The political spectrum* is now us or them. If you’re not with us, you must be with them. If you’re not with them, you must be with us. Or at least this is what most high profile political groups, the mainstream media, and many bloggers would have one believe.
But, the thing is, it’s not that easy. Nearly everyone I know falls in the middle of the spectrum. And I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that most people do. Even MoveOn members, who one would think to be quite to the left of the spectrum, show themselves to be fairly moderate. In the MoveOn ActionForum, issues such as separation of church and state, election reform, and the necessity of free media often bubble to the top. These are not “liberal” ideas, especially the necessity of a free media and fraud-free elections to ensure our democracy.
When did this polarization occur? Did our own laziness allow us to be so easily packed, labelled, and shipped to one camp or the other?
* I don’t like the confines of the generally accepted political spectrum, but it is now easily recognized by the majority of people and has become the de facto standard. Whether I like it or not.
4 responses so far ↓
1 web // Dec 16, 2005 at 9:48 am
Some people claim to be ‘left’ or ‘right’ I think I am ‘up’
I am not to the left or right, but I am above them all.
2 Charlie // Dec 21, 2005 at 9:53 am
The ‘left/right’ division is a creation of conservative politicians. It’s been hugely beneficial to them, and accounts for majority of their political success of recent years.
Liberals -almost by definition - lack a cohesive focused political agenda. When any single group of liberals fastens on to a single point of attack, they are subsequently counter-attacked by not only conservatives, but by another group of liberals. If you examine any issue, you’ll see that there is a conservative side of the issue and a multitude of liberal ’sides’ to the issue.
By focusing on their unity, conservatives have managed to create the ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ world-view. What’s interesting is that you’ll find that there are plenty of conservatives out there who hold to clearly liberal points of view. For example, many (not most) conservatives are pro-choice. Many conservatives are environmentally friendly. Many conservatives are gay. Many conservatives had had sex outside of marriage too. When you start picking it apart, you’ll find that many conservatives are ‘closet’ liberals.
What the conservatives have done is unify people who have many (again, not most) of their beliefs in common. You don’t have to completely agree with the conservative group in order to be a member. So, the conservatives are able to claim that most people are on their side. When given a choice between being ‘with us, or against us’ which would you choose? Especially when there really is no clear definition of what “us” really means. Conservatives can claim that they are the majority, and that they stand for something. Because they lack a coherent platform, liberals will always be ‘them.’
So, to get back to my original point, “us and them” is a tool used by a unified conservative political machine. It’s the foundation of the political strategy used by Rove and DeLay. In other words it’s artificial. It only exists because people want to be part of the larger group - ‘us.’
Eventually, the friction between the parts of this machine will cause it to break down - as we are already seeing. The ’starve the beast’ republicans (an agenda of lowering taxes in order to reduce gov’t spending) are already going at it with the “deficit hawks.” Moderate Republicans are already forming their own power center by working with liberals to defeat agenda items of their own party.
The REALLY sad thing? It’s all happened before. At least 3 times in our very own country. (”Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana)
-C
3 Charlie // Dec 22, 2005 at 8:58 am
Yesterday I said that ‘left/right’ political view was created by conservatives. I misspoke, the terms weren’t created by the conservatives. But the conservatives are largely responsible for their current emphasis in the media.
-C
4 Nicole // Dec 22, 2005 at 10:02 am
Charlie gets a gold star for the most complete and lengthy comment posted here this year. Thanks!
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