debate performances and an incompetent campaign staff performance. Don't kid yourself, this run was an abject failure.

[KillTheMessenger]

What part about

"Obama won in a landslide."

do you not understand?

:-)

[Robert J. Elisberg - Huffpost Blogger]

>> Reversing 200 Executive orders was not a part of Obama's platform

Ah, I take it that you"re one of those few folks I referred to who thought that electing Barack Obama meant America would, in fact, be getting a "center-right" president. I can only imagine the shock at discovering this is not the case. That said, anyone surprised by what President-elect.Obama stood for and campaigned on would have been best-served by actually reading the Democratic Platform. Everything I mentioned was in it. Everything.

"We will lift the current Administration"s ban on using federal funding for embryonic stem cells" (p. 21)

"We will lead to defeat the epochal, man-made threat to the planet: climate change." (p. 43)

"We"ll dramatically increase the fuel efficiency of automobiles." (p. 17)

"The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman"s right to choose a safe and legal abortion." (p. 50)

That"s pretty darn clear. And saying it wasn't done does not make it so. If one was unaware that Barack Obama stood for all these things and believed he wouldn"t actually reverse the actions of the Bush Administration that he criticized daily for two years of campaigning, it"s no one else"s fault but their own for missing it.

RJE

[RussellH]

I find your essay cogent and completely credible (alas, forgive the alliteration). But it fits so beautifully into that tedious, Republican mindset that they are not only right-wing but right! And so that's how Obama became a conservative.

[RussellH]

Or, perhaps, the fourth term of Franklin D. Roosevelt!

[MathIsTruth]

"He won the election for one reason and one alone -- the dire condition of the economy.
Before the world went into a money funk he was losing to McCain."

There were indeed a few days where McCain was tied or led in the polls due to the post-convention bump which was heightened by the excitement over the then little-known Sarah Palin.

Post-convention bumps are temporary by definition, and the story of Palin's precipitous fall from popularity is well-known.

So even without the financial crisis, McCain was due to fall back to second place in the polls.

But more importantly, the reason the financial crisis was so destructive to the McCain campaign was precisely because the disaster was largely seen as tied directly to the conservative strategy of deregulation.

That is, a lot of the electorate got an education on what it meant to support conservatives, and it pushed them to the left.

[pikaomega]

When the past decade is dissected by history, I suspect that there will be several names who, at present, are innocuous, but who have quietly had a profound impact in shaping our collective destiny. John Yoo, David Addington, and the most important as it relates to this topic, Frank Luntz.

Mr. Luntz has a diabolical genius to him, and is instrumental in promulgating the notion that America is a "center-right" nation. For example, Mr. Luntz was behind the language that changed "Global Warming" to "Climate Change," "Universal Healthcare" to "Socialized Medicine" and the "Estate Tax" to the "Death Tax." By simple shifts in rhetoric, the right has been able to cast a negative light on ideas that the public, in reality, supports and therefore can continue to claim to be the bearer of the public trust.

[LeftRight]

This country isn't ANYTHING! It's the conglomeration of those who choose to vote come election day, and while the AVERAGE may be somewhat center-left, that's a useless stat!

What we need to do is look at what people really support:

People like social security
People like unemployment insurance
People like food stamps

People don't like the "other"
People don't like the "tax and spend"
People don't like the "welfare queens"

In other words, we are, combined, a nation of Multiple Personality Disorder. We all like what the govt DOES for us, but we don't like paying taxes for the govt to do something for someone ELSE!