The Trouble With Centrism

In the wake of President Obama's tax deal with the GOP there has been much talk of it as a "centrist" move on the President's part and, I suppose by extension, by the GOP as well. It was nothing of kind. At least not really.

While it was undoubtedly a surprisingly-speedy middle finger to the Tea Party (who have nevertheless and unsurprisingly, to me at least, been relatively quiet about it), the Republicans got essentially everything they wanted, namely: a tax break for their donor base and enough for the middle class that they could pretend they care about them in 2012. The fact that the deal will add ~$800 billion to the deficit is apparently of little concern. For the GOP, then, it was a strictly political move. There was nothing ideological about it.

The same was true, I suspect, for the President. He didn't want to take a "principled stand" on this issue when losing meant taxes would rise for everyone. So he did the deal.

I don't think anyone, other than a few insufferable smartypants, who voted for Obama in 2008 would claim they were sold anything other than a bill of goods. The guy is pretty clearly not particularly Liberal, and unlike his not-particularly-Liberal Democratic predecessor in the White House is unable to even appear to feel any one's pain. He is foremost a political operator, and one who either doesn't understand or understands all too well the way we vote in America. He knows that there is likely to be no primary challenge in 2012, and he also knows that his base is not going to vote Republican no matter how dissatisfied they are with him. He also knows that "independents" aren't going to vote for him if their taxes go up.

The problem now is that "moderates" in the media are trumpeting this deal as a victory for "centrism" and "moderation." Despite the fact that if actual moderation were involved we wouldn't be talking about tacking another trillion (close enough) onto the deficit in the name of electability. Of course, I have long been an advocate for aggressive stimulus. I think the best thing we could do right now would be, say, putting $2 trillion into infrastructure (road, rail, air, utility, etc.) over the next 10 years, bearing in mind that I would advocate paying for at least some of it through tax increases on those most able to bear the burden (Horrors!). But even if it were all deficit spending, I'd be for it, because the economic benefit it would produce would be measurable. With this deal, we get to cross or fingers and hope that the cash that stays in the pockets of the upper castes will make its way in a meaningful manner into the economy. And it all winds up adding to the deficit in the bargain. This does not seem "moderate" to me. Even with the extension of unemployment benefits.

See, for there to be a legitimate "moderate" position on anything, there has to be a degree of consensus on both sides that some third way exists and is worth pursuing. While there is a "moderate" wing of the Democratic Party, there is no such wing of the GOP. At least not right now. What we have right now is one party that says "we want to deal" and another that says "only if 'dealing' means doing what we want." This in a nutshell is why the idea of "moderates" in charge is so insidious. When the only moderates doing the negotiating are on one side, that side is bound to lose.

If you subscribe to the general opinion that the positions of those on the left are weaker, then this sort of centrism is just the ticket. The policy that gets made then is a splinter of a GOP plank. If, however, you believe that leftist thought has something to commend it, this is a very, very bad thing. "Centrism" has an illustrious place in the American political mythos, and whosoever grasps it comes into possession of a formidable redoubt atop the moral high ground.

And so we circle back to the great debate: are the Democrats fighting the right battles? Of course not. They have surrendered every bit of initiative and the moral strength of their convictions to boot. Now they've let the right wing dictate what's "centrist" and "moderate."

They're going to have to go to war at some point, and soon. All the hemming and hawing has won them no elections, and it will lost them the White Hose in 2012. Of this I am now sure.