No, There is a Center to our Politics
And it is here that you will find our road forward.
Robert Reich’s passionate post today against “moving to the center” deserves a response. I know many of you will agree with Reich that “there is no center.” Or with Jim Hightower who said, “on the road the center is a yellow line and dead armadillos.”
I believe that there is a center, and that it is where we meet many allies and many voters.
One reason why you will find many honest people in the center is because many people have limited knowledge about, or experience with, a problem and the center is an honest “holding pattern.” It is where many people stand when they realize that they lack the knowledge to decide one way or the other. It is for many a “for the time being” position. They are in fact saying something like this. “Without more certainty I don’t want to rock the boat to the extent it turns over in a storm. It may be stalling. And, yes, it could be dangerous because a non-decision, a non-choice, is in fact a decision. But, also, for people like me, it could be common sense.”
I think many people at the Center are also saying something like this: “If you think you know the way to water in this parched land, please tell me, please convince me. I’m not close-minded. I’m open to direction.”
They are saying, “show me a way.” And, if we are going to meet them where they are, it will be at this place, with those who are undecided.
And then there is a second good reason why many of us are, let’s say, “centered.”
Progress is not a series of “jumps” from the old “great” society to the next. It is a continuing adjustment to new opportunities and new threats, as we stay focused on the purposes of our journey.
It is practical, in that it recognizes that we are always “in the middle” of our way. Being centered in this sense is being true to the journey, staying true to the path.
The “center,” in this sense, can be seen as the juncture of where we have been and the road ahead. It is echoed for me by the end of one of Robert Frost’s most loved poems:
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
…
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
It is right that on any serious journey we pause for a moment and judge our pace and make sure of our direction. We are not in the center of the road. We are centered on the path down that road, with “miles to go” before we sleep.
I do have to point out that Robert Reich cited actual examples. What about those can we say he is wrong? I think it's a terrible negotiating argument to say we should give up our principles as our opening move. It also seems like the whole idea that our values can be moved around as if they don't really matter to us is wrong in so many ways.
There's room to change with the times. Reich is right to point out the problem of not going with AOC on Ways and Means vs Connely. That's a blatant decision to move nowhere. Didn't Democrats just lose ground on some demographics? And what about the people who lost interest and stayed home?
I agree that there exists a "center," but since at least the Reagan presidency it has tended to move further and further right. When one side hardens its position and hugs the extreme, the other side's compromises inevitably move closer and shrink the center. Clinton's shifts on welfare are a case in point - a Democrat promoting a position Republicans would once have been proud of.